Dear Anupama
Many thanks to you and everyone at Compass for an excellent holiday in India - quite fascinating and enjoyable. We were very well looked after. We also appreciated the considerable trouble Compass went to to make alternative arrangements for us once fog in northern India meant we needed a change in itinerary.
We look forward to travelling again with Compass some time in the future.
Best regards
Tim 9/1/10
Dear Sukriti,
Sorry for the late response..was caught up with work. I have written a testimony based on our vacation:
From day 1 as we arrived in New Delhi to Day 17 when we took off, the representatives of Compass India Inc assured that we faced no inconvenience anywhere. The hotel check in’s, sight seeing, shopping, everything was well planned and executed. The cars used for travelling were clean, spacious and comfortable and the drivers were well informed and alert on the roads.
The guides at every site gave an in depth insight into the history of things. Some guides were national guides and hence a wealth of knowledge. We were constantly kept informed and were contacted regularly by the Operations staff to ensure our safety and comfort.
Lastly, the office staff members in New Delhi are pure professionals and did everything to make our vacation one of the best. They replied to each and every query we had since 2 months before our travel and made sure all our concerns were addressed promptly.
We would definitely use the services of Compass India Inc whenever we visit India and would recommend Compass India to anyone who wishes to travel to India.
hope this helps. I will send you pictures a little later in low res. Should you decide to use any and need a high resolution photo, I will send it over as well.
Thank you and have a good day.
Regards,
Rupak
Subject: Re: REQUEST FOR FEEDBACK
To: Anupama
Hi. I hope you are all doing fine!!
My family and I are glad we took the tour we your company, it was a nice experience. The services offered by the company were excelent, some of the problems we had were with most of the guides, with 2 hotels (Mumbai and the other that I don't recall), and with the driver form Mumbai; but It was a nice experience and if we go back to India, we would choose Compass India again.
Thank You for everything!! Hope to see you again.Dario Villalobos
Dear Surbhi
I just want to thank you for all the trouble with our trip in India. We had the best time and I am sure much of it would not have been as nice if it was not for your effort and suggestions.
George, our guide in Kochi, was very knowledgeable and had a good sense of humour. Robert was the best driver ever and it was great to have him with us for such a long time. He went out of his way to inform us and accommodate our wishes. He is a great guy. We had a great ayurvedic massage in Kochi - will tell anyone going there to do the same.
We loved the houseboat and the staff made my birthday extra special.
Thanks for the part you played there too.
The Devaaya Resort in Goa was also great. It was quiet, but as expected seeing we did not go in season.
I would not recommend the Sterling Resort to anyone. It was great being in the teaplantations and enjoyed travelling there, but everything from the check-in to the rooms without water and not warm enough blankets were not nice. The waiter's clothes were as dirty as the table cloths and the service was not good. We still had fun and laughed about all of this, but circumstances like these could spoil a holiday!
Once again, thank you for making our holiday one of the best ever.
Regards
Esta
Hi,
Its good to be back home, however we had a superb holiday...THANK YOU.
The service was excellent, our experiences amazing, beyond words.
We appreciate the support that was given to us and will recommend your organisation to
other interested travelers.
The Hotels met ALL our expectations----they were all excellent.
The drivers were extremely polite, showed tremendous patience and doubled as superb guides. Stanley in Mumbai was ever so helpful and willing to go the extra mile to ensure that we were comfortable.
Mr. Daya Ram in Delhi did his best to ensure that we were comfortable thro' out our
trips in Delhi as well as in Agra. He gave us a guided tour of all he cities, took us to the various sites we requested and showed great concern for our safety.
He did not hesitate to assist us with our luggage onto the platform on our trip to
Surat, as there were no porters around.
The driver in Surat was quiet, but extremely trustworthy and very accommodating to our needs.
With reference to the guides, we were truly blessed to have someone like Yumani,
in Mumbai. Her approach, her gentle manner, her demeanour was totally impressive
and she was knowledgeable, and interesting to listen to. Her command of the English language was impressive.
Mr Rai in Mumbai was such a darling, he stressed himself over our comfort. Our flight
to Delhi had been cancelled, and with a fair bit of running around and tons of stress
he eventually got us onto a flight.
Our experience in Delhi will be remembered with a chuckle. My husband had gone to
the Jamma Masjid to offer his prayers. He chose to leave his shoes beside him. Upon finishing his prayer, he looked beside him and was aghast that his shoes were stolen
We then bought him a pair of sandals as he has a high instep and is unable to wear just
any shoe!!!!!!!!!!!!
Recommendations;
We were not fully informed of the benefits due to us like having the services of a
driver and car in Mumbai and Delhi. In Delhi we had requested a change of hotels
because we were unaware that we had a driver and car at our disposal.
My suggestion is that all clients should be well-informed.
Our train trip to Surat was disappointing as we were expecting a first class AC
berth and not a 2nd class. For foreigners maybe the 1st class is a wiser option
especially if travelling for 15hours.
