Trinetra Tours were recommended to us by a friend in Australia whose faith in Tapas Banerjee's company was entirely borne out by our experience. We spent two weeks in Rajastan in January on a pretty packed schedule but one on which real thought for our welfare and enjoyment had been expended. We spent a relaxing couple of days in the charming palace of Udai Bilas in Dungapor before embarking on tours of Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaipur. Nights spend in the lovely hotels of the small towns of Rohet and Narlai where we were able to experience more of the rural life of Rajastan provided further opportunities for relaxation. In Narlai we went for a wonderful ride into the countryside on horses from the hotel and the jeep safari in Rohet was also a fascinating insight into the life of the local people. We were travelling with our nine-year-old son so the sense of being looked after was of crucial importance and in this we were blessed by the presence of Prakash, a prince among drivers, whose good sense and devotion to our well-being made the entire trip a delight. In Delhi we were able to meet the rest of the Trinetra team and spent a delightful evenign with Tapas Banerjee and his family at their home. Even Tapas could not re-arrange Vladimir Putin's trip to Delhi which did slightly spoil our experience of the city as all the main Lutyens buildings were cordoned off but this disappointment only gives us an excuse to return which I am sure we will do in the future.

Sarah, Mark and Ned Lutyens
Grand Children Of Sir Edwin Lutyens one of the most important English architects responsible for the layout and planning of New Delhi

Dear Mahendra and all the staff at Trinetra,
I would like to take this opportunity to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone in Trinetra Tours who was involved in planning the recent holiday to India for me & my family.

We had a holiday of a lifetime that went beyond our expectations. It was due in no small measure to the superb planning and execution of the holiday itinerary by all the staff involved in Trinetra. From the moment we were met at Delhi airport by the Trinetra rep. Mr. Krishna, to the time that we returned there 16 days later with Mr. Krishna again, we were able to relax and enjoy the experience of a lifetime in India without any worries or hassle.

It was such a reassuring feeling, Mahendra, to have you available at the end of a mobile phone, for any issues that arose, which were confidently, swiftly, cheerfully and efficiently dealt with by you anytime you were contacted. You did not let me down at any stage. You went beyond the call of duty and I am grateful.

I cannot remember any holiday where I was afforded such a high comfort level and faultless service as I got from Trinetra. In summary, we put our trust in you and it is only fitting that I write to express my congratulations to you all for living up to that trust. You very definitely did not fall in our eyes at any stage and have earned an excellent reputation. I would be absolutely delighted to recommend Trinetra to any of my friends interested in travel to India in the future.

Kind regards & many thanks,
Bill Bhandal. Ireland. (email protected - available upon request)


Dearest Tapas and Krishna,
How remiss you must think us for not writing sooner! We hope David and Elizabeth conferred our heartfelt thanks when they called you in Delhi; we had thought we would call you together but then we got caught up in the mess of having to move from the Imperial to the Metropolitan and then back to the Imperial again and then another move to the Raddisson. Anyway, both Tim and I want to tell you that having dinner at your home and meeting your wonderful family was truly one of the highlights of our trip. Please give a big hug to Krishna from us----you truly found your jewel. Arjun is the most delightful young man and we so enjoyed meeting and conversing with him. We know how proud you both are and with good right.

Tapas, you are a wonderful tour agent and, like the Whites, we will refer you to everyone who asks about our trip. Everywhere we went in the South of India was exactly where we wanted to be. I talked to a friend who has been to India several times and she said we hit the highlights and avoided all the lowlights and she commended the person who designed our itinerary. We too commend you and we will be back in touch as soon as we know when we are coming back to your incredible country. Because of you, we have only the best memories of India. Because of you, our trip was a lifetime experience. Because of you, we could relax and enjoy it all. Thank you so much, Tapas, for helping to insure that this was the best trip we have ever had. Please feel free to use us as a reference.

Do take good care of your wonderful Self and keep in touch. Please convey our deepest thanks to your wonderful staff and especially to Raman and Mahendra for keeping our suitcase and getting it back to us in Delhi.

Much love,
Susanna and Timothy McMahon USA (ibu.one@sbcglobal.net )


I read the following quote from the late PM Nehru: "India is a land of contrasts, of some very rich and many very poor people, of modernism and medievalism. India is not a poor country. She is abundantly supplied with everything that makes a country rich, yet her people are very poor." Those words were quotes on a page for me before this trip. Your tour made it come alive for me and for Jason. It was beyond expectations.

India moved me and changed me. I have never been in a land of such contradictions: of such modernity in its hotels, malls, and offices, and such primitiveness in the villages; of mobile connections everywhere and olden approaches to farming; of such beauty in the hills, and such ugliness in the shanty towns and gypsy encampments; of such wealth at the palaces and such poverty at the rail stations; of such religious piety everywhere while still being governed democratically.

