Delhi, Kullu-Manali and Agra
Date: 19-Apr-14 to 26-Apr-14
This was not actually a trip. It was our honeymoon :-). The destination we chose was Kullu Manali and we also had the plan of visiting Agra. There are many “first”s involved in this trip. It was our first trip after wedding and it was the longest trip we had ever gone. It was 7 nights and 8 days long. This was my first journey to north India and I was travelling in flight for the first time.
Manali
Plan:
Deciding our honeymoon destination itself took us few days as we were not sure about the number of leaves we might get. Later, we decided to take 3 weeks off and decided to utilize this vacation to go to a place which is far from Bangalore. So, we finalized our destination to Kullu-Manali. Both of us did not want to go through package tours as we wanted to go on our own. So, we had to plan well as not to get cheated anywhere. Both of us discussed and made lot of research about the places, hotels, and transport. We came across a hotel called Apple Bud Cottages which was providing good offer for our money. More than that, the hotel had got very good reviews from the tourists who stayed in that hotel and also the Trip Advisor rating was 4.5/5. They even offered a Delhi-Manali-Delhi Volvo package which we felt worth the money we are going to spend. The package included 3 nights and 4 days accommodation, breakfast and dinner for all days, all sightseeing by individual taxi, bus (A/C Volvo) ticket for two people from Delhi to Manali and from Manali to Delhi, 1 candle light dinner, and pickup from bus to hotel. We confirmed the package details with the hotel and we finalized our stay at Classic room in the Apple Bud Cottages + Delhi-Manali-Delhi Volvo package. Our Checkin date to Apple Bud Cottage was 20th April 2014 and checkout date 23rd April 2014. The total price for this offer was 20700. The next major expense was flight tickets. We booked Spicejet for the onward journey and return journey was by Air India.
Since we were supposed to join office on 28th April and our Manali trip was ending on 23rd April, we decided to go to Agra after the Manali trip. So, we had to book train tickets from Delhi-Agra and Agra-Delhi. We calculated the time we might reach Delhi from Manali as 9.30 AM and booked the 10:20 AM train to Agra from Delhi (24th April), so that we can directly book a hotel in Agra instead of Delhi. We booked the return train from Agra to Delhi for 25th April for 3.15 PM. At 1.10 PM, 26th April, was our return flight to Bangalore from Delhi. Thus, we completed all our transportation planning. We did not book any hotels in Agra and Delhi as we needed hotels in these places only for a day or two and also we were sure that there would be lot of hotels in these famous places.
The detailed day-wise travel journal of our trip is in the following links: