Mr Douglas and Kirsty Rolland

I enclose your questionnaire relating to our recent magnificent holiday in northern India. We’d both like to thank you and all Indus staff for facilitating this memorable adventure to a land of true riches.

Our expectations were constantly exceeded: the natural beauty, fascinating history, engaging, friendly people and too many photo opportunities (1700 in fact!). We did both succumb to stomach problems but although quite debilitating they were short hired. The precision and reliability of your arrangements was impressive. All travellers are different and you have to cater for all types and inclinations so our highlights and personal observations must be interpreted as just that personal. Simply as customer feedback we’d like to convey the following, which must be seen in the context of a highly successful holiday:

Favourite accommodation & Cuisine : wilderness camp – exceptional service and meals.

Outstanding guides : Satindar (Delhi), Rattan (Agra) and Dilip (Jaipur).

All drivers were great; special mention to Umrao Rawat who put up with us for many days over many dusty miles. Competent, discrete and informative. We particularly like his physical demonstration of how to operate a water wheel in the middle of a wheat field in the absence of the usual twin cattle! Many drivers could make perfectly able guides.

For what its worth, a couple of not so hots:

Lunch stop on Amritsar – shimla run

Boat house at Ropar was truly awful : dirty and staff not interested. The only bad eating experience. The days drive was 10 hours so a happy break was important; we realise this is probably an unusual route for Indus.

Grand Imperial Hotel – Agra

Our request to reschedule the itinerary probably unsettled your first choice of hotel in Agra – the grand Imperial may have been grand in the past but no longer. The only accommodation we didn’t care for; poor dinning.

We mention these items only because we want Indus to thrive and feel our observations may help. We found the whole tipping philosophy hard to adjust to but just the way it is, although some tourists probably over tip and that raises expectations unrealistically and spoils it, particularly with porters who are accustomed to receiving the average wage for a day for 2 minutes portering. The figures suggested in your travel advice for tipping we feel are now slightly too low, but certainly there has been inflation in tipping in recent years by all accounts.

Please return the enclosed Taj Mahal ticket to Rattan who was agitated that we couldn’t find it for him after our visit. He requires it to redeem the value in his office & I know he appreciates it!

We’ve had a special 3 weeks trip and wouldn’t hesitate to travel with Indus again or recommend the company to friends. We’d be happy to answer any further queries, in spite of the Mumbai atrocities we shall be back : India and her tourist industry deserve the ongoing support of travellers. A lovely country with enchanting people.

With thanks and very good wishes,

Douglas & Kirsty Rolland

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