Northern India - 3 weeks in June

Zypher

In two weeks, my girlfriend and I will begin our first journey through North India .
After reading through a lot of information we found on the internet and some guidebooks (“Lonely Planet” & “Guide Routard”), we came up with the following itinerary:

Day 1 - Delhi - Arrive in Delhi at 23:50
Day 2 - Delhi - Night train to Varanasi (20:40 - 08:45)
Day 3 - Varanasi
Day 4 - Varanasi
Day 5 - Varanasi - Night Train to Agra (18:40 - 06:15)
Day 6 - Agra
Day 7 - Jaipur - Day Bus from Agra (6.30 -12.30)
Day 8 - Jaipur
Day 9 - Pushkar - Day Train (08:40 - 11:15) + Bus from Jaipur (30 minutes)
Day 10 - Pushkar - Night Train to Udaipur (20:20 - 07:50)
Day 11 - Udaipur
Day 12 - Udaipur
Day 13 - Udaipur - Night Bus to Jodhpur (8 hours)
Day 14 - Jodhpur
Day 15 - Jodhpur - Night Train to Jaisalmer (23:15 - 05:15)
Day 16 - Jaisalmer
Day 17 - Jaisalmer
Day 18 - Jaisalmer - Night Bus to Bikaner (7 hours)
Day 19 - Bikaner
Day 20 - Bikaner - Night Train to Delhi (19:50 - 06:01)
Day 21 - Delhi - Flight back home

Some questions :

• Is this time schedule too optimistic?
• Some interesting cool places we forgot?
• Places not worth spending x number of days?
• ...

Thanx in advance!

machadinha

Hi Zypher and welcome. As you will have figured and as others will tell you your whole itinerary will be bloody hot and possibly getting wettish too although I don't know how it is at the moment. See here for a general idea of the weather.

Your itinerary in itself looks OK. A few comments & I take it it's your first trip:

Given your limited time getting out of Delhi as soon as possible makes sense, however you'll be pretty knackered so getting acclimatized first is not a bad idea. Delhi has some good sights too, although you might be better able to appreciate them on your way out. It's a pretty overwhelming place at first. Varanasi is wonderful btw.

Again looks a little tight. Realize with the heat you'd be best off using the early mornings and late afternoons/evenings for actual sightseeing and stuff, or basically for any activities in general. This could severely curb how much you can do on the whole trip.

I'd personally rather spend the longer time in Pushkar, I found Udaipur pretty overrated. It's pretty, it's beautiful, it's nice mind you, but it's also completely geared to tourism. Pushkar is just a lazy (and also heavily touristed, but in a different way) little place with little to do once you've walked up and down the mainstreet twice. It has a lot of charm however and you can just hang out by the ghats or stroll or bicycle around the countryside or climb up to the hill temple (again, not recommended daytime activities that time of year I'm sure). Depends on what you're after I guess.

I don't know what time your flight is but for getting away I recommend leaving some time for errors, i.e. can I make it if that train doesn't leave.

All my personal highly subjective advice of course, looks like an OK route and pretty reasonable. If you've never been before reckon with time spent on getting tickets and stuff and generally getting to grips with how things work & don't rush around too much, to increase your chances of you appreciating the place and not getting away feeling like it was a whole bunch of hectic towns and people after your money. Enjoy!

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SHIMLA

You should cut one day at Udaipur and alot it to Agra; Fatehpur Sikri, to be specific.

That is, if you're bent on covering the North Indiain plains in the June heat.

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steven_ber

There are now no trains between Ajmer & Udaipur because of gauge conversion work, also, Jaisalmer & Bikaner in the same trip? I've heard their similar places.

How does this look?

