Planes or trains within India?
 

I'm just wondering what the most economical (money and time) way to travel around India would be? I know India has an incredibly comprehensive national railway (website is impossible). It seems that jet Airways has a visit India pass that allows unlimited travel within the country as well.

I'm going to visit some dear friends in Ahmedabad and was either considering using that place as a base and then visit Mumbai, Delhi, Agra and possible down south to Goa. I was also considering arriving in Mumbai and then continuing my journey to the above mentioned places and then ending up in Ahmedabad for the remaining days of my trip.

I'm trying to figure out logistics and was wondering if planes or trains or a combination of both might be the best way to go? I realize India is a large country with so much to see... perhaps I should scale back my plans. I've got between 14-20 days to play with here.

The most economical way to travel would be to take the train and the cities you want to visit not THAT far from each other. Delhi and Agra are quite close (like 2 hours on the express train) but Delhi-Mumbai and Mumbai-Goa will take like half a day or an overnight train. The train times vary, depending on which train you take.

The Indian Railways web site can be a little confusing but you'll get the hang of it. I found it incredibly useful for looking up train schedules. You can look up the schedules on the Indian Railways web site: http://www.indianrail.gov.in/inet_metro_trns.html

To get an idea of the different classes on the trains, check out this website: http://seat61.com/India.htm. The pictures are pretty accurate.

The only flight I took in India was from Delhi to Cochin; because that train would have taken 2 days!

Jet Airways Visit India pass of 4 coupons for $500 seems a fair price to me. I guess it depends on how much time you want to save. Some other airlines to check out are JetLite(formerly known as Air Sahara), Air Deccan, Go Air, IndiGo Airlines, SpiceJet, Jagson, and Kingfisher Airlines. I bought my flights when I was in India and I had some problems purchasing the flights online but its easy to go to the airline booking office or a travel agent.

I hope this helps in making the decision whether to take the train or the plane.

PS There are tons of places between Ahmedabad and Delhi that are worth checking out; like Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur (eh, maybe not), etc. Trying to fit all of these in for a 2-3 week trip may be a bit ambitious.

I strongly advise mixing and matching ---- i.e. one-way flights for the lengthier distances, trains for the shorter trips. My favorite airline in India is Kingfisher, and they offer one-ways from Mumbai to Ahmedabad for $55 all in, as an example. Regarding advance train planning from overseas, I strongly recommend http://www.cleartrip.com/. I've successfully reserved, purchased and refunded train e-tickets at http://www.irctc.co.in/, and recommend it highly. [none of my credit cards seemed to work successfully at cleartrip.]

One important caveat ---- while Kingfisher, a private India airline, is generally vastly superior in airport and inflight service to anything available in the U.S., Indian trains are not to everyone's liking. While Kingfisher has personnel awaiting your arrival outside the terminals, escorts to check-in and through security, inflight service that includes tasty hot meals on even the shortest of flights, and personnel at baggage retrieval anxious to be of help, Indian trains typically offer very little of this kind of customer service hand-holding. If you're likely to be at all squeamish about very crowded, and sometimes quite dirty, train stations, I'd emphasize the planes over the trains....

Cleartrip takes international credit cards just fine - IF they have been registered for Verified by Visa or Mastercard Securecode (where you are taken to your bank's website and have to enter a password before the transaction is allowed).

And you can book both flights and trains on cleartrip. Flights are worth it far more than trains except for two airports on short distance trips - HYD and BLR. The airports in both these cities are quite far from the city (~ 2 hours sometimes) so you would end up spending far more time commuting to / from the airport than you would spend time on the plane.

Rule of thumb - if the journey is 4..6 hours by a daytime train or 9-12 hours by an overnight train, take the train. Else, fly.

Not in my experience. Cleartrip refuses to accept my Singapore-issued Visa and my UK-issued Visa cards even though both have been registered for Verified by Visa. It just takes me to a page that tells me (incorrectly) that my Visa cards have not been registered for Verified by Visa :td:

I book train trips directly on www.irctc.co.in and flights directly on flykingfisher.com with my foreign-issued Amex cards with generally no problems.

I tried 6 different cards US-issued cards --- from Citibank, Chase, Capital One, AMEX --- and not one of them worked. You can check the lists of bank cards that subscribe to Verified by Visa and Mastercard Securecode to see if your bank card is listed, but be forewarned that the above large US-issuing banks ones aren't subscribers.

That said, I find Cleartrip to be an excellent info resource for both trains and planes.

In addition to www.flykingfisher.com, Kingfisher also offers a US-based 1-800 number where bookings can be made without surcharges.

My HKG issued mastercard has worked just fine so far.

Hey! There's chai wallas and all kinds of vendors on the railway! Just none provided by the Indian Railways ;)

Costwise, if you are willing for a lesser class of service (and if not in summer, no AC), trains are dirt cheap. Not necessarily quick, but a great way to see India. The stations are chaotic and can be confusing (esp. for short trains). Flying can be less chaotic and slightly more regular. Both of those are on the Indian scale. Flights can be delayed for hours or longer, as can trains. Some of the Indian airports are less than pleasant (VNS, DEL domestic)

Given the amount of time you have and the areas you want to cover seems like flying makes more sense (except of the very short routes, like Delhi-Agra, of course).

As far as booking flights, I use http://www.makemytrip.com. They cover most airlines and I've booked with US credit cards w/o any problems. They also have a reasonably responsive email customer service.

Train travel in India is an experience, not one I would like to do over again, but it is an experience.

I used to travel by train all the time when I was a kid and it was a BLAST but now, no thanks !!

Sometime the air travel can be very hectic also. Just keep lots of time for transfers, delays and waiting for buses !!

Even the *best* accomodations aren't always what you expect. Train travel in India isn't for the faint hearted ( or those with a weak stomach!) Bathrooms
on the train can be pretty bad.

From www.seat61.com/India.htm

Other Indian train tips...
Bring your own toilet paper. You'll normally find one one western toilet and one squat toilet (:eek:) at one or both ends of the car. In AC1, AC2, AC Chair Class and even AC3 the toilets are normally reasonably clean by Indian standards, and in full working order. Sleeper Class and 2nd class toilets may be a different matter!

To put things in perspective, 1st class aircon (1AC) train fares are considerably cheaper than LCC airfares

And as the site says, the bathrooms in aircon coaches are mostly quite ok, clean etc.

You find squat toilets in almost every asiapac country - Singapore, Japan .. quite useful, rather more hygeinic in a heavily used public toilet.

You know your butt isnt touching what several other butts have previously touched.

mix and match ftw...take the train between a bunch of cities and then take a plane to hop back to your departure city...

Thanks for the advice! I've now returned from 3 weeks in India and had a great time. I actually ended up flying on all my intercity trips on 4 different airlines. I did however take a train on a short 4 hour journey... and that honestly was enough for me. For the most part it was ok... we booked AC1 and had great berth-mates. I had some sinus issues at its peak, and the AC and horrible air freshener bathroom tablets they use to "freshen" the berth just killed my head. Despite reading seat61 and indiamike, I still found the whole experience utterly confusing and chaotic on departure. Having been through it, I now know what to do. No amount of reading about the experience can truly prepare you. Will I do it again? MAYBE. I can see how a long 24 hour or just overnight journey would be not so nice.