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How to find best Travel Guide in India













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Mumbai India :- If you come to Mumbai without any accomodation sorted, be prepared to be walking around for a bit. I think we practically spent 3 hours looking for an appropriate accomodation in the Colaba area. There are many touts around who spot tourist easily and offer to take them to affordable guesthouses. Well, I have to admit we got sucked into it. Lol…only because i was so tired and the initial place we wanted to stay in was on renovation. Don’t even bother asking them about other places you have read about, they will probably say it’s closed or fully booked even when its not – it’s a classic scam. These touts get a commission out of the owners of guesthouses and they take to you cheap run-down places which you never imagine your belongings being safe. So be extremely cautious, you might as well just have a couple of places you wish to stay in mind and head there right away. Most places allow you to view rooms before you decide. 

Mumbai happns :-

I went on a private guided tour of Mumbai for 2 hours – I was approached outside gateway of India. The tour was good and the guide very friendly.

But, the last stop was supposedly to see ‘Cottage industries’. I walked inside and was immediately in the middle of a hard sell in a shop! They were laying out carpets for me to buy. The guy was a very good salesman, although a tad unethical, by putting so much pressure on to buy. I am OK in these situations and held my own, but still felt a bit uncomfortable (the guy wasnt at all rude or nasty, just putting on sales pressure!). As it happened I needed to buy some gifts anyway so I got some stuff. I haggled down to less than half the marked price, but in retrospect that was probably still too much.

So in summary, if you do get offered a guided tour, ask beforehand if any shops are involved and ask not to go to them.
 