Day 1 - Delhi - Arrive in Delhi at 23:50
Day 2 - Delhi - Night train to Varanasi (20:40 - 08:45)
Day 3 - Varanasi
Day 4 - Varanasi
Day 5 - Varanasi - Night Train to Agra (18:40 - 06:15)
Day 6 - Agra
Day 7 - Fatehpur Sikri - Night train to Bundi (20:00 - 07:23)*
Day 8 - Bundi
Day 9 - Chittaurgarh - Morning train from Bundi (07:23 - 10:35)
Day 10 - Udaipur - Morning bus from Chittaurgarh (about 3 hours)
Day 11 - Udaipur
Day 12 - Udaipur - Night Bus to Jodhpur (8 hours)
Day 13 - Jodhpur - Night Train to Jaisalmer (23:15 - 05:15)
Day 14 - Jaisalmer
Day 15 - Jaisalmer
Day 16 - Jaisalmer - Night train to Jaipur (16:15 - 05:15)
Day 17 - Jaipur
Day 18 - Jaipur
Day 19 - Ajmer - Day Train (08:40 - 11:15) + Bus from Ajmer.
Day 20 - Ajmer - Night train to Delhi (21:30 - 07:05)
Day 21 - Delhi - Flight back home

* Sleeper Class (not air con) only, there is another option, a daily train departs from Fatehpur Sikri at 06:01 and gets to Kota (30 Kms from Bundi) at 11:00, this train has air con, FOR OTHERS - this train also calls at Sawai Madhoppur (for Ranthambhore) at 09:25.

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Train information.

machadinha

Sound advice there Zypher from this forum's train guru. He's cleverly slipped in some slightly-more-out-of-the-way places for you too, consider it. Still looks a little packed but what can you do for three weeks right.

steven_ber

I did leave out one thing, the whole plan could very easily fall apart, they will need a hell of a lot of luck to get reservations for most of these trains.

machadinha

Haha hm yes, the problem with any short trip I guess. Having to wait for a day or two would be problematic. Look into buses if you can't get a train, a good option for Rajasthan in general.

cyberhippie

Just one question Steven is there a train to Bundi or do you mean via kota??

cyberhippie

Never mind steven I see there is one (should never doubted the train guru)!!t I reckon the service via Kota would be better though, the Agra - Bundi train takes 11 hours
This train does it in a shade under 6 hours!
9037 AVADH EXPRESS dep AGRA FORT arr 05:10 KOTA JN 11:00
There are other options throughout the day (around 7 hours) and the bus/taxi/rickshaw to Bundi is only about 50 minutes!
What do think?

steven_ber

I think it depends on the person, the overnight train to Bundi (& Chittaurgarh) is a slow passenger train that stops everywhere and only has Sleeper class, a person would need to be able to sleep through the constant stopping & starting of the train (including the long loud train horn blowing prior to departure from the 42 stations the train calls at from Agra to Bundi)

This train gets to Kota at 05:25 and doesn't depart till 06:35 giving plenty of time for breakfast.

I mentioned the daytime train in my post above; it departs Fatehpur Sikri at a more reasonable 06:01 and has 2 & 3 tier air con as well as Sleeper class. (I assume there are accommodation options at Fatehpur Sikri),

The only problem with this train is that it started it's journey over 600 or 900 Kms away (depending on the day), I know if I got up at 05:00, got to the station as fast as I could and found the train was 4 hours late, I'd be a little cheesed off).

On a tight schedule I'd probably go for the overnight train (But I'd have no trouble sleeping on that train), though if the thought of the train stopping 42 times put a person off, they would be better with the daytime train.

Zypher

Thanks for all the reponses you guys gave me!
What I couldn't find on that thread is how the monsoon is really like:

• How much times does it rain in a day?
• If it rains, is it for like 10 minutes, 1 hour?

You're completely right, we'll probably be exhausted, but we also read that it's better to visit Delhi at the end of the trip. As you will see, I added one extra day to visit Delhi at the end of our journey.

Too tight indead. Added one extra day to visit Fathepur Sikri.

Did what you suggested .

Our Plain is leaving on day 21, at midnight, but we added an extra day to visit Delhi anyhow.

Removed a day in Udaipur, added on for Agra to visit Fatehpur Sikri (which looks really great by the way).