In panic we then requested a change of the train to Mumbai. We were however pleasantly surprised...the CC-AC compartment was extremely comfortable. And were glad of the experience.
Our Bangalore leg of the trip was very interesting, however were disappointed that the guide insisted that we leave Mysore at 9'00am,when our flights were only at 6pm and 9pm. Basically we spent our day sitting, which was a waste of precious time for us. We spent the best part of the day sitting at the air-port. The Bangalore agent did not meet us on the return journey, and called us a few hours later at the airport requesting us to fill out a feedback form. This was the only time that we experienced inefficiency. The standard here needs to be improved.
Overall we had a lovely, interesting and memorable trip and on behalf of my family
I say a big THANK YOU for the efficiency, the warm welcome and the amazing organization.
To you and the rest of the Compass Team...your services are excellent May u always
maintain such a high standard.
Your company will certainly be RECOMMENDED to others.
Wishing you and the Compass team a Happy New Year and the very best for 2010.
Best Wishes
Soraiya Moola
South Africa.
Hi Anupama,
Thank you for arranging this tour for us. I was very impressed with
the services we got from the representatives, the driver, the guides,
the hotels and YOU.
The hotel in Delhi, because of the old carpet, the smell was too strong. It was switched to a different room after we requested on the
3rd night (The first two nights, we thought that was what we could get
with the money we paid).
I have told many of my friends about your services. May be, some of
them will get your service in the near future. I wish that India is
not far away so I can get more people to use your services.
I have forward your email to Poay-cheng. May be she will give you feed
back, too.
Susan Hsiu-fang
Dear Sukriti,
Thanks you for your greetings. At the same time, a big thankyou for the wonderful arrangements made by you & Compass, it exceeded my expectations and everything went super smooth.
Rgds
Sunil
Dear Ms Kapoor,
We are back in our home country, and indeed filled with sweet memories of Incredible India !
The last 10 days we spent at the house of our daughter, son in law and grandchildren, and we had a wonderful time.
Quite some time we spend by visiting things in the city and the surroundings.
As promised, I will write you a more detailed “report” with some suggestions we have for you. These not as critic, but merely to make it possible for your company to even perform better/more focused on our culture and way of thinking, which will, I hope, make it possible for people from our countries to better understand each other.
But the most important is that we had a great/wonderful/unforgettable trip in India.
And it was very well organized by Compass, and we will most certainly recommend your company to anyone asking for it!
The drivers: Rajesh and Josef: how can we ever forget them ???? Besides being great, safe drivers, they also told us, during the long trips, all kind of things about what we saw, their personal lives and India.
All guides did a good job, telling stories and listening to our questions.
The warm welcomes at the airports, the detailed information, in short : an excellent tour operator you are !!
And it all started with you! Thanks to the way you personally gave us all the needed information made us make a choice for Compass.
In due time I will also send an e-mail to your director.
For now, thank you very much indeed for making this a never to forget experience!!With warmest regards,
Marcel de Breet
Dear sukriti,
It's a pleasure for me to come back with this Feedback form.
It will be a very detailed feedback
Delhi
Arrival on Delhi Airport: Good Welcoming and very kind person at the airport
Hotel on delhi: Poor conditions, and not very well situated
Guide: Very short presentations, not very communicative and left us before the hotel in the middle of the road.
Agra
Hotel: Good conditions
Guide: Very cultivated and very helpful
Sightseeing: Very impressive and very good program
Jaipur
Hotel: Very Good conditions
Guide: Correct, needs to improve communication with guests
Sightseeing: Impressive and very good program
Jodhpur
Hotel: Very Good conditions
Guide: Good
Sightseeing: Good program
Udaipur
Hotel: Just good conditions
Guide: Good and communicative
Sightseeing: Good program, but preer to know from the beginning that there was no water in the rivers
Flight to Mumbai:Good Assistance on the airport
Overall conditions of transfer between the cities: Good conditions, very very kind driver but not a verygood english, a small problem of car on the road in the mountains.
Mumbai:
Assistance on the airport Good
Hotel: Good
Guide: The best we saw in our Indian Trip , very cultivated, devoted, simple, near to the customers and try to make the journey suitable to our forecast, enjoy knowing her
Sightseeing: Good but sometimes no place to park in to admire the full sightseeing, but we get some bonuses to compensate this
Assistance on the airport: Very Good
I enjoyed the whole trip an it was magic. If it was to repeat, I would not hesitate.Tarak kachouri
Dear Anchal Suman,
Sending short feedback on the tour. It's in Portuguese, because I have some difficulties in translation (sorry).
The program of the trip was always a great follow-up, including service support (excellent) in all airports. Cars and drivers with a good performance, excellent even in the initial route (Delhi / Agra). The performance of the guides in general, was very close to good, removing the Goa guide that looked like a esperitual (VERY BAD, I should be refunded the amount paid). The hotels, removing the Dehli (not recommended), were good especially the "Crown Plaza" in Kathemandu. The Resot "Hyatt" in Goa excellent, beautiful, cheerful staff and always well prepared and a excellent catering service (wine a little expensive).
