Saturday, October 4, 2008

The land of Koalas & the 'Roos

Planning

So, we decided to go meet the Mayteys down under. Mindful of the overhead of managing our 5 yr old monkey, we decided to take a guided tour approach.
Kesari seemed to have the best user feedback on the web ( mouthshut.com )
The 'Australian Escape' from Kesari was what we wanted. They were priced the highest, but we later learned that Kesari prices had several extra benefits.
  • The prices were all inclusive
  • No extras for paying the bus drivers, porters, guide, etc.
  • Breakfast, lunch & dinner are paid for. They also arranged for Indian food at almost every place we went.
  • Even at the Mumbai airport, they gave us a food satchet with lots of snacks. They included a Tel Poli, Chaklis, Mixture, Dink Ladoo, chocolates, etc.

Some negatives( there always are)

The Bangalore office was less knowledgeable/helpful than the Mumbai office (compared to the experiences of fellow travellers).

  • We were mis-informed about stuff like clothes to take, despite us asking several times.
  • I was forced to look up the web for better connections between Bangalore/Mumbai and prod Kesari to make them book us a decent connection.
  • They told us the flights out of Bangalore to Sydney had LOONG layovers, which again was not true.

The Itinerary

The whole trip over 12 days was split amongst 4 main areas



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