You're completely right about Bikaner. Removed it from our itinerary.
Are you really sure no trains are running between Ajmer & Udaipur, because I found the following train on http://www.indianrail.gov.in/:

Train No 9671 (AII KHANDWA EXP) from AJMER JN (20:20) to UDAIPUR CITY (07:50)

Very tempting itinerary, because Bundi and Chittaugarh look both very interesting towns, but I think I'll stick to the Ajmer - Udaipur thing.

I really didn't know getting reservations is so thouch in India. Do I need to get reservations in advance? If yes, can I get em by phone?

One last question: Does someone know whether the lakes are still dry in Udaipur?

My new itinerary:

Day 1 Delhi - Arrive in Delhi at 23:50
Day 2 Delhi - Night train to Varanasi (20:40 - 08:45)
Day 3 Varanasi
Day 4 Varanasi
Day 5 Varanasi - Night Train to Agra (18:40 - 06:15)
Day 6 Agra
Day 7 Agra (Fatehpur Sikri)
Day 8 Jaipur - Day Bus from Agra (6.30 -12.30)
Day 9 Jaipur
Day 10 Pushkar - Day Train (08:40 - 11:15) + Bus (30 minutes) from Jaipur
Day 11 Pushkar
Day 12 Pushkar - Night Train to Udaipur (20:20 - 07:50)
Day 13 Udaipur
Day 14 Udaipur - Night Bus to Jodhpur (8 hours)
Day 15 Jodhpur
Day 16 Jodhpur - Night Train to Jaisalmer (23:15 - 05:15)
Day 17 Jaisalmer
Day 18 Jaisalmer
Day 19 Jaisalmer - Night Train to Delhi (16:15 - 10:45)
Day 20 Delhi
Day 21 Delhi - Flight back home

,Thanx alot

SHIMLA

Your itinerary looks more relaxed now.

Regarding advance reservations, you can do so over the net, at this site.

steven_ber

Sorry, the info on the Indian Railways site is wrong, and probibly just something they missed when updating their site.

Train 9671 is a metre gauge train from Ajmer to Khandwa via Chittaurgarh, in the past a couple of carriages were detached at Chittaurgarh and added to the Chittaurgarh - Ahmedabad passenger train, this is the train that used to get to Udaipur at 07:50.

The track between Chittaurgarh and Udaipur is closed so that the metre gauge line can be converted to broad gauge.

TravellersCompanion

Hi!!!
Rajasthan in June is a deadly idea. I guess hills of North or North Eastern India will be a reallistic and good idea. This summer people from North India is running towards hills.

TravellersCompanion

Zypher

Sorry I questioned you . You really seem to be the guru of trains in India.

Seems there are two busses each day between Ajmer - Udaipur (8 hours drive). Does someone has more information about these? (Like when they leave Ajmer,...?)

So my itinerary becomes:

Day 1 Delhi - Arrive in Delhi at 23:50
Day 2 Delhi - Night train to Varanasi (20:40 - 08:45)
Day 3 Varanasi
Day 4 Varanasi
Day 5 Varanasi - Night Train to Agra (18:40 - 06:15)
Day 6 Agra
Day 7 Agra (Fatehpur Sikri)
Day 8 Jaipur - Day Bus from Agra (6.30 -12.30)
Day 9 Jaipur
Day 10 Pushkar - Day Train (08:40 - 11:15) + Bus (30 minutes) from Jaipur
Day 11 Pushkar
Day 12 Pushkar - Night Bus to Udaipur (8 hours)
Day 13 Udaipur
Day 14 Udaipur - Night Bus to Jodhpur (8 hours)
Day 15 Jodhpur
Day 16 Jodhpur - Night Train to Jaisalmer (23:15 - 05:15)
Day 17 Jaisalmer
Day 18 Jaisalmer
Day 19 Jaisalmer - Night Train to Delhi (16:15 - 10:45)
Day 20 Delhi
Day 21 Delhi - Flight back home

Looks better and better....