India highlights, Taj, Ganges, & ancient monuments

Planet

This is a very Unique & very special trip for us, where we are supporting an NGO called Jagriti who are involved in giving education, accommodation, clothing & food to small children who are found begging in railway stations. An amount of £5 per person goes to this NGO.

We are using the old heritage palace hotel in Jaipur & Varanasi whose owners have maintained the building very well thus contributing to saving the old Indian architecture and culture. We use only local guides in Delhi Agra, Jaipur & Varanasi

The Hotels you will stay in was constructed using locally available material and is built in the local style without chemical paints. They use waste wood boilers for heating and try to minimise electricity use by using energy saving lamps and solar, hurricane and earthen lamps in the night. In addition the hotels we use use recycled stationary, harvests rain water, uses soak pits to collect water and reuses waste water in the garden. All cleaning is done manually (no machines), organic waste is composted, food is cooked on LPG stoves and they do not allow music or televisions to keep noise pollution to a minimum.

People

We visit the Benares Hindu University center of learning for Sanskrit, Indian art, culture, and music at Varanasi. Varanasi is an important seat of Indian Classical Music. The Benaras Gharana is an important institution that teaches music. Ustad Bismillah Khan was born here, he was a proponent of Sehnai a classical musical instrument.

At all the destinations we use local transport, and the drivers are from the local communities. We believe in using local infrastructure in order to encourage as well as provide impetus for development. We support a small school (Gram Vidhyalaya) for 50 students and a contribution of £5 per person goes to this school.

This trip aims to help and support a more responsible and sustainable approach in Cultural tourism in India by catering to small group of not more than 8 people, thus leaving behind the least impact on a particular destination. The trained cultural & registered guides who will accompany you for local sightseeing are from the local community who have developed the skills of communicating with clients over the years with our regular in house training.