But Some Times In India :-

We recently returned from our trip to India and the golden triangle. We initially contacted Deepa exactly 2 months prior to our departure date to India and within one week agreed on a price and itinerary. We didn’t hear anything from Delhi Magic for 2 weeks until we prompted Deepa to provide us with the “…detailed dossier…” that her assistant Shobna had promised us. Deepa simply responded that it had been “…a crazily busy season, and we are busy just doing the basic stuff of securing rooms and services for clients, so our communication has been suffering.” Additionally, she apologized for the delay getting back to us. One of our main concerns for our trip to India was to secure tickets for the Republic Day Parade on the 26th of January. I now that for some readers Republic Day Parade is unimportant or as Deepa has commented in previous thread that “I’ve only ever watched it on TV, and even then it was dead boring But some people like it.” Nevertheless, for us it was something we wanted to witness because of its grand and colorful display of patriotic pride, which you can only witness in and appreciate in person. You see, I lived in India for one year as a youngster and I always remembered the incredible impression this amazing parade left upon me not to mention the life-long influence that living in India had on my person. Therefore, attending this year’s parade meant the world to my wife and myself since I would be returning to India after almost 40 years. As a result both my wife and I made countless sacrifices and changes to our work schedules to make sure that we would have the most memorable experience in India possible. We kept prompting Deepa and got nothing but silence for another 3 weeks, then a few responses, then another week of silence. Ten days out from our arrival to India, we prompted Deepa and Shobna for reassurance that our agreement was intact and that no major problem was anticipated. We were very nervous, despite having forwarded Deepa a 0 deposit (1/3 the cost of the tour package), because all along we had to constantly prompt Deepa and Shobna for responses that any other travel/tour agency would have automatically generated to reassure their customers on a regular basis, but at this point we had to trust that all arrangements were in place. 
We arrived late in Delhi on the 22nd of January, but were very pleased with our reception and the notion that everything would turn out as planned. The following day, we were met by our driver and guide Punam Gulati and began our tour of Delhi. We cannot overstate how impressed we were with Punam, since she made our first day in India an incredible experience not to be forgotten, filling our day with history, culture and her wonderful personality, apart from professionalism. Her email address is punamgulati@yahoo.com and her cell phone number is 98110-42859 and her phone number is 91-11-25598102 as well as 91-11-45524484. My wife and I thanked our lucky stars that Delhi Magic had come through for us and had been worth all of the preparation and worry. On our second day, we departed to Jaipur for the day, after which, we would move on to Agra for the night. Since it was a 4-5 hour drive, we engaged our driver in conversation about the surrounding rural environs. The driver intimated about his personal life as a farmer when he wasn’t driving. He told us about his family and rural life in India apart from enlightening us about so many things that we would never have expected to learn about India and it’s beautiful cultures. We never expected this and once again, we were more than overjoyed as none of this had been planned. It was spontaneous and so unique, that all we could do was sit back and enjoy a once in a lifetime experience. We assume that the driver felt as comfortable with us as we did with him since at one point he even offered to take us shopping Jaipur after sightseeing to some places where we could find better quality products at more reasonable prices than would be offered by our Jaipur tour guide. Of course, this meant that he would get a small commission as opposed to nothing since the guide always got the commissions. We had no problem with this and agreed that we would go with him instead of the Jaipur tour guide since we figured that one way or the other someone was going to make a commission off of us and why not help the driver since he obviously got paid less than the tour guides.
Our troubles began as we arrived on the outskirts of Jaipur when our tour guide, Annpurna, called our driver and asked him to keep us busy for ½ hour since she had just woken-up and was not ready for us. We didn’t mind since the driver took us to Amber Fort for some incredible pictures from across the lake. The driver kept receiving phone calls from the tour guide indicating that would need more time until, ultimately, we had to go pick her up as she was walking towards Amber Fort. We rode an elephant up to the Fort and met our guide at the top. Initially we noticed that she kept repeating a lot of things and assumed that this was done in order to make sure we understood certain facts and historical points, but as our tour continued, we noticed that she was preoccupied with texting and answering her cell phone on a regular basis. Her explanations became shorter and shorter as she would send us off to take pictures while she got back on her phone. At first, we gave her the benefit of the doubt, but after 1 ½ hours of this, we had to put a stop to this since we did not pay for this sort of nonsense, much less come all of this way to be taken as fools. I pulled the guide aside and told her that since she was not able to control herself and act in a professional manner, I unfortunately had to explain to her that what she was doing was shameful. I told her that if this was an emergency that we would completely understand and would rather have her tend to that than wasting her time with us. She told us that it wasn’t a real emergency, but it had to do with a family member who was in trouble, situation, which she was well aware of prior to meeting-up with us. She admitted that she never thought to make other arrangements even though she had plenty of time to request a replacement. Apparently, she thought that we would not notice, so I proceeded to inform her that she wasting our time and making our tour miserable. She acknowledged her error, apologized and unbelievably asked to make one final phone call. At this point, I asked her to immediately call Deepa to whom I explained the situation. I told Deepa that we would not tolerate this and that we did not come all of this way to have this happen to us. Deepa spoke with her and asked if we would be willing to have her finish our tour of Amber Fort, after which, a new guide would be assigned. I told Deepa that this was unacceptable and that we would somehow finish our tour of Amber fort and find our way out because we refused to reward that sort of behavior. We were disappointed by Deepa’s response, but we continued to believe that the new guide, who would meet us by Jaipur City palace, would smooth things out. Unfortunately, on our way from Amber Fort to Jaipur, the driver received a phone call from the new guide indicating that she would be late. She called several more times, at which time, we told the driver to tell her that we would not need her services. At this point we had had enough and despite other relevant as well as unsavory details, but we tried to salvage as much as we could of Jaipur by doing our own quick tour of the city with the help of the driver. Regardless, we had a sour taste in our mouth and just wanted to get out of there and head towards Agra. We called Deepa once again and explained to her that our trip to Jaipur was ruined. She was in disbelief and apologized.