Thank you, thank you for creating not just a vacation tour, but creating an experience. Visiting palaces, forts, and World Heritage sites is a vacation tour, but we got much more. How else to describe the following but to call it an experience?:

• Jostling through hordes of people, rickshaws, tuk-tuks, 2-wheelers, cars, and cows with the sounds of horns blaring all around you in the bazaars of Jodhpur and Jaipur
• Drinking masala tea with fresh cow's milk made over an open fire with the women of a Brahmin village
• Having a camel guide snap a dozen shots of me in quick succession because he didn't realize that my camera can shoot at 5 frames per second with the shutter button fully depressed, and at the same time having his young grandson and friends whisper and throw dirt clods at Jason and then run away
• Talking for half an hour with a shopkeeper about "love marriage" versus "arranged marriage" .
• Trying to figure out how to get past a cow and her bull in the narrow alleyways of Varanasi to get back to our hotel (couldn't do it without the help of a young man pushing them to the side)
• Standing in intense heat to observe a body getting cremated at the cremation ghats in Varanasi
• Talking for 30 minutes with an older gentleman about Indian politics, corruption, and how the good old days are gone

If I were a more adventurous traveler, then I'm sure I would have had a lot more experiences but what you put together was perfect for Jason and me.

As I sit here at the edge of the ocean writing this, it's hard to believe that a few days ago I was 7000 miles away in a place that is so completely different than here having experiences that I will never have here. And yet only a click of a "send" link or a punching in of a phone number connects us. The world is truly becoming flat.

I cannot thank you enough, Tapas and your staff, especially Raman, for putting together such an extraordinary trip and for ensuring that everything went smoothly. Every detail was taken care of, and we felt extremely safe, secure, and well taken care of. You have surely enriched our lives.

Ms. Lenny Toups, USA ljtoups@raytheon.com


Hello:
I am happy to say Maureen and I arrived home safely after a very interesting trip to India. We enjoyed our trip and were very pleased with the services you provided. Our driver, Kalaish provided exceptional service - he was always on time and the car was always clean. The guides and driver were in constant communication via mobile phone which made things run very smoothly.

We enjoyed the Heritage Hotels since they were comfortable and provided charm and atmosphere as well. The Rashmi Guest House in Varanasi was very clean with a great location and a good restaurant with a wonderful view of the Ganges. I was a bit worried about the Swiss Tents at the camel fair but it turned out the tents were quite comfortable and the staff at the tents went out of their way to be helpful.

Please feel free to use my name and email address (dmcody1@yahoo.com) for a reference.

We hope that in the next 2-3 years we will have a chance to visit the South of India and you can organize another wonderful trip for us!

Regards,
Doreen Cody, USA
dmcody1@yahoo.com

Hello Gagan,
We would love to be on the reference list. victor.yablonsky@shaw.ca,
dupinder.yablonsky@shaw.ca

Can you please forward this message to Tapas as well I'm attaching our photo for him. Tapas, we just wanted to thank you for a wonderful and hassle free trip organization. We especially appreciated you team being there for us at ever destination for pick up and drop off. We enjoyed meeting Raman, Ankul in Dehli and Wilson in Mumbai what great guys that are really nice and professional. Tapas, we also want to thank you and Krisna for inviting us to your home we had a great fun meeting your family and enjoyed your company.

Best of wishes,
Dupinder and Victor Yablonsky, Canada

Namaste Tapas
Namaste to all those who helped make our holiday so enjoyable
We returned to Israel 4 weeks ago, after a wonderful ,enjoyable and interesting holiday, and still whenever I close my eyes, and think of India, I am immediately surrounded by the sounds, sights and atmosphere that make your country so special, and which left such a strong impression on me. It was a pity though, that we had only 19 days at our disposal, and so touched only a very small part of the country

With hindsight, I don't think we should have made any changes to our itinerary, and our decision to take the train to Udaipur on the first night was correct, and saved us a day. A pity we couldn't do more overnight train trips, as they were comfortable (luckily we had a cabin to ourselves) and saved time. I did not realize how much time is lost by going by plane, and what with the trip to and from the airport, the 2 or 3 hours that you have to be there before the flight, and the good possibility of the flight being delayed, a day with flying is pretty much a day wasted.

The hotels we stayed in were all well chosen, and we enjoyed the special atmosphere of the heritage hotels we stayed at. I wanted to single out what we considered the best hotel, but the Rashmi in Varanasi and the Generals Retreat in Jaipur make it difficult to name the Ratan Villas in Jodhpur the best.

All our guides were Knowledgeable, very helpful, and gave us good insights to the cities they introduced us to. A special mention for Umesh Kumar Sharma in Jodhpur is in order though- I enjoyed his company the most.

You said that our driver would be the person we could always rely on to help us with all our small needs, requests, and our spokesman if necessary, and Shoban Singh (hope I spelled his name correctly) certainly filled the position completely, And did all in his power to make sure that all went smoothly and comfortably.

