Provisional routing based on a 90 day rail travel itinerary. Trying to research the days that I should allocate to each city. Greater need to be somewhat accurate in pre-planning as I get nearer travel time, due to the the fact that rail travel in India is based on a firm seat reservation system --even with a first class travel pass in hand. No reservation---no travel. In theory, rail seats are reservable on-line. Recently I passed an interesting hour visiting the India Railways website to learn more about the process, and was daunted by the complexity and bureaucratic detail required to complete the 8 different sections required to reserve a ticket. Looks like I am destined to spend many hours in seat reservation booth queues. Understand that there is a foreign tourist seat quota on major routes, so perhaps the challenge will not be so great as it now appears from this distance (in Canada).
(Very) Tentative routing:
1. Mumbai 2. Ahmedabad 3. Udaipur 4. Jaipur. 5. Agra (Taj Mahal). 6. Delhi (Federal capital) 7. Amritsar (Golden Temple) 8. Back to Delhi 9. Lucknow. 10. Faizabad/Ayodyha
11. Patna 12. Siligur/Darjeeling (hill station) 13. Kolkata (Calcutta) 14. Bhubaneswar 15. Visakhapatnam 16. Hyderabad 17. Bangalore 18. Chennai (formerly known as Madras) 19. Pondicheri (old French enclave) 20. Tiruchirappalli (aka 'Trichy') 21. Madurai 22. Kochi 23. Mangalore 24. Hampi/Hospet 25. Goa (formerly a Portuguese colony) 26. Pune (hi-tech centre) 27. Mumbai.
These locations are transit centres only and hopefully additional reading, talking to fellow travellers and local tourist bureaux will indicate interesting spots to visit nearby--example--Golconda Fort 5kms to the east of Hyderabad.
1. Mumbai 2. Ahmedabad 3. Udaipur 4. Jaipur. 5. Agra (Taj Mahal). 6. Delhi (Federal capital) 7. Amritsar (Golden Temple) 8. Back to Delhi 9. Lucknow. 10. Faizabad/Ayodyha
11. Patna 12. Siligur/Darjeeling (hill station) 13. Kolkata (Calcutta) 14. Bhubaneswar 15. Visakhapatnam 16. Hyderabad 17. Bangalore 18. Chennai (formerly known as Madras) 19. Pondicheri (old French enclave) 20. Tiruchirappalli (aka 'Trichy') 21. Madurai 22. Kochi 23. Mangalore 24. Hampi/Hospet 25. Goa (formerly a Portuguese colony) 26. Pune (hi-tech centre) 27. Mumbai.
These locations are transit centres only and hopefully additional reading, talking to fellow travellers and local tourist bureaux will indicate interesting spots to visit nearby--example--Golconda Fort 5kms to the east of Hyderabad.
