Travel logistics for Kerala (and Mysore)

For our travel in India we have asked travel agencies to arrange a two person tour. This year we felt we could do the planning ourselves. In the end mostly because of laziness we asked a travel agency do the work. After surfing the web we contacted Envoy Tours and asked them to modify their standard Kerala tour. They hired our driver and city guides, booked hotels, and suggested extra activities.

To help individual travelers to Kerala and Karnaka this post comments on the travel agency, drivers, and guides. They were all excellent.

Travel Agency

Envoy Tours was the 3^rd travel agency we have used in India. It was by far the best. Envoy sent a proposed program, so we could ask for adjustments (we asked for one hotel change and passed on an elephant ride).  The agency also found a driver and city guide for the Mysore portion of our trip.

All Indian travel agencies are not equal. A previous agency booked us into a Mysore hotel that lacked convenient public transportation into the city  For New Year's eve they booked us into hotel that charged USD29/person for a New Year's "party." It was highway robbery.The party was a buffet dinner held in the hotel's unheated (freezing) garage and the guests were charged for drinks including water! For more information on what can go wrong see our post India Travel Logistics.

Drivers

We can't overstate how important a driver is. A good driver can make a trip virtually hassle free. He may meet you at the airport or your hotel, follows a flexible schedule, and goes where you want to go. In practice we let drivers set the time for a morning departure; they are better at estimating travel times between points. Our driver in Karnataka was Ravi and in Kerala Rajeel. Both were careful, managed congested traffic and winding roads capably, and scheduled rest breaks at places with clean toilets and inviting restaurants.The restaurants catered to travelers, but not necessarily tourists. We stopped at a one place that gave us an extensive menu. The waiter acknowledged most requests including one for stuffed tomatoes, with "don't have." Surprisingly stuffed tomatoes appeared - a yummy surprise. A limited inventory and more limited English made the restaurant memorable.

Rajeev Kumar

We spent 4 days with Ravi and 10 with Rajeel. Think about it - it is a lot of together time. Both men pointed out sites along the road, stopped for quick tours and commented on what we were seeing, e.g., in Karnataka signs had their English blacked out. Both drivers made sure that the hotel registrations went smoothly and they acted as translators for a few transactions. Along the way we had conversations and came to know a bit about each other's lives and families. We recommend both Ravi and Rajeel highly and hope that you can  book with them if you are traveling in the region. Ravi , who lives in Bangalore, may be booked through GL Tours & Travel  gltourstravel@gmail.com and Rajeev can be hired through Envoy. Rejeev would prefer to be booked directly. If you leave a comment and I can send his mobile number. 

Tour Guides

In general we have found licensed Indian guides are quite good, but once again Envoy did an exceptional job. We had four guides who did far more than rattle off facts or, as is often the case in India, focus on the many gods and their relationships to each other. Unlike Northern Indian guides no shopping "opportunities" popped up on our journey

For one day - crowd management

In Mysore M.S. Raghunath "Ragu" made sure that we didn't get swept up in the Dasara crowds. I expected that the palace would be boring, after all we had seen it in January.  I was wrong.  Ragu focused on items that were important in the Dasara parade. He added similar depth to the other sites we visited. Raghunath can be contacted at Raghunath337@gmail.com

In Kovalam we met Ramesh Nair who took us to some sights in Tamal Nadu as well as Kerala. We had a lot of car time, which allowed for many interesting conversations over a wide range of topics, including the status of women (good). He said that he doesn't get bored because always learns new things from his clients. Our contribution - the naturalized Americans can change their name when they become citizens (thank you, Sandhya, for teaching us this.) Ramesh talked about the challenges of working on bus tours, making sure that passports aren't lost or luggage forgotten -  may be worse then chaperoning a bunch of teenagers. Ramesh can be reached at raameshnair@gmail.com (the aa is not an error)

Sreeraj may have been our youngest guide ever. No problem - he was a committed environmentalist and studying to be a volunteer naturalist. He was invested in introducing us to Mummar. He was pleased to choose our lunch menu at a local restaurant and so were we. The piece of personal information that I enjoy was that he and his wife lived with his brother and his family and Sreeraj (I can't remember if grandparents were also in the house.) To keep piece television serials (which I think are similar to soap operas) and politics couldn't be discussed. He can be reached at s_r_ee@yahoo.co.in

Our tour with Tomy Joseph was the shortest of the trip (3 hours); they were a packed 3 hours. We went aboard a Chinese fishnet. We were especially interested in the synagogue and Jew town. He was informative in describing what was in the synagogue and the status of the tiny Jewish community. You can reach Tomy at teejaytomy@yahoo.com






In the Future

We were happy with all the arrangements - the only change we might have made was to stay at different beach at Kovalam, but then we found a small seafood restaurant and expressed a wish that we would see the staff again in the future. In a few cases the guide had to fill in an open schedule. In hindsight it isn't fair to put the burden of where to go on the guide and we would give more thought to what we want to see, e.g., contemporary art and markets. In some areas we may see if a travel agency can help us identify music or dance performances.