A WONDERFUL trip through Rajasthan

ballin1

Hi all.

I just wanted to drop a line to thank all of you for your advice and help as I planned my wife's birthday trip through Rajasthan. With your help, we settled on a 14 day itinerary through Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Pushkar, Jodhpur, Narlai and Udaipur.

The trip was fantastic! And all the advice I received here was spot on! I won't bore all of you with the details, but if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask. As an aside, I would HIGHLY recommend hiring a driver if the budget allows. Made the trip SOOOO much easier.

Thanks again, everyone!

Steven

machadinha

Well, glad to hear you had a good time. And that this board was of some good to you.

Don't be a stranger now

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Ajaysin

Hi,

Glad to hear about your trip. I am planning a trip starting from 13th november and will cover following cities --

Delhi --> Jaisalmer --> Jodhpur --> Udaipur --> 2 hrs for Chittaurgarh --> Jaipur --> Delhi

I have booked hotels beforehand except for jaipur where i am planning to book a room in Hotel Umaid Mahal.

Would you like to give us any advice. Travellers would be myself , my wife and our 2 year kid

Regards
Ajay

ballin1

^^^Firstly, you are very brave bringing your kid! My wife and I saw some couples with very young kids and we don't know how they do it! We did alot of walking, so it would be tough with a child around.

Your itinerary is very similar to ours. We really wanted to get to Jaisalmer, but we couldn't fit it in. I would recommend you hire a car. It really does make life very easy. Plus, in the cities, the traffic can get so bad that sometimes riding in a car can be scenic. You're not just whizzing past people and shops. You can actually see the street life because the car is moving slow enough!

I think the Delhi-Jaisalmer leg will be the most challenging. That's a very long trip. I think an overnight train would be your best bet. However, from Jodhpur to Udaipur to Jaipur, you may want to think about hiring a car. The journey between these cities is not that bad. You get to see some small villages on the way. Plus, you will no doubt want to hire a car to visit the Ranakpur temples and/or Kumbhalgarh fort. Both are nice.

As I posted previously, Umaid Mahal is a very good deal in Jaipur. Rooms are clean and bathrooms are nice (good water pressure...believe me, you'll come to really appreciate good bathrooms in India!).

Hope this helps.

corrado608

Hi We are in the early stages of planing a trip with a similiar itinary to yours. Could you give us an idea where you found a driver and vehicle from and how much you paid. Also did you pre book hotels etc before going, if so where did you get your recommendations from. Any other advice would be welcome. Thanks

soultraveller

Ajay...I wuld suggest that instead of Chittaurgarh, you might want to consider visiting Ranakpur and Kumbhalgarh as they are much more worthwhile (not that Chittaurgarh is any less...but considering the tight time you are running).

Theres a lot of walking around to be done in Jaisalmer as its a small town. And it is better to walk around for Jaisalmer...coz thats where the real rajasthan will unfold for you.

ballin1

I basically searched this site (in the Rajasthan travel tips forum) for car company recommendations. I came up with 3...NamasteIndiaTours.com, Gajrajtravels.com, and fourwheeldriveindia.com. I had already planned my itinerary (no hotels, but the cities I would visit and the dates) so I sent each of them my itinerary and asked for a quote for an air-conditioned (a must!) indigo sedan. It was for 10 days (I didn't hire for my last 3 days in Udaipur since we were just going to hang in the city, so really no point in having a car around).

Namaste came in the highest by a wide margin (I think 29,000 Rps), followed by four wheel drive (came in at 23,000 Rps), and gaj raj with the cheapest (at 20,000 Rps). I looked at the four wheel drive website and decided to go with them. They had good recommendations.

I was thoroughly pleased with them. All my communication with them prior to my arrival was via email. The owner of the company was very prompt and professional in responding to my emails. They didn't ask for advance payment and told us we could pay by credit card in their Jaipur office when we stopped in Jaipur. The gave us a free airport-hotel transfer on our arrival. They sent a welcome packet by email with good local information. And they gave us more information and goodies when they picked us up. Gave us numerous phone numbers to get in touch with them and loaned us a cellphone so we could call the driver when we needed.

All in all, a very professional company. Can't recommend them enough. And our driver was really fantastic (his name is Bhuvenesh...ask for him if you decide to go with the company. He's really a straight-up trustworthy guy).

I had reservations at all my hotels, and a couple of them required a charge to the credit card to hold the room. I got all my recommendations from this site and on tripadvisor (get leads from this site, go to tripadvisor to double check and narrow down the list, etc.) If you are going in the high season (Nov-March), I think you would need to pre-book. I didn't really have any issues. I just made sure to print out my emails so I could show it to the hotel in case there were any misunderstandings. Make good use of emails! Confirm everything by email and print it out and you should be fine.

Good luck!

Distra

Ballin1 -

I am booking a trip through Rajasthan in December, based on your glowing review of Four Wheel Drive (and other reviews on Trip Advisor) I've got quotes from them. I wanted to know about the comfort of the Indica Sedan for the long driving days. I'm thinking of upgrading a bit for comfort, but not sure if it's worth it. What was your longest driving day on the trip?

ballin1

Distra -

We booked an Indigo Sedan (bit bigger than the indica) and we were fine. We had 3 pieces of luggage and a backpack. The luggage fit fine in the back trunk and we had plenty of room for the backpack in the back seat with us. I'm 5feet 10inches..wife is 5feet 4inches. Our longest trip was the Jaipur-Jodhpur leg. Our driver was a very SAFE driver, so the trip ended up being close to 6 hours (which included a quick stop at Pushkar). Keep in mind that when we did the Jodhpur-Udaipur trip, we stopped overnight in Narlai. If we didn't, I think that trip would have been comparable in length.

We didn't feel uncomfortable at all and was able to take naps comfortably. I did see some indicas driving around. Looked pretty small. My wife and I would have felt a bit cramped in those, I think.