As recommendations, I would say:
- Office of the guides should be more careful;
- Some of the sites indicated by buying guides convenient little;
- After completing the visits, was an interesting involvement (estimates) with routine of the cities, thus better understand the culture and realities of each city;
- Include a small tours in the evening visit to the centers, or places major cities was positive.
In summary, we conclude that the service as a whole was very good. The my thanks.
All the best for you, and maybe even a day.
If they need some help from Portugal, have.
Best regards,
Alfredo Cardoso
Dear Anupama
I loved India and I think our choice of Compass India was the best we could
do. I appreciated your organization of schedules and tours, transport, the solicitude of guides and drivers. I could only suggest perhaps that travelers could give the total amount of tips at the beginning or at the end of the tour and not almost day by day, sometimes is not the most comfortable alternative. I also think that you didn’t need to hide that we would change in Agra for a worse hotel than the indicated: saying the true, and not that we would have a better hotel, would be understood by us.
Anyway, I liked the tour very much and certainly I´ll recommend you to any
friend of mine to go to India!
Thank you and a lot of success to Compass India!
Dear sirs,
Our experience was funtastic! All the trip was an excellent discover. The services, hotels, transport, guides were the best possible. In a scale of 100 points we will give you 96!!Best regards
Maria Silva (Portugal)
Ms Varsha Gent.ma,
we have not forgotten you and the beautiful, perfect trip to India and Nepal of 20/07/2009 As promised, albeit with considerable delay due to commitments and the difficulty of organizing thousands of photos taken, allegations that a first batch of photos you can use at your leisure without any limitation.Followed by other 3 groups of photos.
Thank you and your staff (especially drivers and guides) for a great trip touting our friends and acquaintances
Regards,
Franco Rigotti
Dear Shweta,
As Loraine has said, we do want to give you some feedback concerning the holiday youarranged for us: not least because we understand your wish to hear what could have been done better.
The overall content of the tour was exceptionally good, giving us insight into the different cultures that have influenced India and Nepal during several millennia. We also enjoyed the opportunity to see the Himalayas at close quarters. The range of activities and the time available for each balanced very well with our interests: although it was often difficult to move on from one spectacular location to make sure we didn’t miss anything from the itinerary later.
Our driver from arrival in Delhi through to taking the train in Agra (Lal Bahadur) was absolutely first class. He drove with care and consideration for his passengers throughout and handled difficult traffic conditions smoothly and without showing any sign of stress. We had complete confidence in him at all times.
Our guide in Jaipur (Devendra Singh Khangarot) was especially knowledgeable: we particularly appreciated his descriptions of the Observatory instruments and the care he took to find a shaded spot whenever he wanted to describe something to us. It was an honour to visit his home for Diwali and we are grateful to him and his family for their hospitality.
Our guide (Omeese) and driver in Khajuraho looked after us very well. Fortunately they stayed at the airport after we checked in to depart. I was ill that day and when my wife asked them if a doctor could be arranged for when we arrived in Varanasi, they took me to a doctor in Khajuraho and back to the airport, so I was improving by the time I got to Varanasi.
The gentleman who met us in Varanasi (Nitin) was very helpful. Because we arrived later than expected (see above) he had rearranged our schedule so we missed nothing out. He was most helpful on our departure to Nepal, explaining the Nepalese visa system and exchanging our INR 1000 / 500 notes for INR 100 notes before we left.
Our room at the Grand Imperial in Agra was most impressive and we enjoyed the live music whilst we ate an excellent dinner both nights. (Unfortunately, the room service and service at the front desk fell short of expectations for a hotel of this class.)
Dwarika’s hotel in Kathmandu was amazing: the best hotel we stayed at. The architecture was very interesting: the rooms were vast (especially No 55 which we stayed in for the first 2 nights), with many interesting artifacts dressing the rooms and public spaces. We particularly enjoyed our meals in the coffee shop and in the Krishnarpan restaurant during both our visits.
The dinner and dance show in Kathmandu was a very enjoyable evening, as were the sound and light show and musical evenings in Khajuraho.
Overall our visit was a brilliant experience. We saw a lot of wonderful things: made by man and naturally occurring, and witnessed so many festivals and cultural events, all of which have broadened our knowledge and, I hope, enabled us to better understand what is happening in India and Nepal.
Thank you very much for all your hard work to ensure we achieved so much in the time available and had such a memorable and enjoyable experience.
Also, thank you very much for the hand bag and carved model of the Ashokan column which are pleasing reminders of Diwali 2007 and the many interesting things we saw, including the archaeological museum at Sarnath.
Best wishes for a very happy Christmas and for your good health and success in the New Year
From
David & Loraine
Brookfield
17A The Whiteway
Cirencester
Gloucestershire
Dear Shweta
Here we are back home after our short but very memorable tour of India.
We all need to thank you for arranging the tour and answering our e-mails so promptly.
Initially we thought it a bit of a risk finding a tour company on the internet, but out fears was ill founded.
