How I Planned My 2017 Trip To India!

Yes, I’m going to India!  I’m really excited about it.  There’s so much to see in India, I spent a lot of time figuring out where in India I was going to go.  I’m going to share myplanning process with you.  Maybe it will help you with your own trip planning.

I’ve been wanting to go to India for quite some time.  It’s a huge, fascinating country with an ancient culture and many major cities.  Hmm, sounds like China.  Like China, it’s just too big for one visit.  India is best broken down by regions:  North, South, East, and West.  On my upcoming trip, I’ll be touring North India.  And I’ll let you know why.

Out of India’s many major cities, West India’s Mumbai is really the country’s chief city.  It’s the biggest.  And it’s India’s business and financial center, as well as its entertainment capital.  So at first glance, I should be heading there for my first Indian expedition.

But I was aware of something else.  North India has what’s known as the Golden Triangle–3 cities, about the same distance apart, that are popular with tourists looking to efficiently take in many of India’s cultural treasures.  The 1st of these 3 cities is Delhi, the capital.  (Delhi’s metro area is actually larger than Mumbai’s, even though Mumbai itself is a bigger city.)  Throughout its history, Delhi has been the capital of many kingdoms and empires.  The city’s impressive cultural sites are a testament to this.  The 2nd city on the Triangle is Agra, southeast of Delhi.  Agra is home to the Taj Mahal.  Need I say more?  The 3rd city is Jaipur, southwest of Delhi and west of Agra.  Jaipur is the capital and largest city of the desert state of Rajasthan.  Rajasthan means “Land of the Kings”.  As the capital of the Land of the Kings, Jaipur has no shortage of royal sights.

I would expect Delhi and its Golden sisters to be very tourist-friendly.  So I decided that I would have my 1st Indian experience in the region that is most used to welcoming tourists.  An India starter course, so to speak.  But there’s too much to see in North India (in any region of India, really), so I couldn’t stop at just the Golden 3.

In addition to visiting Jaipur, I’m going to see Jodhpur, Rajasthan’s 2nd largest city.  Located west of Jaipur in the center of Rajasthan, Jodhpur is known as the Blue City because many of the houses in the old part of town are painted blue.  (For similar reasons, Jaipur is known as the Pink City.)  I definitely want to see the view of the Blue City from the vantage point at the very imposing Mehrangarh Fort, which hulks high over Rajasthan.

In the Himalayan foothills north of Delhi, I’ll be visiting the holy city of Rishikesh.  Rishikesh sits by the side of the legendary Ganges River just where it rushes down from the Himalayas before it starts to lumber through the North India plains.  Sounds cool, but there is really one reason why I have to go to Rishikesh.  It is the site of the Beatles’ famous 1968 visit to India.  The ashram where they stayed had been abandoned for decades.  But just my luck!  Just within the past year, it’s been reopened as a tourist attraction.  Add in what I’ve read about the scenery, the food, and the aura of ancient spiritually, and I’m really looking forward to my visit to Rishikesh.

The final city I added on to my agenda is Amritsar in Punjab province, northwest of Delhi.  Amritsar is the spiritual capital of Sikhism, one of India’s great religions.  As with Rishikesh, I’m going to Amritsar for one reason–to see the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s gilded equivalent to St. Peter’s in Rome.  But while I’m in Amritsar, there’s something else I have to do.  Amritsar is close to the Indian-Pakistani border.  Specifically, it’s close to the Wagah border crossing, where a dramatic ceremony between the guards of the 2 countries takes place daily.  It’s said to be an absolute must-see for anyone visiting Amritsar.  So I must see it.

Planes, Trains, and Hotels

So now I had all my destinations picked out.  But that’s the easy part.  Next I had to figure out the logistics–where to go when, how to get from one place to another, how long to stay in each place, etc.  This was a bit of a challenge.  Of course I’ll  be flying into Delhi, so it made sense to start there.  If I was only sticking to the Golden Triangle, I’d just have to travel from one point on the Triangle to another and end up back in Delhi.  But the other 3 cities on my agenda are each a bit out of the way, beyond the Golden Triangle.  Unlike in China, where I was easily able to make day trips from my home bases of Shanghai and Beijing, there are no bullet trains to get to these outliers.  This is where things got challenging.  Delhi, Rishikesh, and Amritsar form somewhat of a 2nd triangle to the northwest of the Golden Triangle.  The tips of the 2 triangles meet in Delhi, meaning that I’ll have to pass through Delhi twice or more.  This added to the challenge.  Once I arrive at an international destination, I’m not eager to lose a full day of sightseeing to transiting from one location to another.

Through my research, I learned that there’s a convenient overnight train from Delhi to Jodhpur (via Jaipur).  So just like that, I decided that Delhi to Jodhpur would be the first leg of my tour, eliminating the need to book a hotel the night of the train ride.  From Jodhpur, I’ll rejoin the Golden Triangle at Jaipur, then proceed along the Triangle’s southern side to Agra.

