Help planning Rajasthan itinerary
 

I am planning an upcoming trip to India. I have to finalize the Rajasthan portion of our travels. We basically have 10 days and plan to see Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur and Jodhpur. I think we will not be able to make it to Jaisalmer unfortunately.

My wife does not do well in cars so I'm thinking that we should take trains whenever possible. I have read that some of the track guage is small so that the trains travel slowly.

Most of the tour operators concentrate on road travel.

I am interested in any advice you have for us. This could include your own experience with trains in that area, a tour operator that incorporated trains well, and general advice about how much we will be able to pack in in 10 days - starting in Delhi.

No, the mainline trains are all (very) wide gauge, they're just slow because they're... Indian trains. Travel by road isn't much faster, but is considerably more dangerous.

Distances in Rajasthan are long: for example, it's 12 hours by train from Delhi to Jodhpur, although the distance is fairly pleasantly covered overnight. You might want to consider taking the train one way, eg. Delhi-Agra-Jaipur-Jodhpur-Udaipur and then flying back.

Idea
 

My new idea is to do a day trip to Agra and then to fly from Delhi to Jodhpur. We would then do a couple of days in Johdpur, a couple in Jaisalmer, a couple in Jaipur and then a couple at AmanBaugh before we head back to Delhi for our return home. Thus we would only do one overnight train going east.

All suggestions welcome.

We really enjoyed Udaipur and Jodphur - Jaipur was fun but wasn't quite the experience we were expecting.

There are decent train options Delhi-Agra-Japiur. You can then fly to Udaipur from Jaipur. I would recommend a car to do the day journey Udaipur-Jodhpur (there are some great forts to see on the way) and then fly back to Delhi. This is do-able in 10 days, but does feel a bit rushed. No flights to Jaisalmer....so it's an overnight train each way from Jodphur.

Jodhpur-wow!
 

We were wowed by Jodhpur. Stayed at the Taj Umaid Bhawan Palace--the grandest hotel i've ever been to, with grand service--better than a Four Seasons. The Jodhpur fort is sensational too. We drove from Udaipur--not bad--and took a decent traain (IC express) to Jaipur.

The Taj Umaid Bhawan Palace does look amazing.. but not as amazing as its price! Is it that much nicer than the Aman properties?!

I've been told not to think about dropping Jaisalmer out of the itinerary. Definitely drop Udaiper first. Comments?

Skip Udaipur?
 

I thought the hotel was worth the big price, and my wife, who hates to spend big money on hotels, was enchanted--priceless.

We read about how Jaiselmeer is one of the womders of the world, but eventually decided to skip it because of the long long ride. Our travel agent didn't want us to go there by train--not sure why--and the thought of spending a day to be driven there and a day to be driven back was daunting. SO we gave it up.

I stayed in a 300-rupee guesthouse in Jodhpur and went for a 1300-rupee dinner at Umaid Bhawan, which I found a pretty good allocation of resources. :D Note that the restaurants don't accept non-guests when the hotel is full and there's a (spottily observed) Rs.1500/head minimum when they do -- not that it's a problem to hit this figure when a single curry can cost you a thousand.

A miniature trip report, including the wonders of Jodhpur airport:

http://crossroads.world66.com/blog/j...unt_to_jodhpur

And some extra pics of Jodhpur:

http://jpatokal.iki.fi/photo/travel/India/Jodhpur

how long does it take to go go to Jaisalmer from Jodhpur by road ? and Train if there are any ? what's better -train or road -to and back .

i have only driven between the 2....it takes about 5 hours....