The accommodation in Mumbai was basic, but very close to the Taj President. Several of the players changed their accommodation to the Supreme Hotel which was certainly cheaper than the Taj. We were able to watch the finals of the Scrabble championships, which were most interesting. Noelene had asked other agents to find suitable accommodation in Mumbai, but you were the only one who was able to do so, so thanks for that. The touring arrangements worked out very well with the eight seater. We must commend Ram for his driving skills in all the heavy traffic. The guides were excellent, with special commendation to Raj in Delhi.
Trevor and I enjoyed a swim at the hotel in Jaipur. This was certainly the best of the tour.
I'm sorry we were not able to meet you in Delhi. With all the correspondence, Noelene and I got to know you well, without meeting you.
I trust you received that very small momento from South Africa which we asked the agent to pass on to you.
To sum up, it was a very interesting tour and we thank you for the efficient way you organised it for us.
I'm not sure if we will be visiting India again, but if we do so we will contact you at Compass Tours.
On behalf of Estelle, Trevor, Noelene and Joy
Best wishes and regards
Brian
Greetings Varsha,
Well we have settled back home now after our wonderful journey through India with Compass. I would just like to thank you for the excellent organisation of the trip. Everything went very well and in most places exceeded our expectations.
Our driver in northern India, Vikram was absolutely wonderful. He looked after us incredibly well and we are very grateful to him. He was always prepared to do an extra bit for us. This was especially appreciated on Christmas day when he turned up with flowers for us all. He always drove safely and kept the car clean. We are very grateful to him for making that part of the trip so smooth. We would definitely recommend him to people.
Our guides were also great. We also appreciated the Compass representatives who met us at every stop.They were unfailingly courteous and helpful. We really appreciated their flexibility such as when one of the children was not well or we were very tired and needed to adjust our timetable.
Our trip down south was also great. Our driver there was fine (not quite as good as Vikram) but always courteous and helpful. The process was not quite as smooth when we did not have Compass agents but we were still extremely pleased.
We loved the majority of places we stayed at particularly Mandawa(Mandawa Haveli),Chennai(Marina Towers), Bikaner(Bhawar Niwas) Jaislamer(Jaisal Castle) Jodpur(Pal Haveli)and Kumarkom(Kovilum Lakeside).
Our only disappointments were Tourist Deluxe in Delhi. our concern here was the location made it difficult to walk very far and feel safe. Also we found this hotel a bit overwhelming as our first stop and would probably have appreciated something a bit easier to start with. Our other disappointment was Oriental Towers (Tanjore) which was quite dirty.
Occasionally our itinerary was a bit too busy in Rajasthan and it was difficult to do tours after a long days driving however these are only minor issues. Overall we were extremely happy and would recommend your company to anyone. If you wish us to be a referee for your company please let us know.
Thank you again and best wishes to all at Compass who made our trip so wonderful.
Maureen Paul Kate Sam and Maggie Rogers
Hi Varsha
it's taken us a few days to recover from our long journey home ( 48 hours) but now it is time to write and thank you for all the work you did to make our month in India run so smoothly. Jim and I had a wonderful time - and not for a moment were we unhappy with any of the decisions you had made for us.
We found our accommodations very good - some really excellent ,and worthy of mention for that is Jas Vilas in Agra - a lovely place to stay. Everywhere else was as we had hoped, and we enjoyed the heritage places too.
It was great to be greeted by a Compass representative wherever we went, and to know that we could call on them if necessary . The guides were all very intelligent young men ( no women ? ) and increased our knowledge of each area, and it's history.
Our drivers were excellent. Mahesh, Lahar in Rajasthan, and Denisen in Kerala were all very courteous, punctual, and looked after us well. Best of all they were all safe drivers, and in all that chaotic traffic for all those miles of driving, I never saw one of them take an unnecessary risk and we felt safe with them. Please pass on our gratitude to each of them.
And many thanks to you and your team too. We have had an experience to remember for the rest of our lives, and you and Compass Tours made it as easy for us as it could possibly be. Thanks again Varsha, for your efforts on our behalf - it truly was a fascinating tour, and we will strongly recommend you to anyone coming your way.
Kind regards,
Susan and James Edge.
Hello again Schweta,
Here we are back home and surrounded by snow - Dieter is just clearing our drive.
I would like to thank you for arranging our holiday, which was a great success. The organisation, promptness, efficiency and friendliness of all concerned was impressive.Everything went as planned and there were no problems. We were really well taken care of.
The only things I found hard to take were the abject poverty we saw, especially the mothers and children. It was distressing to see people living the way they do. It was also very unusual for us to not be able to go anywhere alone - usually we book flights and hotels and go everywhere by ourselves. In India we had rightly realised this was hardly possible owing to the street and traffic conditions, but I did miss it.
We will remember the holiday as it was so diffferent from any other. I particularly enjoyed talking to the guides and drivers who gave me an insight to your fascinating customs and lifestyle, so different from ours.
It was so nice to meet you, thanks for arranging the meeting,
All the best and take care,
Kristine
Dear Sir,
Now we are nearly one week at home and I would like to say: Thank you very much for organising our tour through Rajasthan.