Once again I would like to thank you all for your kind service. If we visit India again we will definitely contact you first, and hope that then we will manage to meet you, Tapas, in person

Shalom
Larry and Gila, Israel gilarry@netvision.net.il


Tapas and team,
Hi!
This is Julie and Marg reporting in.
We have had an explosion of experiences here in India.

We can honestly say that each and every day we have seen and learnt something new. The differing ways of life, culture, impact of religious beliefs have enriched our knowledge immensely.

We were really privileged to meet you and your beautiful wife.
It was a wonderful start to a great adventure, many thanks.

We are glad that we came to Mumbai, especially after Varanasi as it adds a more balanced view of your country.

We are off to Goa tomorrow for some R&R.

Just wanted to say that the organisation and co-ordination of all events has been meticulous. The agents have been very good and we would like to especially mention Ankit who gave us a great welcome and to Ram, our driver who was customer service personifed.

NMore updates at the end of our tour.

But for now, many thanks and great appreciation of all the hard work and effort put in to our most wonderful of trips.
many thanks,
Margaret & Julie, U.K. mlwhitmarsh@yahoo.co.uk


Dear Tapas and Pal
Firstly, thank you for a very good itinerary. We have filled out the evaluation form with suggestions and hopefully you will get it from the greeter in Delhi.

We are grateful that you got us the bikes....it was an excellent way to see the villages and smell the air of Rajastan. We feel very very privileged to have had Roshan Bhatt as our major driver for 17 days. He loaded and unloaded those bikes, had excellent English so we had wonderful conversations with him about what we were experiencing, about Indian life, and we feel that he became a friend ..................he should be a guide and we recommend him highly. Unlike some drivers, he was very conscientous about always keeping the doors locked, about greeting us, opening doors, and being on time. He is a great part of what made Rajastan so special for us.

Re accomodation.................loved where we stayed except for Ganarao...........The fort is unique but it was cold, the food was poor, and there was little to do in Ganarao. We biked there which took an hour or two and then we went for a walk for 14 kilometres. In retrospect I wish we had known at the time that there was a fort 60 km away...........Kumbakgagh ?? ........

The other place that we could have missed was Cardoman House in Tamil Nadu. The drive of 6 hours for a 2 night stay was far too long and while there we amused ourselves by walking extensively but we could have done that at Periyar or Munnar. So from our point of view we would rather have had 3 nights inMunnar and 3 nights in Periyar.

Suggestions
All guides should wear a name tag. Most told us their name very quickly and we often did not catch the name or could not remember it. Indian names are different for us and so we needed something visible to remind us.

Many guides (in Delhi, Udaipur, and Agra) spoke quickly and had a set tour re what we saw and what they commented on. We found that these guides spoke too quickly and we missed over 50% of what they said. If we asked questions they were sometimes offended as they had already said something about the subject but we had missed it. And they would hurry us past plaques and places that we wanted to spend time at. As a result, for us, our best tour was at Mehangir Fort in Jodpur where we declined the tour guide and took the audia tour which we loved. We understood the audio, could replay it if we wanted, it has accessory information, and we could go at our own pace.

Trinetra has a great reputation and we can understand why. it is an excellent company..............we are so!! glad that we had our own driver and were not in a group! We were always met on time at flights and rail locations, hotels were lovely (except ganarao) ...we particularly loved the hotel in Udaipur...jagat niwas, ...the tent in Rohet...........Nairli........and the Coir Island resort. we loved the Backwater cruise in Kerala but feel very strongly that the Keralan government needs to limit the number of boats using the canals, put stonger restrictions re debris and gas emissions, etc. This is a fragile environment that is going to be ruined by tourism. The government needs to work out a balance that sustains tourism and local economies re fishing and agriculture or it will lose in the long term.

Tapas
We would be happy to be a contact for your company. We do feel that people/customers need to know the reality of distance and time when planning their trip. In Canada, a distance of 100km is usually covered in just over 1 hour. But in the rural area of India....this journey may take 5 hours. Tourists need to know this is figuring out where they want to go and how long they want to stay in one place. With such info we would have realized that the trip to Athoor was so long and so far away from where we wanted to be in kerala.

Please if you have any questions that you want to ask us, then send off an email and we will be happy to send back more input.

Please reiterate to your wife and son a sincere thank you for their hospitality and kindness. Meeting your family was a wonderful way to begin our visit to India. We have learned so much from the gentle and kind people of India and it is a place that will remain in our hearts. Next time we come we hope to go to Himachal and other more northerly areas.

To you and Pal, we want to say a sincere thank you. Yours is a fabulous company that is so well organized and that succeeds in providing a wonderful opportunity for visitors. You should be very proud. We thank you.

with thanks and appreciation
Melanie and Rod Mcarthur, Canada
melanie.mcarthur@sympatico.ca