North only or North and South in 16 days

watl1

Hi

My partner and I have approximately 15-17 days to spend in India, arriving on 29th September, and we cannot decide whether to concentrate our time in the North or do a combination of North and South.

Our original itinerary looked like this (which is a lot of cram in but some days are for chilling out rather than sightseeing).

1 Arrive Delhi
Overnight Delhi
2 Delhi
Overnight Delhi
3 Delhi to Agra by train
Overnight Agra
4 Agra to Ranthamborne by train
Overnight Ranthamborne
5 Ranthamborne
Overnight Ranthamborne
6 Ranthamborne to Jaipur by train
Overnight in Jaipur
7 Jaipur
Overnight train from Jaipur to Mumbai
8 Mumbai
Overnight train to Goa
9 Goa
Overnight in Goa
10 Goa
Overnight train to Cochin
11 Cochin to Munnar by car
Overnight Munnar
12 Munnar to Periyar by car
Overnight Periyar
13 Periyar to Kumarakom by car
Overnight Kumarakom
14 Kumarakom to Alleppey by houseboat
Overnight Alleppey
15 Alleppey to Cochin by car
Fly out of Cochin to UK

Can anyone help with a suitable North itinerary? We like forts/palaces but are slightly more interested in wildlife/scenery and adventure sports (although neither of us are fit to do trekking!). It's important that whatever we do, we visit the Golden Triangle, but can fly in and or out of any of the following: Delhi, Lahore, Mumbai, Cochin and Chennai.

We would be interested in visiting the area bordering the Himalayas e.g. Dehra Dun, Kanga/Kullu Valley, but want to avoid backtracking as much as possible (from looking at the India railway map, it looks a bit difficult to get from A to B). I've also heard that the roads are in bad condition in this area.

I was thinking something along the lines of Delhi, Agra, Ranthamborne, Jaipur, Delhi, Shimla, Kanga Valley, Amritsar, Lahore (although this does contain backtracking and is quite a bit to fit in!)

Our entire budget for the whole trip is £900-£950 each but this has to include flights which are anywhere betwen £370 and £430. We are happy to take overnight trains but want to minimise time spent on travel during the day, especially buses! Unfortunately, we don't really have any money in our budget for internal flights.

Thanks in advance.

Louise

arunchs

Too cramped.. too much in too little time.

16 days is not much and is better spent in one region. Consider spending most of your time in Rajasthan, or split it between Rajasthan and Uttaranchal.

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dzibead

I agree with arunchs. You're spending way too much time traveling from place to place, which would be bad enough if you could actually count on there being no train delays, which you can't.

15 to 17 days is hardly any time at all, and you certainly can't realistically do "a combination of North and South" in that short a time. You'll be hard pressed to do a reasonable amount of the North alone.

watl1

Thanks for your replies.

We've decided to concentrate on Uttarachal for the second half of the trip.

Do you think it would be better to get a return flight to Delhi and return to this airport after visiting Uttarachal, or to make our way up to Amritsar and cross the border into Lahore and get a flight from there?

julesa

others can clarify but i was under the impression the border crossing into pakistan is not 100% reliable.

as a tourist it may be easier though.

Nick-H

Please try to keep your time to a limited area. India will still be here for your next trip!

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dzibead

Just go back to Delhi.

I don't know where you plan to travel in Uttranchal, but getting from Dehra Dun, which is in the far west of Uttranchal, all the way across the Punjab to Armritsar, and then on to Lahore (which will involve a border crossing and another visa), instead of just returning to Delhi (which is about 100 km closer to Dehra Dun than Armritsar is anyway) just doesn't make sense. And I imagine that most of the time you'll probably be traveling in Uttranchal in areas like Badrinath or Gangtori, or even Almora or Nainital that are well to the east of Dehra Dun, which would mean there would be that much more traveling involved in order to get over to Armritsar.

You really should invest in a decent road map and look at the kinds of routes you'll have to follow to get from place to place. Travel in India is very, very slow and you won't be traveling "as the crow flies". You have only about two weeks, which is next to nothing when traveling in India. Plan to visit fewer places, and spend more time in each place you visit and less time just hauling yourself from one place to another.

watl1

I do have a whole bunch of maps, but am the first to admit I am rubbish at reading them!

The reason I said Dehradun to Amritsar is because although eastern Uttarachal looks very nice, the only way to get to these places seems to be by taking a bus from Delhi or Dehradun which is still around 9/10 hours, which would mean that after our stay, we would also have to get either a bus back to Delhi or bus back to Dehradun and then train to Delhi.

We'd both rather take trains wherever possible and from what I understand, there are trains in the Himachal Pradesh area near Amritsar, Dharmasala, etc, so we were thinking about navigating our way to Amritsar via train/bus, but on second thoughts, this now seems like a bit too much hassle.

What about cutting down some time in Rajasthan (5 days) and getting a train to Dehradun (5 days), bus to Shimla (5 days) and train back to Delhi? It seems that the journeys are around the same travelling time, whether travelling from Dehradun eastwards in Uttarachal or west to Shimla.

I know I'm trying to cram a lot in, but I had to literally beg my partner to come to India, so not sure how long it will be before I'm back! I'm also finding it really difficult anticipating how long we should spend in each place and how tired we'll be.

Thanks again

Louise

dzibead

Five days in Shimla and 5 days in Dehra Dun? Maybe OK for base stations, but you'll be bored if you stay in these places all that long. Start reading through the Uttranchal and Himachal threads here for some ideas of places to go. The problem with wanting to rely on trains most of the time is that you really can't get to many places in either HP or Uttranchal by rail. You're getting into the Himalayan foothills and the railways just don't extend there. For example, you mentioned Dharamasala, but no train goes there. The nearest rail station is a 3-4 hour drive away. So if you're going to be traveling in these areas (which are beautiful, so I recommend it) bus or car & driver are your only realistic options. Here are a couple of rail maps so you can see what I mean by limited access.

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Dilliwala

There's a rail-line from Nainital to Chandausi? Didn't see one last time I was at Nainital. Maybe that's becos it doesn't exist.

dzibead

I suspect that line that looks like it's going from Nainital is really the one from Ramnagar

Dilliwala

Aah, clear as mud now.
Same with the line to Rishikesh, which looks like it extends to Narendranagar.