We liked the Heritage Hotels you have chosen for us. Sometimes they were just great, sometimes there was not the expected level (Pushkar and Mount Abu). Deogarh is for elder people exhausting, because to go to the restaurant we had to climb 153 steps!
Our driver Kuldeep and his help Balseet were excellent, very cautious and no minute we were afraid of his driving, even there was much traffic and two-way traffic.
Mr. Surinder Malik was a good guide and took care of us. In every situation, he helped us. whether we need in restaurants to chose menus or buying medicaments.
We will not forget our guides we had in Fathepur Sikri, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. They all know the history of their monuments and we learnt many things.
We can warmly recommend all persons, who “took care of us” and who gave us also the feeling being a welcomed guest.
Of course we will recommend you and so I’m sure that some friends of us will also organise their India tour with your Travel Agency.
Thank you Mr. Durjay Sen Gupta and thank you Mr. Pury.
With our best regards and good memories of Rajasthan
Yours
Franz, Rita, Severin and Teresa Mairinger
Hi Varsha,
We are back in Germany and I wanted to thank you for the great organisation!
Special thanks to Balbir, our excellent driver and to Vicram, who brought our mobile phone to the airport before we left! That was very nice.
Our tour guide in Agra was very nice and well informed, too. Unfortunately I forgot his name.
I hope you did not misunderstand my objection regarding the missing tour guide in delhi. For us this trip was not cheap and so we just wanted to
mention it, because we were a bit disappointed. Nonetheless it was a great trip and we will recommend your travel agency to all our friends (I think
Tom Petsch and Ati Leenen allready booked a flight with you in India) and we will certainly come back to your beautiful country.
I hope we have the chance to travel to india again soon as we both enjoyed it a lot.
Thanks again and best regards from munich.
Kaspar
Hi Anupama,
Hello there from Spain, been delighted of writing again with you!
The comment of my trip with you is positive, especially for the drivers' service (Maney and Pradep) and also for the assistance got for the representatives. The quality of the service of the hotels also has been good, with the exception of the hotel of Badami that was below the quality exigible. Also I am satisfied with the guides, especially with the Aurangabad guide that estubo very well. I do not like at all the Goa guide, they recomiento that they do not hire it. As for the design of the itinerary of the trip it was perfect, perhaps I exceed us one night in Badami that we could have done it of more in Goa.
As for the negative part of the trip I have to say to them that he should not remain satisfied with two trips in train in which I touch myself the arriva bed, my wife suffers dizziness and I happen two nights being sick, think that as the reservation was done by a lot of time they could have reserved the lower bed. Also the final price of the trip seemed very expensive to me, as soon as there were seen the prices of hotels, trains, gasoline, guides, etc I believe that the price of the trip had to be much minor.
Summing up, in general I have remained satisfied with you for the received assistance. For the next year do I have intention of traveling round Cambodia and Vientnam, his agency can organize my trip or has relation with other companies that could do it or only they devote themselves to organize trips for India?.
Thank you very much for writing and see you soon!
paco ballester hernandez
Fascinating Rajasthan Tour
Spain Sent: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 2:59 PM
Hello Varhsa,
We are sorry for not write you before.
First of all, thanks for all the work than you and your team have done last summer to do our tour a magic experience. It was really wonderful. The organization was very good, the hotels were very nice (bundivillas a nice surpirse, thanks for you election; samode haveli ...uff, incredible rooms 114 and 115,...), the car modern and new, the drivers very professionlas and attentive (and the most important, very good persons), the guides very good too (thanks for give us spanish guides in most of the places), the tours operator in each city very professionals,... just one thing wasn't very good. The train from Udaipur to Delhi was in 3d clas. This was a wrong election (and in part was my foult for not to check it). We were 4 so the right election was 2n (or 1st) class, because in 2n class the compartments are for 4 people (not for 6 as in 3d class).
I send you a picture with our driver (I'm sorry but I'm not capable to spell/write his name, can you help me, please ?). Could you print it and give a copy to him, please ?. I send you some pictures of us in India.
I need your advice for one of my friends. They are planing top visit India in november/desember. They are planing his tour with an spanish company and I think is a bit expensive and not as good as our tour was, so I can ask you if you can prepare a tour for them (they are 4 people).I send you the programe that the agency has made (I've traslate to english some thinks). I don't like some of hotels (well, the most of them) but you know better and I'm sure you can preparer a better tour. They are comnig to Delhi from 2 different places (1 from Bangkok, and the other 3 from Barcelona) but planes arrive to Delhi at very similar time. I don't like the lasts days Agra-Delhi-Varanasi-Delhi because they are transport-complicated.
Can you choose the next hotels, please ?:
Agra: Trident
Varanasi: Radisson
Jaipur: Samode Haveli (rooms 114 and 115)
Udaipur: Shiv Niwas Palace (terrace suits)
We were in this hotels this summer and were all of them very, very good.
Oberoi Maidens in Delhi is too a good chance, but perhaps is not as good as the others.