Our trip 4-5 hour trip to Agra was somewhat soothing as we tried our best to enjoy the countryside and take some pictures here and there. We were not very happy, but we thought that Agra would be much better and we could put Jaipur past us. We asked the driver if on the way to Jaipur we could stop at Fatehpur Sikri, which is just outside of Agra, but for some reason the driver seemed reluctant, explaining that the ticket booth closed at 4:30. We figured that we had left Agra early enough that we could make Fatehpur Sikri early enough to take good pictures, if not from the inside at least from the outside. On the way, the driver made one stop at a tourist trap. We didn’t need to go to the bathroom so we stayed in the car while he took a 15-minute break. He seemed a bit bothered by this because his behavior changed thereafter. We can only guess that this might be because he would miss another opportunity for a commission or a free meal or was upset about our leaving Jaipur without his being able to make a commission on our planned shopping spree. Moreover, we noticed that he had reduced his speed substantially and had been going much slower than before. About an 1 ½ hours out from Agra, my wife mentioned Fatehpur Sikri to the driver and asked him if he thought we would be able to go inside since we were getting close and there was still about an hour or so of daylight. She also showed him a copy of a page from our guidebook that indicated that it would be open until 7:00 pm. Much to our surprise, the driver raised his voice at my wife almost yelling out that he had already told us that they closed at 4:30. We couldn’t believe what a nightmare this had become that now the driver felt comfortable enough to speak to my wife in such a manner. I told him to stop the car and proceeded to confront him regarding his disrespectful behavior. We tried to rationalize that maybe we became too friendly or had somehow disrespected him, but this was the last straw. We asked the driver to call Deepa immediately and made her aware of his insolent behavior. Deepa apologized and told us that she would speak to us once we made it to our hotel in Agra. The driver asked for forgiveness and even offered his cheek asking me to strike him for being so disrespectful. We were shocked and told him that we would discuss this further with Deepa once we got to Agra. With plenty of daylight still left, we passed by Fatehpur Sikri. The driver asked us several times if we wanted to go towards the site, but at this point we just wanted to go to the safety of our hotel because now we were in fear of what might happen next. We arrived at the Trident hotel in Agra, upset and in complete disbelief of everything that had happened that day. We did not get a chance to speak to Deepa, instead we got a chance to speak to the itinerary coordinator, Ranjeet. He expressed his most sincere apologies and told us that he had spoken with Deepa and they had agreed to reimburse 1/3 the cost of the total tour. Additionally, he told us that we would get a new driver and that they would make every effort to ensure that no further incidents would occur. He listened to all of our complaints, unfortunately, his resorted to saying exactly what we didn’t want to hear which was “…forget about it and move forward.” He said this three times and I became livid. I explained to him that I appreciated that fact that they were going to reimburse some of our monies for their mistakes, but that by no means this gave him the right to minimize what had just happened to us. He recognized his misuse of the expression and apologized, but I explained to him that now he was part of the problem. We spoke to Deepa the following day at which time she apologized and attempted to smooth out everything promising no more mistakes.
The next day, we met our Agra tour guide, Sunnil, who much like Punam, was great. We had a very enjoyable day in Agra and in the late afternoon proceeded-on towards Delhi, with nothing but praise for Sunnil and our new driver, Mr. Singh. We arrived late in Delhi and our driver called Ranjeet to inform him of our arrival as he dropped us off at our Hotel. He went to check-in only to find out that no reservations had been made for us for the next 3 nights. We spent 15 minutes talking to the concierge who looked everywhere. Surely, Deepa and Delhi Magic were not at fault, so we asked for the manager. Two managers appeared, at which time we showed them the voucher that Delhi Magic had asked me to present. We went back and forth for at least 10 minutes, until finally, the two managers confirmed that Delhi Magic had failed to confirm the reservation. Nevertheless, the two managers told us that they would not only find us a room, but that they would upgrade us at no additional expense. I asked one the managers to call Deepa, whereby he explained to her that although a reservation might have been made through a reservation agency, no valid reservation had been made directly with them and that the voucher issued did not take the place of an actual confirmation with the hotel. Once again, I verbalized my disappointment and anger with Deepa because this was just not possible after everything that had happened and their reassurance that nothing else would go wrong. Deepa attempted to explain that Delhi Magic had done nothing wrong. We didn’t buy it and I reminded her that if that was the case, then why were we involved in this most recent avoidable drama. Apparently, nobody thought to recheck/confirm reservations. All we could ask ourselves was what kind of travel/tour agency was this, as we waited for the next shoe to drop.
The following day was Republic Day. I had been planning for this day for many years and both my wife and I were very excited despite what had happened. We woke-up at 5:30 am and began preparing for our 7:30 pick-up. We had our tickets, the driver was on time, the parade would not begin until around 9:30 am, so what could go wrong? We arrived at the location at before 8:00 am only to find out that Delhi Magic had not obtained a parking pass, but this didn’t matter too much since our guide found out that we would be taking a bus to our appropriate gate. We drove around for about 20 minutes, then finally, the driver dropped us off and we lined-up at one bus, then another before our guide admitted to us that these were not the right buses and that the appropriate buses were actually in a completely different area, so we were going to have to walk to our gate. We had no choice so we began to walk, backtracking to where he had been 20 minutes ago. At one point, the guide even suggested running and I retorted that we would not since we were not about to begin correcting his mistakes at this late hour by running. We walked for 45 minutes to a gate that security staff had just closed. There was almost a stampede as people, us included, as we walked another 15-20 minutes to another gate. We were told that our seats were just on the other side of this gate, but this gate too was closed. We asked the guide to please find out what was going on since we had our tickets. The guide in the most-meek manner possible approached a couple of what appeared to be high-ranking police officers and said nothing but one or two words. He came back to us and said nothing. I told him that he needed to start communicating something to us, else I would go find out on my own. The guide froze next to me and simply said “I have no words.” I took our tickets and went to ask one of the officers and was told that the gates closed at 9:30 am and that now it was already 9:50 am. My wife and I stood in shock and deep anger. There was just no coming back from this. Our guide admitted to spending very little time, if any, planning this activity. Moreover, he stated that prior to today, he was not even aware that we were going to be bused to our appropriate gate, much less were those buses where departing from. What really burned us even more is that he knew that the gates closed at 9:30 am, yet he kept us walking for another 20 minutes without reason. As we stood there trying to understand how this could have happened, we saw 4 helicopters flying overheard signaling the beginning of the parade. We turned-around and began walking away, disappointment that all of the sacrifice, planning and dreaming was for nothing. We walked for another 15-20 minutes before we could find some sort of transportation and someone with a cell phone so we could call our driver to come and pick us up. We called Deepa and later that day she agreed to refund all of monies since they had ruined our vacation. We were simply disgusted to have come from so far to have Deepa and Delhi Magic do this to us without ever thinking how her lack of proper organization and attention to detail could only result in failure and total mismanagement. To Deepa’s credit she had Punam spend 2 days with us in Delhi, which were wonderful, but too little to late and no replacement for a ruined vacation, which we had planned for years. We fail to understand how Deepa, Delhi Magic and her other branches manage to stay in business with this sort of mismanagement and lack of professionalism towards tourists

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