General Tour Information
TRAVEL TO INDIA: This tour is organized by our British company, Sunbird, and starts and ends in London. The cost of the group flights between London and Delhi are included in the tour cost. You can choose, however, to make your own travel arrangements to Delhi. You would receive a corresponding discount in the tour cost should you decide to do this. . Please read the Important Travel Information for Participants on Sunbird Tours.
ENTERING INDIA: United States citizens will need a valid passport and a tourist visa. These can be obtained from the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C. or Consulate in New York. Visas can also be obtained through a visa service, such as CIBT. As a general rule, your passport should be valid for six months after you plan to return from India.
MAPS AND COUNTRY INFORMATION: You can view maps of India in the University of Texas series here. You can review the U.S. Department of State background notes on India here.
HEALTH: The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) currently recommend taking an anti-malarial drug when visiting India. The drug of choice for India is Lariam (mefloquine). Further, the CDC currently recommends the following vaccines: Hepatitis A or immune globulin (IG); typhoid vaccination is particularly important because of the presence of S. typhi strains resistant to multiple antibiotics in this region; and as needed, booster doses for tetanus-diphtheria and measles, and a one-time dose of polio for adults. You can review the latest CDC advisories here.
CLIMATE: The temperatures throughout this tour will vary dramatically. Our days at Bharatpur and Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve should be very pleasant with temperatures in the 60°F-80°F range by midday. However the early mornings and late afternoons, times when we will be out on games drives at Ranthambhore, can be quite cold. Once we leave the plains, the night time temperatures drop as we climb higher, and although the days can still be very warm, there is an increased chance of rain. Expect early morning frosts at Corbett and Quality Inn. At Nainital, colder weather is likely, at least in the early mornings and rain or even snow is possible. Once the sun goes down, the temperatures here will plummet and, even though there are heaters in the rooms and hot water bottles are provided in the beds, the hotel, which is designed to stay cool in the hot summers, can will feel very cold. Thermal underwear will be greatly appreciated here. Gloves, scarves and a warm hat are essential.
PACE OF TOUR AND DAILY ROUTINE: On many days there will be optional pre-breakfast walks. Most of these will start at 6.30am or 6.45am and may last for up to two or three hours. Most days should finish at dusk, around 6.30pm, and we usually manage about an hour’s break before the checklist and dinner. There may be one or two days when we get back after dusk and we may therefore require a shorter break before dinner. At Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve safari or game drives start in the early morning (we may have to leave the hotel just at dawn — around 6:15am) and usually last about three hours after which time we will return to the hotel for breakfast. On several days there will be a further game drive in the afternoon (usually from about 3:30pm to 6:00 pm).
There is a reasonable amount of walking involved on this tour, although none of it is particularly strenuous. Sensibly we are not allowed to walk on foot inside Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve and in stead we will use open-topped jeeps or a large, open-topped truck fitted with rows seats to explore the reserve. We anticipate birding at a couple of small sites just outside the reserve entrance and are allowed to walk here. These walks will be short and easy. At Bharatpur the layout of the park is ideal for long, gentle walks as the entire place is criss-crossed with good, level paths and tracks. We can expect to complete walks of three or four miles here. We’ll spend one night and parts of two days at the Chambal Safari Lodge. Here we’ll take a boat ride on the nearby Chambal River and make a few short walks close to the lodge itself. Again, none of these activities will be strenuous. At Ramnagar we’ll walk along a braided riverbed which will involve uneven, boulder-strewn terrain and possibly the need to cross shallow bits of the river on stepping stones. At Quality Inn we go for a long walk that takes all morning to complete, although there are lots of stops for birds. During this walk we’ll follow the path of a small stream for some time and although the trail is a good one, we may need to scramble over a few large rocks in some places. This walk, and all the others on the trip, can be easily undertaken by anyone with a reasonable degree of fitness.
At Nainital, although we are in a mountainous area, there will only be a few uphill walks and these will be taken at a gentle pace. We reach altitudes of about 8000 feet at Nainital. If you have any questions about your ability to take part in any of the walks, please contact the WINGS office. On at least one of the three full days that we spend at Nainital, there will be a 5:00am start so as to be a good site for Koklass Pheasant at dawn. As with most of our early departures this one will be optional.