Best regards
Jordi, David, Marta and Xurxo
Spain Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 4:23 PM
Subject: Greetings from Spain Dear Durjay, It´s been quite a long time since our trip to India finished, and we owe you some feedback. We´ve been prety busy until the moment since just before our trip started, we had moved to a new house. Now life is becoming normal. I hope you all are fine, and we expect no relatives or friends of yours have been affected by the bombs in Mumbai. We were shocked when we heard the news. Our mind was full of thoughts and feelings similar to the ones we had here in Spain with the 11M attacks at Atocha train station. Coming back to the trip. We must say we had a wonderful time in India, and you and your team made a great work. Everything run accordingly and we made the most of our stay. Something I considered highly important, was the driver, and I have only good words for Shingara. He was absolutely perfect, always in a good mood, willing to go wherever we planned different from the scheduled tour. He contributed a lot to having a great tour. With regards to the guides, I must say they were all good, but there was one whom we considered exceptional. The guy who guided us in Jodhpur. Absolutely fabulous!!! I guess he is one of those guides you can follow during a whole trip. Very nice person and very professional. When we have friends coming to India, or if we come back again, we will ask you for this guy, for sure. We were a little bit disappointed with the guy who toured us in Udaipur. He took us to a very expensive miniature shop and we decided not to buy anything. That same day later in the afternoon, he followed us to see where we were buying things, and the day after during the trip he asked us for an explanation. We didn´t expect that treatment. We did not pay much attention to that but I guess you´ll need to be careful, because it was an uncomfortable situation for us and I guess there was no need for it. From the point of view of the tour I must say he did a very good job, very interesting explanations and very good spoken Spanish. Our trip to Agra was a little bit stressful, I know this is in part my fault, because I try to concentrate as many things as possible in a trip. I guess it would have been better if we had gone to Agra by train instead of by car. It took us a very long time and left us with not much time to visit monuments. We had to decide which visits to skip, and that´s hard when you´ve come from so far away to visit a country. Maybe you can think of this for some other trips of people. There was a hotel we did not like at all. The one in Jaisalmer. It was abandoned and the people at the front desk were not very helpful or nice (the staff was very good, as everywhere in India). Just in case someone else asks you for it. I guess these are the only things I would highlight, for the rest, the trip was excellent and we keep on looking the pictures we took once and again. Absolutely wonderful, Durjay! Great work you and your people did. We loved everything we saw, we loved the people, the chaos, the traffic, everything. You have a wonderful and huge country and the best thing is that you are making it accessible to foreigners like us at all its best. It was great to see your people at the airports, at the hotels, never feeling alone or insecure. I know a colleague from Daniel has contacted you in order to organise his trip to Calcutta. We´ve been publicising your company all over because we had a great experience, and we would like our friends to share that too. Next time we visit India we would like to go to the South - Kerala and the backwaters. We have no dates but I´m sure I will contact you again! Feel free to provide our e-mail address to give feedback to other travellers from Spain. We will be glad to share our wonderful experience with other people so that they take Compass to plan their tour. Thanks for everything once again!
Our warmest regards
Virginia & Daniel
we are happy to provide feedback as follows:
Overall rating - excellent - we had a fantastic trip to India and Nepal.
Compass organisation - Outstanding!! - Everything happened exactly when and how it was promised.
Note: The "preferences we filled in beforehand were taken as requirements. This was not our intention - the form asked us to tick boxes - male or female guides, soft or firm mattresses, etc. By ticking a box I meant to indicate a (mild) preference, not a requirement which might then compromise other choices. This led to unfortunate incidents with wooden boards in beds (preference for firm mattress) in Delhi and Mumbai. Both of these were sorted out very quickly by hotel staff, so it was not a problem.
Hotels: All excellent except Delhi which was good, but not up to standards of others.
However we did get food poisoning in Radisson Kathmandu (our only consumption was in hotel, so it could not have come from anywhere else)
Meet and Greet service at airports: All excellent - only Goa slightly less (still very good).
Drivers: All excellent.
Guides: All excellent. Nidhi in Jaipur deserves special praise.
Excellent restaurant tip in Mumbai: Khyber.
Outstanding service in Kingfisher airlines business class.
Regards,
Rob & Erica Woodcraft
Hi Mr. Durjay
! Now, we're back from India. We've had a very nice trip and I thank you very much for all the amenities you've planed for us. Only two little things I have to tell you : - Your correspondent in Varanasi is not clear (but the driver is top !). For example, hi tells me to give to the porter in Varanasi train station, 100 INR; but the price is only 20 ! So, I ask me where the 80 are now ! - The driver in Kolkata does'nt speak english - not at all. He was just terrified to be alone with us and have to speak English. Luckily, your correspondent was really top! Don't worry for both. But it's better you know it ! And I thank you again.
Very Kindly, Alain Boutigny
Dear Varsha,
I take a few minutes to give you our feedback on our trip to India.
