India and Nepal Tour

Arrive at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi and transfer to your hotel, usually 45 minutes to an hour depending on the time of day. You will need an Indian e-visa arranged before you fly; we send the instructions and the supporting letter when you book.

Delhi sits at just over 200 m so there is no altitude to think about. The rest of the day is free to sleep off the flight. If you land early and still have energy, the evening walk around Connaught Place or a first meal in Old Delhi is a gentle introduction.

Altitude: 216 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

A full day across both Delhis with a licensed local guide and a private air-conditioned car.

Old Delhi. The Jama Masjid, built by Shah Jahan in 1656 and still the largest mosque in India, then a cycle-rickshaw through the lanes of Chandni Chowk, which is as dense and loud and good-smelling as anywhere on earth. Raj Ghat, the simple black marble platform marking where Gandhi was cremated in 1948.

New Delhi. Humayun's Tomb, the Mughal garden tomb from 1570 that was the prototype for the Taj Mahal and is, to a lot of people who see both, the more beautiful building. The Qutub Minar, a 73 m victory tower begun in 1193. India Gate and the ceremonial axis of Lutyens' Delhi.

Altitude: 216 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

The drive south-west to Jaipur on the expressway, about five to six hours including stops. The landscape changes from the Yamuna plain into the dry scrub and rock of eastern Rajasthan.

Jaipur was laid out in 1727 by Sawai Jai Singh II, a maharaja who was also a serious astronomer, and it was the first planned city in India: a nine-block grid built to the principles of the Shilpa Shastra. The old city was painted pink in 1876 to welcome the Prince of Wales and has stayed that colour since.

Afternoon arrival leaves time for the Birla temple at sunset or a first walk through the bazaars, which are organised by trade in the way they were three hundred years ago.

Altitude: 431 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

A full day in Jaipur.

Amber Fort. Eleven kilometres out of town, a sandstone and marble fortress-palace begun in 1592, with the Sheesh Mahal, a hall inlaid with thousands of mirror fragments so that a single candle lights the whole room. We go early, before the coaches and the heat.

The City Palace and Jantar Mantar. The palace is still partly the residence of the royal family. Next to it stands Jantar Mantar, a collection of nineteen enormous masonry astronomical instruments built in the 1730s, including the largest stone sundial in the world, accurate to two seconds. It is a UNESCO site and it is far stranger and better than photographs suggest.

Hawa Mahal. The Palace of Winds, a five-storey facade of 953 latticed windows built in 1799 so that the women of the court could watch the street without being seen.

Altitude: 431 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

East to Agra, about four to five hours, with a stop at Fatehpur Sikri on the way. Akbar built this red sandstone city as his capital in 1571 and abandoned it fourteen years later, probably because the water ran out. It is almost perfectly preserved and almost empty.

The Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan built it between 1632 and 1653 as the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, his wife, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child. It took twenty thousand workers and the marble came from Makrana on elephant. Everyone arrives thinking they know what it looks like and almost everyone is quiet for the first few minutes anyway. We time the visit for late afternoon or sunrise depending on your dates; it is closed on Fridays.

Agra Fort. The Mughal seat of power before Delhi, and where Shah Jahan spent his last eight years imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb, with a view down the Yamuna to the Taj.

Altitude: 171 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

Morning transfer to Delhi airport for the flight to Kathmandu, roughly two hours in the air. On a clear day sit on the right: the Himalayan chain runs along the horizon for most of the flight.

You are met at Tribhuvan International Airport by our own team and driven into the city, 30 to 45 minutes. Nepal issues visas on arrival; fill in the form at the electronic kiosks before the payment desk and bring a passport photograph and cash in a major currency.

Kathmandu sits at about 1,400 m. Your guide comes to the hotel in the evening to run through the days ahead.

Altitude: 1,350 m  |  Overnight: 3-5 Stars  |  Meals: Breakfast

A full day across the Kathmandu Valley's UNESCO monument zones with a licensed cultural guide and a private vehicle.

Kathmandu Durbar Square is the old royal complex of the Malla kings, a dense cluster of pagoda temples and palace courtyards built between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries. The Kumari Ghar here houses Nepal's living goddess, a young girl chosen from the Newar Shakya community who appears at her carved window most afternoons.

Pashupatinath is the most important Hindu temple in Nepal and one of the great Shiva shrines of the subcontinent. Non-Hindus cannot enter the main temple, but the far bank of the Bagmati gives an open view across the ghats, where open-air cremations take place through the day.

Swayambhunath, up 365 stone steps through a forest of rhesus macaques, gives the best single view over the city. Boudhanath, 36 m across and ringed by prayer wheels, is the centre of Tibetan Buddhist life in Nepal; walk the kora clockwise at dusk with the local crowd.

Altitude: 1,350 m  |  Overnight: 3-5 Stars  |  Meals: Breakfast

Morning flight east to Bhadrapur in the Nepali Terai, then the drive up into the hills of West Bengal to Darjeeling, four to five hours climbing from the plains to 2,042 m. The border formalities are straightforward and handled for you.

The road climbs through tea gardens for the last two hours, running alongside the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the narrow-gauge line built between 1879 and 1881 and a UNESCO World Heritage site in its own right.

Darjeeling was built by the British as a hill station and it still feels like a place designed for looking at mountains. On a clear evening Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world at 8,586 m, fills the northern horizon.

Altitude: 2,042 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

An early start for sunrise from Tiger Hill, about eleven kilometres out and 2,590 m up. On a clear morning the light comes onto Kangchenjunga first, and on the best mornings of the year Everest, Lhotse and Makalu are visible far to the west. It is cold and it is worth it.

A working tea garden. Darjeeling tea comes from around eighty-seven estates on these slopes and nowhere else can legally use the name. We visit an estate to walk the bushes and see the withering, rolling and drying, and to taste a first flush against a second properly rather than from a supermarket box.

The rest of the day. The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, founded after the 1953 Everest ascent and run for years by Tenzing Norgay, whose memorial is on the grounds. The Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park next door, which runs the snow leopard and red panda breeding programmes. The Batasia Loop, and a ride on the toy train if the schedule allows.

Altitude: 2,042 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

The drive back down to Bagdogra, about three hours, for the flight to Delhi and your onward connection.

If you have time in hand we can hold a day room in Delhi rather than leave you in the terminal. And if you would rather not go home yet, this is the natural point to extend: a few days in Pokhara under the Annapurnas, a wildlife stay at Chitwan or Bardiya, Varanasi, or a short trek in the Everest foothills. Tell us before you travel and we will build it in at cost.

Altitude: 216 m  |  Meals: Breakfast