ACCOMMODATION: At Bharatpur we will stay at a nice, medium sized privately run hotel about 15 minutes drove from the park entrance. All of the well-appointed rooms have private facilities, including showers. Our accommodation at Sawai Madhopur, near Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve will be of a similar standard. Both of these hotels have outside swimming pools. We’ll spend one night in Agra where we’ll go sightseeing around the Taj Mahal before continuing our journey west to the Chambal Safari Lodge. We’ll spend one night here in clean but fairly simple accommodation. We’ll stay in the lodge’s cabins — each will have two beds and a private bathroom with western toilet and showers. There are occasional power cuts here — but most of these are brief. The accommodation here is adequate, the location good and the food superb. The following day we will have a boat trip down the Chumbal River before having lunch and slowly heading back, via Agra, to Mathura. We’ll then have dinner in a hotel restaurant not very far from Mathura Railway Station and will have access to two rooms to shower and change.. We’ll then take an overnight sleeper train from Mathura north up to Lal Kuan. This train journey should take about nine hours and in the past has left Mathura at 11:20pm and arrived at Lal Kuan at 8:40am. Conditions on the train are adequate, but only that. There are four beds in each cabin, two upper and two lower bunks. Each room has a sliding door that can be locked and each railway carriage usually has between six and eight four-berth cabins. There are toilets at either end of the cabin but these are rarely very good. We will be provided with two sheets (and upper and a lower sheet) plus a blanket on the train. Please note that private cabins are not available and that while we’ll attempt to segregate men and women this might not be possible. Note also that because we’ll attempt to segregate the sexes couples might have to be separated for the night we are on the train.
In Corbett National Park we’ll spend two nights at Dhikala Forest Lodge, where the rooms are spartan, and the supply of electricity and hot water, from past experience, can be erratic: Please be aware that the accommodation here is poor by western standards. Single rooms cannot be guaranteed at either Bharatpur or Dhikala. The Quality Inn just outside Corbett Park where we spend two nights is often the favorite place of many people on this tour. The rooms are large and the bathroom is fitted with a water heater. In Nainital we’ll be staying at a good, modern hotel, the Vikram Vintage. Please note that at Quality Inn and especially at Nainital, we can expect cold nights. The hotel at Nainital is designed for summer use and the rooms are not heated. A small electric or fan heater is provided at Nainital but this has limited effect.
Leaving Nainital we’ll return to Delhi spending one night in a good hotel about half-way between the two.
DRESS: Dress is informal throughout.
TRANSPORT: Transportation between Delhi and Ranthambhore and between Ranthambhore and Bharatpur is by train. The first journey takes about five hours, the second three. We will have seats in the best accommodation that is available and will acquire several porters to help us with our luggage. Transportation between the other sites is by bus. Private vehicles are not allowed inside the Tiger Reserve at Ranthambhore and instead we will explore parts of the park using jeeps or a larger truck fitted with rows of seats. At Bharatpur we may also use jeeps or one of the park’s 16-seater electric buses to travel around the reserve.
We’ll travel from Mathura, near Agra to Lalkuan, at the base of the Himalayan foothills, by train. We will again have the best accommodation that is available on this overnight sleeper and will acquire several porters to help us with our luggage. The journey is scheduled to last for 11 hours. On arrival at Lalkuan we will be met by a fleet of gypsy jeeps and transferred to Ramnagar for some birding and then on to the Quality Inn.
At Corbett we will be on foot, on elephant-back or in our bus and at Nainital we will explore on foot and by bus.
SMOKING: Smoking is not allowed in the vehicles or when the group is gathered for meals, checklists etc. If you are sharing a room with a non-smoker, please do not smoke in the room. If you smoke in the field, we ask that you do so well away and downwind from the group.
GENERAL INFORMATION & CONDITIONS OF WINGS & SUNBIRD TOURS: Please take a moment to read the WINGS General Information & Conditions. This section contains important information about how we conduct tours, e.g., what is included in the tour price, refund and cancellation policies, pace of the tours and other information that will help you prepare for the tour.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: A more complete General Information for Tours to Northern India will be sent to each registrant on rceipt of their booking. Final information with instructions for meeting the group, hotel addresses, etc., will be mailed about three weeks before trip departure. Other news will be communicated as necessary. If you have any questions, please contact us.
Updated: March 2007