Day 1: Pick up and transport to airport was faultless and much appreciated.
Day 2: Arrival 09.40 local time at Delhi then transport to hotel. Rooms not available till afternoon and long wait sitting in hotel reception with no refreshments or suggestions about how to obtain any apart from small welcome drink of juice. Hotel was in an area with nowhere suitable for exploring surroundings even if we had the energy. Small group sat in hotel restaurant and requested drink/snack, but it wasn’t officially open. Eventually, exhausted after overnight flight rooms were available for rest before hotel evening meal.
Day 3: Long bus trip to return to Delhi airport to fly to Amritsar. This seemed a waste of time when a flight to Amritsar from Delhi on day 2 when already at the airport would have been the obvious thing to do.
Security at the airport was particularly officious and travellers should be warned that all electrical items including any wires, phones, and wallets, watches etc etc are to be placed into trays which disappear from view in the chaos. Personal items which had travelled all over the world through airports were taken and binned i.e. nail scissors with blades 3cm and small souvenir fruit knife in leather case with blade 4cm. Our guide had his wallet stolen from the tray at this point. One elderly member of the group was told her hand luggage had to go in the hold, so she ended up carrying a small plastic bag of her medicines. Money was demanded for overweight luggage which was deemed to be acceptable to Virgin Atlantic.
On arrival at the hotel at Amritsar we had free time with nowhere to walk out of the hotel as it was away from the town, albeit a lovely hotel in a nice setting. After dinner we were taken to the Golden Temple for the ‘putting to bed’ ceremony which was really interesting and enjoyable. However at the end of our 3rd day after leaving home we had enjoyed only this one outing or experience.
Day 4: Returned to the Golden Temple to continue the published itinerary – all fascinating and enjoyable. However, the advertised trip (and highlight of the holiday for most of us in the group) to view the Lowering of the Flag ceremony had to be cancelled. The substitute activity of a visit to the Partition Museum was considered to be completely inadequate and, in any case, did not happen.
Day 5: Day spent travelling by cars to Dharamshala with time to rest before dinner. Again, this hotel was lovely but away from the village so nowhere to walk out, explore and exercise our stiff weary legs.
Day 6: Interesting full day following the published itinerary.
Day 7: Delightful visit to the tea plantation. Walking tour of ‘heritage’ village of Pragpur was a disappointing experience where little evidence was seen of the splendour of its historical past. Rather it was a depressing, run down with little charm.
Judges Court Hotel was also a disappointment, run down rooms and much of the gardens overgrown although obviously it was once quite opulent. On returning from our walk round Pragpur village we expected tea in the gardens but it finished at 17.30 shortly before we arrived back to find them clearing the table. The pipe band was a delightful surprise.
Day 8: Another horrendously long drive took us to Shimla, to a lovely hotel in a charming setting of woods and a well-tended garden. However, once again as it was about 20km from Shimla itself there was nowhere to walk out and explore the surroundings.
Day 9: Interesting day visiting Shimla after the Toy Train. A busy, full day with a stop for street food late in the afternoon followed by torrential rain and shelter in the English Church.
Day 10: Programme suggests a day at leisure in Shimla. The reality was an optional trip to a ‘special’ hotel for high tea costing £40 with no alternative suggestions as the hotel in which we were staying was so far from Shimla itself. So, we (nearly) all headed off for our ‘high tea’ at midday. We were seated on a long table with 3-tiered cake stands, the nearest to us was a stand with 3 layers of plain looking biscuits. In addition, further down the table, there were cheese or chicken sandwich quarters on thin sliced white bread. Later paneer or chicken kathi rolls were brought round. Tea or coffee was served to us but one of the group who didn’t drink either was only offered juice as an alternative for extra payment. It was nothing like the high tea advertised on the hotel website and certainly not worth anything like £40!
Day 11: Another long day travelling. A 3 hour drive was followed by a welcome break with lunch. Then the train to Delhi took another 3 hours or so. Useful to note that a snack airline style was served during this train journey. We arrived at a different hotel in Delhi from our stay at the start of the holiday but an out of town location and a huge hotel obviously catering for large groups, weddings and conferences etc. The general consensus of our group was it wasn’t an enjoyable place to stay.
Day12: Yet another very early start (07.00) to get through the traffic to Delhi airport which we did in good time. After a 9 hour daytime flight the driver there to meet us at the exit to the airport was very welcome.
General notes about the holiday.
In general, the guides and drivers were helpful and knowledgeable, but the needs of the group weren’t always addressed sufficiently.
Money: General advice was to obtain Indian currency at an ATM in the airport. Before departure we had read that ATMs in India were numerous and used the visa and MasterCard networks. The reality was that we struggled to find ATMs that read our cards and when we did, they were empty (possibly because of Diwali). Our prepaid card was accepted by the third machine but maximum withdrawal was 10,000 rupees so we obviously had to find another ATM later in the holiday. This proved to be a problem, and it was only on day 9 that we obtained more currency.
Tips: There was a confusion about the paying of tips for drivers etc. We followed the advice in the Titan holiday notes and gave our guide 2 envelopes on the last day of the holiday, one for himself and one with the amount recommended for the other guides, drivers etc. We also gave a separate tip for the driver in Delhi for the first 2 days. This turned out to be problematic as it was too late for our guide to pass on the tips to the appropriate people. Some members of our group had given tips throughout the trip so there was obvious confusion which needs to be addressed. We obviously couldn’t give tips earlier in the holiday as we didn’t obtain more cash till day 9.
Refreshment breaks: The long uncomfortable journeys would have been improved by mid-morning, and lunchtime breaks which didn’t always materialise. Early starts often meant there were no refreshments from breakfast at 07.30 till the afternoon. Not what British people are used to or expect.
Wine: A warning could be useful about the high cost of wine and beers in India. Having had some mediocre Indian wine with our meals, we shared a bottle of Italian wine on our last night to regret not looking at the cost of it first - £95!
Travel times: The itinerary does hint at long travel times, but the proportion of our holiday spent in buses, cars, trains and flights left minimal time for actual experiences and sightseeing. We read reviews of the holiday and noted there were long journeys involved but hadn’t appreciated what a significant proportion of the holiday this actually represented. In future we will examine any itinerary more carefully.
Diwali: As our holiday coincided with the festival of Diwali our guide did tell us about how it’s celebrated. However, we didn’t witness any of the celebrations or be involved in any way. We were aware of the decorations on buildings and in the hotel and especially the ongoing loud bangs from fireworks which lasted for several days. (This was in complete contrast to a visit to Nepal during the Diwali celebrations a few years ago).