GETTING READY

(Rajasthani Ramblings Part 1)

Travel Tales Index - Rajasthani Ramblings Index - India Pix

Friends, Associates, Acquaintances & Moms:

This year, we are taking a ten week trip to India from December 31, 2004 until March 12, 2005, focusing on the state of Rajasthan. For one reason or another, your name is on our travelogue e-mail list. It can NEVER be removed! (Just kidding) If you know anyone else that would like to receive our e-mails, have them contact Paul at PaulWorksHard@hotmail.com. This is the first of a series of e-mails you will be receiving related to our trip to India. Here is information about planning, packing, logistics and answers to some questions people have asked us:

Why India? (ie. Paul, Where Do You Get These Nutty Ideas?)

A number of places we initially considered (Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Egypt) were ruled out given the current geopolitical situation. We went to South America last year and Africa the prior year, so it seemed like a good time to return to Asia. In 1996, Paul flew into Delhi to go trekking in the Indian Himalayas, but never made it to nearby Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It's been on his mind ever since...

India is the world's largest democracy, has a very rich cultural heritage, great food and a large number of impressive forts, palaces and temples. What more can you ask for in a trip? India is about 1/3 the size of the USA, so you could probably spend a year in India and not see all of it. We decided to narrow our focus to Delhi, Agra (Taj Mahal) and the state of Rajasthan. We figure this is just about the right amount of ground to cover in ten weeks.

How Do You Plan Your Trip?

Our two biggest resources are the library and the Internet. We get as many guidebooks and look at as many web sites as we can. The idea is to decide which cities/towns/villages/small grouping of huts might be interesting to visit. We don't figure out exactly what we want to do in a town, just how many days we might want to spend there.

For this trip, Paul looked at 3 guidebooks: Footprint Handbooks, Lonely Planet and Rough Guides. Which guidebook to use is dependent on the destination. For Central & South America, Footprint is by far the best. For Asia, Lonely Planets tends to be better. For Cuba, Moon Handbooks can't be beat.

Guidebooks we are using on this trip:

Footprint India Handbook by Robert Bradnock and Roma Bradnock

Lonely Planet India by Sarina Singh

After doing our research, we create a list of places we want to visit and how long we want to stay. We get a map of the country (usually from an on-line source) and circle each place on the map. Next, it is simply a matter of trying to connect the dots in an intelligent fashion. The guidebooks we use tend to focus more on logistics than information about various sites. So, they have maps of each town with lists of places to stay and eat and information about getting from point A to point B by bus, truck, boat, taxi etc. With the dots connected, we have a rough idea of our itinerary and what modes of transportation we will use between places. The initial plan may be changed radically or not at all depending on how much time we have, if a place is better/worse than it sounded in the books, if we decide to add/delete a town because of information from someone we meet on the road, etc.

 

What Do You Take With You? (i.e. Paul, Do You Bring Your Telescope?)

Here’s our packing list for this trip (including what we wear heading out):

Eagle Creek travel pack

Anorak/Nylon windbreaker

locks for backpack

1 lightweight fleece

cable to lock pack to train seats

2 pair nylon convertible pants

Silk Sleep sack

1 long sleeve shirt

Mosquito Net

1 polo shirt

Lexan knife, fork & spoon

2 light weight s/s shirt

Princeton Tec Scout LED headlamp     

teva sandals

Nylon Cord - for clothesline etc.

Sneakers

Zip lock bags (to keep things dry)

Socks - 3 pairs

Money belt - hangs from belt

Underwear - 3 pairs

First aid kit

Sarong

Toilet articles kit

Bandana

Digital Camera

Language dictionary

Passport & back-up photocopy

Guidebooks

Journal

Books to read

In the spirit of full disclosure, Lois insists we note that she takes more than 3 pairs of underwear! The goal is to bring as little as possible. Our packs weigh less than 22 pounds each.

 

What Happens If You Get Sick?

You feel miserable for a little while and spend lots of time in the bathroom. On our Cambodia trip, Paul got seriously dehydrated, but made it to a clinic; got the best and most attentive medical care he ever received and was ready to go the next day. We bring Imodium and Cipro. The Imodium stops you up and Cipro is an antibiotic for any bacterial GI problems. We have used both of these on a couple of occasions. Worst case, you need to be evacuated to a nearby city with modern health care facilities. Insurance covers this. In fact, if you join DAN (Diver's Alert Network) for $30 a year, they have fantastic medical evacuation insurance.

 

Where Do You Stay? (i.e. At The Holiday Inn?)

Hotels, motels, guesthouses, inns, pensiones, albergues - any place that has cheap rooms for rent. The guidebooks list places to stay in each town. Except for the first night in Delhi, we have no reservations. We usually don't know where we are staying until we walk up to the place, ask to see a room and decide whether or not we like it. Occasionally, we call ahead or have someone call for us and make a reservation if the next stop is a large city or we expect it to be difficult to find a room. We have never slept out in the cold, but have paid a lot more than we wanted; stayed in a place we really didn't like or spent an hour or two looking. According to Lonely Planets, budget accommodations are in the $3-$11 range. We'll probably spend at the high end of the range in an effort to get clean rooms with running hot water.

 

Money, Money, Money?

Costs to date:

Airfare to Delhi        

$200 in taxes + 160,000 frequent flier miles

Guidebooks

$44

Visas

$120

Lonely Planet indicates the costs for budget travel through India is about $15 per person per day. We are planning on 50% more than that or $45 per day total. We are bringing $1000 in cash (there's nothing like the US dollar), credit cards, $1500 in traveler's checks and an ATM card. The cheapest and best way to change money is to use your ATM card to get local currency. The credit cards and traveler's checks are backups.

 

How Will You Communicate?

We don't know if there is an "official language" in India, but where we are going, Hindi is probably the most widely spoken language. English is spoken by most middle class/educated people and anyone in the tourist industry. However, we are sure we'll have a few trying times where we can't communicate effectively. We have a small Hindi phase book, a sense of humor and away we go...

 

How Do You Get Two Months Off From Work?

Ask. It works for Paul. Don’t ask and don’t work. That is Lois’ method.  Actually, Paul is quite lucky. The people Paul works for have been exceptionally accommodating of his desire to take a little extra time off. So, thank you very much to Jim & Tim. The program Paul is working on is in a sort of suspended animation for the next two months, but we might have to return a little early in case the rocket launches in early March.

 

What Is Your Route?

Click here to see our intended route. From Washington DC, we fly Austrian airlines through Vienna to Delhi. Below is an ordered list of the places we are planning on seeing and how long we thought we might want to spend there. However, the chances of us actually sticking to this itinerary are slim.

 

             

 

Delhi

3

Ramgarh             

half day

Mathura/Vrindavan

3

Fatehpur

2

Agra

3

Bikaner

2

Faehpur Sikiri

1

Jaisalmer+camel safari

7

Bharatpur

2

Barmer

2

Deeg

half day

Jodhpur

3

Alwar

2

Mount Abu

2

Jaipur

4

Kumbhalgarh

1

Ajmer

3

Ranakpur

1

Pushkar

1

Udaipur

4

Nawalgarh

2

Chittorgarh

1

Parasrampura

half day     

Bundi

2

Jhunjhunu

1

Kota

2

Mandawa

1

Ranthambore National Park

2

Mahansar

1

Delhi

3

 

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year To Everyone!

Lois & Paul
December 31, 2004

 

Rajasthani Ramblings Index

        

        

Rajasthani Ramblings Part 2

 

all content is copyright © Paul Schneider, 2005.