Indian Subcontinent Traveller Reviews - On The Go Tours

The setting of the tour was beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed the additional activities we paid for (small boat & traditional massage). It’s worth pointing out that we were unaware that there would be additional costs associated with the tour prior to departure. While we appreciate that a massage is an optional extra, it should be made explicit that the package is not inclusive of all activities and rather only covers the boat itself. We had not brought sufficient cash to pay for all the additional expenses (not wanting to carry too much cash) and therefore had to go to an ATM during the trip.

The boat used was not an acceptable standard. The furniture was limited and damaged. The bedroom had an unpleasant smell from the primitive bathroom. We were rationed for air-con; we were only allowed it at night, and it was turned off when we were sleeping (very early in the morning). The water from the bathroom taps was brown and the shower ran out of water. There was also no mosquito net over the bed and holes in the sheets! The bathroom door was also challenging to shut as it was partly broken around the latch. Overall, the general feel was shabby and a bit dirty.

The driver who collected us was excellent and the transfer to the boat was good. Communication with us regarding this was also very good.

The food on the boat was very tasty, however we were taken to a fish market and had to buy fresh fish for the boat. This cost 44,000 rupees for two days! I had expected all food to be included in the cost of the tour. I view fresh fish as an integral part of the houseboat experience and was shocked that if I had not bought, it would not have been on the menu.

The first night we stayed in a beautiful, small village, however the second we stayed at a busy port where we felt unsafe as two female travellers. The only reason we could work out as to why we were there was that the captain wanted to spend the night at home; we sailed in the morning of the last day so the choice of location did not seem to be driven by time constraints.

Overall, a beautiful part of the world but a less than beautiful boat. ”  

My tour was split effectively into the basic tour at the beginning and the "wild" more safari type at the end.

I had 2 Guides, the first was quite dour, not unfriendly but not friendly. He was brusque and seemingly did not have time for social niceties. He had a lot of information but was not clear in terms of instructions for scheduling etc. He did provide water bottles and re-filling of these and also wi-fi, I am not sure if these are standard within the On the go tours package, but he emphasised that he had organised them.

Our second guide was great, very informative, patient, friendly and spoke about the culture of the country and etc which made the toud feel much more personal. Obviously this was a group of only 5 people, so it was easier for him to be this connected through the size of the group and the time to dedicate to organising us.

Sadly the main drawback to the tour was created by other members of the group! A very disagreable woman who liked to talk constantly over the guide, telling us all kinds of useless information about her home country and also being rude to other members of the group. I realise there is little to nothing which can be done about other members, the guide in the second group was very patient with her. The first guide lost his temper and brought the group together to tell us all off on our last night - not the best note to leave on!”  

Overall very good tour, I was happy and felt safe. Enjoyable in general, hotels and food fine, our guides for both parts of tour were really knowledgeable and the guide who joined us for Ranthamborne was lovely and sweet. Awesome to see tigers in the wild (although I wished that litter by a temple in the park had been picked up by rangers as rest of place was clean)! It was also good to see guide looking out for one member of our group after a monkey had got on her.

The points to raise are:

- I felt very rushed with arrival transfer. He did not ask if I wanted money exchange, like my transfer had in Jordan. He ran out the airport at great pace so it is a good job I was not old or with a disability!

- In Delhi the market tour could be pushed back a little, I know it would be too difficult when crowded, but just a little later as stalls were opening would be nice as as it seemed pointless to be there with everything deserted.

- Our guide took us to 3 "local workshops", which were basically soul-less over-priced shopping trips between Agra and Jaipur. Many hours were spent between these as the guide did not hurry people (guess because he gets a cut of spending). On a short 1 week tour which includes a lot of travel, these were too many hours wasted. We came to see the country, not spend hours in a shop. A real locals market would have been more enjoyable to do any shopping at, but we did not do this - in fact we lost chance to do Jaipur market due to length of time at the expensive workshop. A couple of people were getting very fed up - but no one wants to make a big fuss in the moment and cause trouble.

- At our Jaipur hotel a few of us asked if there was anywhere we could walk out to to go and visit, our guide discouraged us, whether it was because he wanted us all to definitely be there for dinner or because there really wasn't anything about it we didn't know, but we felt we did not get as much from our time in Jaipur as we could have.

- It would have been nice to see a Hindu temple somewhere on the tour as it is the main religion in India.

- I understand about cultural sensitivity but it would be good if there was someway OTG could help encourage awareness with their contacts about the awful littering problem in India as it was very concerning to see; we mentioned to our guide, and although he understood and didn't drop any himself he said that the government had tried - clearly they haven't as there were few bins and people were uncaring about dropping showing a lack of awareness on this subject!”