Overall we are very satisfied with Compass's work. Our appreciation of hotel, drivers and guides choices is good (except for French speaking guide in Jaipur who was much less professional than the others and really made us feel like "tourists" + lack of friendliness of reception staff and pressure for tips from personnel at Clark's Agra and Khajuraho). The guides in Jodhpur and Agra were outstanding.
The follow-up by the diverse Compass agents was very good.
Our only disappointments with Compass were regarding:
- programming TAJ MAHAL on a Friday!
- underestimating the traffic in Delhi which had us miss our train on day 2 of the tour.
You can contact us by mail for further information if you wish.
Best regards,
Gaëlle
I promised to send you some feedback from our India trip.
As I have already said, we had a wonderful time, and the few things that did go wrong were taken very seriously by your organization, who did all in their powers to put things right. Everyone can make mistakes, but it is how they are handled which is important.
The things we would like to highlight as being particularly good are:
- Our guides in Varanasi and Ranthambhore, who were flexible, responsive and also very interesting people to talk to
- Varanasi, which was an amazing experience - totally different from anything else we have seen
- Meeting people: visiting the rural family in Ranthambhore, the school in Sarnath and the Rajput family in Jaipur
- Reggie's camel camp - I can thoroughly recommend it to your guests
- Our driver who took us long stretches both safely and with good humour
The things that didn't work or were less good are:
- The hotel mix-up at Khem Villas. There really was a big difference between the normal rooms and the cottages!
- Although all the guides were incredibly knowledgeable, a couple seemed intent on showing us all the temples/monuments on the standard agenda, even though we had requested an emphasis on meeting people
- The flight problems in Jodhpur, which resulted in Lars and William having an extremely long travel time to Mumbai
We will gladly recommend your organization to any friends planning to travel to India, and we hope to return again at some point in the future!
I will upload some pictures from the trip to FlickR and send you the link when I have done this.
Best regards
Beverley
Hi Shweta!
Now I'm home in old cold Sweden again with nothing but sweet memories of India.
I really want to thank you for everything; you have done a terrific job with our trip! We are so great-ful and happy with the service that you and Compass India have given us. Everything has gone just smoothly and everyone has been so sweet to us. We just had a few thoughts as you might have seen in our feedback, but all in all we are SO VERY HAPPY with our trip.
We will definitely use your company next time we are going to India (we already want to go back) and furthermore recommend Compass India to everybody we know.
Once again: THANK YOU!
Love from
Susanna Esplund
Hello Shweta,
How are you?
I would like to give my feedback about the trip to India.
First of all, I just realized that you are a lady …… sorry about this.
This happened when we had chat during our journey and one of them just mentioned that you just got married too, Congratulation.
Now about the trip:
Started from Delhi’s airport until Bhairahawa’s airport in Nepal, the trip was really smooth and some parts were exciting too.
How lucky I am to get such very good driver like Govind from Varanasi all the way to Nepal.
I would give him an excellent score from the way he drove the car, the way he talked to everybody and the way he served us for almost 9 days passed thousands kilometers on both good and bad road.
If one day I have chance to visit India for Buddhist pilgrimage again, I will choose him as my driver for sure.
Also special thanks to Misra (Guide at BodhGaya) for his knowledge about Buddhist history and important places.
I attached our picture with Govind at Nirvana hotel Lumbini before left for Kathmandu.
Last but not least, I would like to thank to you for everything and good luck.
Regards,
Senahadi
Dear Anupama,
Once again thank you very much for having organized such e beautiful tour for us. We really enjoyed the BnB in New Delhi; the staff was very kind and the indian food excellent.
In Ladakh it was a great idea to suggest us to book the camp in Saboo, which was very quiet and allowed us to rest very well from the noisy Leh. The staff was very friendly and the food very good.
The Organic Retreat in Nubra valley was our best experience as well as the camp in Uley Topko; the camp in Tsomoriri was very basic but as far as I know there is no other choice.
Our guide and driver in Ladakh were very professionnal and friendly, we had very good contact with them.
I will warmly recommand your agency for organizing tours in India, as i am airport employee i have a lot of colleagues travelling all over the world and we often give each others advices.
Once more thank you very much for everything, we really have good memories of the tour.
Bertrand Carroz
Dear Anupama,
I'm really sorry that I couldn't write earlier. Aglaya and I married in
September so we were very busy organising the party and honeymoon. We are back now and I would like to give you some feedback on our Rajasthan trip.
First of all I would like to thank you and your company for the wonderful trip to India. Overall we are very happy having chosen you as a travel agency. We liked the planning of the trip with you by e-mail very much. You Anupama are very professional and quick in answering on our requests.
Thank you for having all the patience with us as we had quite a lot of
questions in the beginning. The good start continued after we arrived
in Delhi and during the whole trip:
Itinerary:
Very good, it was astonishing how much we could see in only 16 days. Next time however we would skip Bikaner and Mandawa, that wasn't so interesting
Hotels:
Most of the time very good. The best was the Trident in Jaipur, absolutely fantastic. On the other end we didn't really like the heritage hotels, next time we would stay with the modern hotels. Especially Deogarh we cannot recommend, it was a bit scary to stay
there. After that experience you changed the hotel in Mandawa at short
notice which was excellent service.