From Agra, I’ll have to return to Delhi in order to proceed on to Rishikesh and Amritsar.  There are no direct trains from Delhi to Rishikesh.  However, there are direct trains to nearby Haridwar, where there are frequent buses making the 30-minute trip to Rishikesh.  I found an overnight train from Haridwar to Amritsar, so I’ll have 2 nights on my trip where I’ll be sleeping on a train instead of in a hotel.  Finally, I couldn’t find any convenient trains from Amritsar to Delhi without having to use up most of what would otherwise be a day of sightseeing.  So I will fly from Haridwar to Delhi.  It’s a short flight, and the prices are very reasonable.  (My ticket just cost $40.)

Now, an important planning detail.  How long will my trip be?  I figured that 5 days will give me time to see Delhi, the only real major city on my trip.  2 days in all the other cities sounded good.  That came up to 15 days of sightseeing, which didn’t include the extended travel time needed to get from California to India and back.  I was hoping to shorten it just a bit.  I decided on cutting down my sightseeing in Jodhpur and Amritsar to 1 day each.  In Jodhpur, all I really want to do was go up to Mehrangarh Fort and gaze down upon the Blue City.  In Amritsar, I figured I can easily see the Golden Temple in the morning and then head out to catch the border ceremony late in the day.  I can fly to Delhi at the end of the day in Amritsar.  But I won’t want to be lugging my bags to the Golden Temple and definitely not out to the border.  So I will need to spend the night in Amritsar at a hotel where I can check my bags while I am out touring around.

Then there was the issue of Delhi.  I will need to transit through Delhi to get from the other Golden Triangle cities, specifically Agra, to Rishikesh and Amritsar in the north and northwest.  Not wanting to lose a entire day of sightseeing to travel, I figured I’ll have to split up my sightseeing days in Delhi so that I’ll be doing some sightseeing in Delhi between my stays in Agra and Rishikesh.  There was still the matter of the end of my trip.  The flights leave Delhi late at night or very, very early in the morning.  Once again, I didn’t want to lose a day to travel, so I decided to have a day of sightseeing in Delhi after returning from Amritsar.  Because I’ll need to spend the night in Amritsar, I’ll be flying back to Delhi in the morning.  Just like in Amritsar, I’ll need to stay in a hotel after returning to Delhi so I’ll have a place to store my duffel bag while out sightseeing.  It made sense to arrive in the morning from Amritsar, spend the night in a hotel, and fly out from Delhi late the following night.  I was now looking at 2 days of sightseeing in Delhi at the end of my trip.  Because it really made sense to spend at least 2 days in Delhi upon my arrival in India, I now realized I will have just 1 day of sightseeing in Delhi between Agra and Rishikesh.  Logistics!

Because of all this, I will be spending no more than 2 nights in any hotel during my trip.  6 cities, 8 hotels, 2 overnight trains, 3 separate stays in Delhi.  This is NOT the way I like to travel.  I prefer to camp out in on location for a while before moving on.  But this is how it worked out.  India demanded it, and I’m sure I’m going to love it!

Train Tickets

I used a 3rd-party service to book my train tickets.  Nonetheless, it’s still required to set up an account with the Indian rail system first.  This was a very confusing process.  The process includes having to input a fake Indian cell phone number.  So you have to make sure to come up with a number that could possibly be a legitimate Indian cell phone number, but one that hasn’t already been used to set up an account.  The process also includes sending an email with a copy of your passport.  I sent a number of e-mails.  I finally got a response 2 weeks later.  That was 2 weeks where I was getting progressively nervous about my train plans.  But it all worked out.  And WOW are Indian trains cheap!  For my overnight train from Delhi to Jodhpur, which is a 10 1/2 hour ride, I purchased a ticket for a 1st-class sleeper berth.  It cost about $35.  That just seems so cheap to me.  $35 would get me about halfway from Boston to Providence on the Acela.  The rest of my tickets cost between $7 and $10, including the 10-hour overnight train from Haridwar to Amritsar.  Bargain!

Hotel Rooms

I did my normal research to select hotels for each destination.  For the most part I used Agoda or Orbitz to book the rooms.  Agoda is pretty much the best site for booking hotels in Asia.  (I used them to book my hotel in Shanghai.  Once I found out I’d be arriving a day late in Shanghai, I called their US number, and they handled everything with the hotel.)  I used Orbitz to book some of the hotels because, in theory, I got a break for booking my flight with Orbitz.  I had to pay for my flight to Delhi because I didn’t have sufficient miles on any 1 airline.  So it was a relief that decent accommodations in India are so inexpensive.  Counting my 2 overnight trains, the average I’m paying for a night’s accommodation during my trip (not included taxes) is $35.  This includes 2 “splurges”.  I’m splurging for my 1 night in Rishikesh for a hotel right on the Ganges, $68.  And I’m really splurging for my last night in Delhi, $80.  Another bargain!

Continuing On

So that’s how I worked out the basic agenda for my 2017 trip to India.  As far as I can tell, the only other item I need to book in advance is a tour of the Rashtrapati Bahran, India’s White House.  In what I’m noticing is a trend, the website for booking the tour is confusing, and it seems that it’s not possible to book too far in advance.  But I know I’ll get it figured out before February.

Now it’s time to move on the REAL planning, my detailed daily itinerary.  It’s going to be a great trip, and maybe my biggest adventure yet!