How was your Explore Tour Leader?
Aby was very good but unfortunately left two thirds of the the way through the holiday to return home to visit a sick relative.I am also booked on a trip to see the Gorillas in July and hope that is an improvement on the India trip.
Must also add that several of the people were sick and we considered ourselves fortunate that we had avoided any illness until the day we returned home when we were stricken down with Swine Flu. Checking on the internet it seems that 90 people died in Rajastan the week before we arrived from swine flu. We are just getting over it now.
What tips would you give to someone else booking this tour?
I would not recommend this trip to anyone. It was more an endurance test than a holiday. Although this is not your fault the train to Calcutta was 5.5 hours late and combined with the 12 overnight train journey it meant that we arrived in Calcutta too late to really see much. Unfortunately that seemed to be a place that was not a slum. I must say that I am not particularly sqeamish and have camped across South America but this trip did not gell and probably needs to be revamped. I would also add that twice there were rats in the couchettes but they were dealt with by the authorised rat catcher.
Do you have anything else to add?
Unfortunately the hotels, although passable, ( most of the showers did not have hot water) they were invariabl;y located in slum areas where the road were covered in rubbish and filth.
At the first hotel we were on the ground floor and we abutted an alleyway. At 2am we were awoken by shouting and arguing from just outside the window and it seemed that it abutted a store or workshop to the building next door. There were wires hanging from the wall where a TV should have been and of course there was no hot water. Thankfully we were at that location only one night. Ironically the road outside that hotel was not covered with filth.
I still have not received the Explorer bags that we were supposed to receive.