Guides:
Very good. The best guide we had in Agra, he was just wonderful. The same is true for your representative in Jaipur (a tall, young Rajput who can even speak Russian).
Driver:
Rajesh was excellent and I cannot highlight enough how important a good
driver is. The traffic was heavy and sometimes very dangerous. With Rajesh we felt very save and comfortable. He was always on time, nice company and a good "guide" on the road. The car, a Toyota Innova was very good.
So once again thank you very much for your service, we recommend Compass tours to all our friends who are interested in India unconditionally.
Please give also my thanks to Ashish. If you have any more questions I
would be happy to answer them.
Kind regards from Switzerland
MarcoHello Varsha,
How are you?? and your future husband?
Sorry for the big delay, but time pass to quikly....
Here I join some pictures of our wonderful trip.
If you want more tell me (we had about 1300 pictures....we are crazy :-))
Some friend are interested to visit you, but rather in 2007 like us...
We would like to visit the south (Kerala and Karnataka) in 2007! When is it the best time to visit this part of India (May is it to late because of the rain season)??
I hope you 'll be able to organize our trip!
Some of our postcard (posted to the reception desk of our hotel, Howard Park Plaza in Agra) are never arrived.... All the other posted in our hotel were arrived quikly. Did you already have that kind of problem with this hotel? Fortunately we sent the most part of our post cards before....
All of us wish you a nice end of year, and a new year 2006 full of beautiful moments.
Gilles
Esplund
Dear Varsha
PS: I'll send you some pictures soon.
PS1: I'll speak about you on an important web French forum, I hope some people will contact you!
PS2: Don't hesitate to contact us if you come in Europe. I give you again our adress and phone numbers.
Geneva (we live there) is in the center of Europe and we have low cost flight company or fast train to most of the European Cities (Paris, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona,...) and Switzerland is beautiful too.....
Gilles-Antoine Philippin & Géraldine Dussex
Ch. des Vignes 18
CH - 1213 Petit-Lancy
Phone: +41 22 301 98 52
Mobile: +41 79 429 06 32
Dear Varsha,
We just wanted to let you know what a wonderful time we had in India. It was very difficult to come back and start working again :) And we have already started spreading the news about Compass. People are starting to get in line and we can't wait to plan our next trip to India. We had a great driver and guides. Please give our best to everyone who worked so hard to make this a memorable trip for us. Now you have two more friends from Turkey and hopefully that number will keep increasing as years go by. See you soon.
Sincerely,
Burcu & Omer
Dear Varsha,
Thanks for arranging the tour – everything went well and we had a most enjoyable time ! Could you please e-mail me an official receipt – I need this to complete my expenses.
Many Thanks indeed!
Best Regards,
Tim Lacey
Dear Varsha
Apologise for not emailing you earlier.
The accomodation,sightseeing and hospitality were excellent.
Every city we visited was unique and interesting. Our favourites were Jaipur, Udaipur, Bangalore, Mysore, Alleppey and Goa.
Your representatives in every city were helpful and extremely courteous especially : Joe Ferreira ( Garha tours - Mumbai), Vikram (Delhi), Bivil (Cochin).
We enjoyed sightseeing with all our tour guides especially: Mr Dharmalingam (Chennai), Mrs Varsha (Mumbai), Mr Polly (Mumbai), Mr Shalendra (Delhi).
They provided us with the knowledge and historical backgrounds to the numerous places we visited.
All your drivers were outstanding and a special mention to the following: Arun (Bangalore), Vincent (Chennai), and Rippin Kumar (Delhi, Agra and Jaipur).
If possible please convey our thanks to the above.
Varsha, A Big Thank You for arranging our beautiful holiday in India (Jan 2006). You patience and understanding in compiling and organising a tailormade tour is appreciated. Your dedication is highly commendable and we will not hesistate to travel with Compass again.
Thanks to you, we had a superb time and the memories will linger on forever.
Our Compliments and best wishes to you (Varsha) and the Compass team.
From
Mona, Ruben and Reshania NaidooDurban, Kwa Zulu Natal
Hi Varsha,
I would like to thank you and the Compass team for the very enjoyable trip to India we had in Feb/07. Except for the "guide" in Delhi, everything else was organized very professionally and my husband and me enjoyed very much the experience. The car, the driver (very nice person), the hotels, the flights - everything went smoothly with the help of the agents. The local guides were good, not counting the Delhi one which was not a guide, so I guess it was a one time flop.
Regards,
Magda
Hello Durjay:
Few words to give you a congratulation for your work and this of your team during booking and our tour in India.
We have apprecied - now and later - your cook book.
I hope we have the chance in the future to go back in your beautiful country and work again with you.
thanks again!
philippe duquaine / wavre
Dear Durjay and Sue,
We had a GREAT experience in India and Nepal. Compass service is extraordinary.
Thank you for everything!
Namaste!