Wednesday, July 16, 2014
7 Days in Mumbai, Udaipur and the Golden Triangle of Incredible India
This was a rather unexpected trip. It started with Little P had a chance to travel to Mumbai for work and asked if I would like to see the Taj. If so, she would extend a couple of days and pay our respect to the world famous mausoleum. After I checked with my manager on annual leave and what not, I pounced on the rare chance and proposed if we could do the Golden Triangle.
After all the dramas of Little P getting her visa approved, then me applying for mine (there will not be any travel if Little P's visa was not approved), followed by getting the flight tickets. By the time my visa was approved, it was less than a week from travel date.
From visa application to flight booking, there were dramas and blond moments stamping all over it. It started with me absent mindedly left my passport at home on the day I wanted to apply for the visa. We were already pressed for time and the visa application has a 5 day turnaround processing time, so I had to rush home, grabbed my passport and hurried out to the Indian visa processing site centre.
After the visa was approved, I had difficulty in getting the flights I want, the airline website kept on defaulting my selection to another flight. I tried all internet browser I had from IE to Mozilla to Google Chrome but none of it work. I finally had it done by buying my flight ticket via the phone.
The last of it was my camera broke down the first morning we were in Udaipur, just as the holidays begin. Ha! Anyway, it was now history and we had a ball of a time in India. :)
This was the most luxury trip I had taken thus far (in both monetary and planning). Given lack of time for proper planning and probably a bad idea to travel in India without sufficient information, we decided to engage a tour operator to assist in accommodation booking, car rental (with driver) and ground tour. A friend had previously traveled to India and used the same tour operator company after recommendation from her friend in India, we decided to go with this.
As Little P was traveling for work, it was decided that I would only joined her in the last couple of days in Mumbai before we took a local flight to Udaipur and then the Golden Triangle. My flight out of India was via Delhi but she had to double back to Mumbai. I took a late evening flight after work and reached Mumbai the next morning.
As fate has it, we made the trip in end of February which was winter in India, and had a superb weather overall as we were traveling to Rajasthan.
Day 1 - Mumbai
Day 2 - Mumbai, Udaipur* (Shikarbadi Hotel)
Day 3 - Udaipur*
Day 4 - Jaipur* (Four Points Sheraton)
Day 5 - Jaipur*
Day 6 - Agra* (Wyndham)
Day 7 - Delhi
*overnight stay
Side note: I need a sunny weekend!
Photos, please! :) India has always fascinated me. Possibly because it's both familiar (Durban in South Africa is the biggest Indian city outside India) and otherwordly to me. Also, I love Indian food. :)
ReplyDeleteMore posts on India coming up..with photos of course ;)
Delete*high five* love Indian food too!