Hi Andrew,
We arrived home safely and are recovering from the jet lag. It was so nice to meet you- we really enjoyed our time with you. We had a wonderful trip, the places we visited were well worth the Journey. As promised, we will give you details of our experiences.
Hotels
All the Taj hotels were superb, the service was great in all three we went to and the rooms were good.
Badami Court was acceptable, although the food was grim.
Hotel Malligi had lovely service and a very good restaurant. The room(the bridal suite)had seen better days and the bathroom was badly lit and seemed grubby. We accept that this is the best available and it was worth staying there to see the sights.
Hoysala village Resort was really lovely, the suite was spacious and the grounds well kept and beautiful. We had the added pleasure of a dance festival which was being held there.
Guides
The guide in Mumbai who took us to the studios was O.K., but the visit was to tv studios-we needed a full day to go to the actual Bollywood studios which are way out of town. The young guy who took us to Dharavi, was lovely-we hope he gets lots of recommendations. Most of the other guides were quite difficult to understand, the one in Bangalore was the worst, Their English vocabulary is good but their accents are very poor. The guide in Belur and Halebid was the best.
Driver
The driver-Jekki-who we had most of the time was a nice obliging good natured man who we would ask for again if we come back to India. There was one horrific drive from Hospet to Hampi. A new road is being built and the drive was terrible. If we had stayed on motorways we would have driven another 80 or vso miles, but the journey would have been comfortable and much quicker. The driver was exhausted and it wasn’t really safe for him to drive so long in such bad conditions. Jekki told us that his company had instructed him to take the shortest route.
The sights we saw were magnificent although they are comparatively unknown in the west. We don’t think that the area could cope with a great influx of tourists, which is a good thing, as the area couldn’t cope.
Thank you for arranging our trip, and for all your help,
Best Wishes and a Happy New Year,
Brenda and Peter Lyons
