Hijacked in Connaught Place – riding with Ramesh #1

Blimey, we have a car & driver for our 21 day tour of Rajastan. Not exactly roughing it & nothing like any traveling we've done before. A bit like the way we bought a house (went out for a quiche & bought a 3 bedroom bungalow) we went into a travel agent to get a free map of Delhi & came out with a full itinerary, hotels, driver & a lovely old Ambassador car. Long story, here's the dot points:

• 1^st day Delhi went to city centre Connaught Place well aware that numerous touts pick up tourists on behalf of dodgy travel agents
  
• Were picked up by a tout for a dodgy travel agent. Well he was very smooth, middle aged &, wow, when I told him we were from Australia he was, like, a sports journalist & wanted to help us AND talk about cricket, amazing!
  
• He put us in an autorickshaw which was only the Indian price of Rp10 because he liked us & we were kidnapped to a travel agent with "Indian Govt" on the window.
  
• Asked for a map of Delhi
  
• Had cold water, had chai, spent 2hrs listening to Mr Ashok explain all about Rajastan & how we could do it all with him at an amazing price.
  
• Ashok gave us a car & driver for 24hrs to see Delhi before we left town, no agreement to buy anything as yet but Rp1000 deposit left
  
• Saw Delhi, worried about all the above. Quite liked Mr Singh our driver but car was small Tata about 'new Mini' size & Rajastan is very big.
  
• Met our good friend Emily for dinner & worried about all the above
  
• Went to actual Indian Govt Tourist Office, got free map, & v strong recommendation to return to Mr Ashok & get deposit back.
  
• With some trepidation we asked if our friend Brad's Delhi agent was approved. Much relief to find he was & nipped around corner to see Feroz Baktoo at Indian Travel Consultant (App. By Ministry of Govt. India).
  
• Hurrah! Both Brad Young of Katoomba & India Govt recommend this guy.
  
• Booked a huge tour of Rajastan with Feroz, retrieved Mr Ashok's deposit (he dropped price by 15% but we stood firm, which surprised him & us)
  
• Met Ramesh our new driver who took us all over town to meet Emily for drinks & dinner, worried we 'd somehow reorganized our entire Indian experience over a map….
  
  

Having a car & driver in India has much to recommend it & we're really enjoying the gilded-cage freedom it gives us. In a way it is the gentle intro to travelling here that we'd promised ourselves. We had always said we'd take our time to get the hang of things, maybe stay in a quiet town before setting out on a grand tour. Having now seen Delhi & having heard how hard train tickets can be to get (many Indians travel in July for holidays & pilgrimages) this has proved to be even better. We have an itinerary through 10 towns* & back to Delhi with air-con/ensuite hotel rooms pre-booked. Can reject rooms/hotels we don't like (have), can alter the number of days at each place(have) & decide where we want to go each day. Africa on a Shoestring (my 1987 epic) it ain't. Despite not meeting people on the way we get much more time at each destination to get out & about, alone or with Ramesh.

Tool a while to get the hang of all the "sirs" & "ma'ams" & waving at the hoi polloi from the back of what looks like a 1960s Morris but, hey, we're adaptable.

Mandawa     3 nights
Bikaner        1
Jaisalmer    3
Jodhpur    2
Ranakpur    1
Udaipur    3
Bundi        4
Pushkar        2
Jaipur        3
Agra        1

If you want an idea of price, names of agents etc contact us.