Escape plan to India and Nepal January 2011

A brief summary on the itinerary

Escape Plan to India and Nepal 2011:

Total duration 8D6N
India is 2.5hrs behind Singapore.
Flight time is 5hrs 30mins on Sri Lankan Airlines to Bandaranaike Airport in Sri Lanka, transit of 4hrs 25mins followed by 3hrs 35mins on Sri Lankan Airlines to Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi India.

Flight time is 1hrs 55mins on SpiceJet Airlines to Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Flight was on Sri Lankan Airlines on 29th January at 7:05am and arrival in Colombo at 10:05am and departure on the same day at 2:30pm and arrival in New Delhi at 6:10pm.
Return flight was on Sri Lankan Airlines on the 4th Febuary at 7:10am in New Delhi and arrival in Colombo at 10:45pm and departure on the same day at 11:40pm and arrive in Singapore at 6:05am.

Day 1 – Arrival in New Delhi and check in
Day 2 – Red Fort, Rajghat, Swaminarayan Akshardham temple, India Gate, Humayun’s Tomb & Lotus Temple
Day 3 – Day trip by train to Agra, Fatehpur Sikri & Taj Mahal
Day 4 – Flight to Kathmandu, Swayambhunath Stupa, Tibetan Refugee Camp & Patan
Day 5 – Kirtipur town, Kathmandu Dubar Square & transfer to Nagarkot
Day 6 – Nagarkot and journey back to Kathmandu
Day 7,8 – Flight back to Delhi and Home Sweet Home

This escape plan was planned during the Chinese New Year of 2011. We wanted to go to places where the festival is not being celebrated for fear that the entire place would be dead due to the festivities. So we chose India and Nepal so that we can also visit one of the new Wonder of the World, the Taj Mahal

Budget nature: Not too bad.

As much as I tried to get 3-4 stars hotel accommodation, we had to spend quite a bit of the VISAs for India, which had to go through some local agent to get it done (Nepal is VISA on arrival). We had gotten the better seats on train for the day trip to Agra and also a return flight to Nepal (which is cheaper to do so flying from Delhi compared to Singapore), and Nepal tour arranged through a local agent.

Complexity: With planning, it would be manageable.

We managed to get around Delhi by taxi and in Nepal, those were managed by pre-arranged tour agent. Stayed near the train station for the early train to Agra.

Visa for India was a pain to arrange.