I would like to post a review of my family's experience of renting a car-Toyota Innova and driver with Namaste India Tours, as I had some difficulty in getting information on this topic prior to our India trip. We rented a Toyota Innova and driver (only) from Namaste as I had made all bookings for hotels on the net using information from tripadvisor. I settled on Namaste as I liked their web page and the few generally positive reviews on them. For a 7 day hire unlimited travel (range within 35 km) of any city within the Golden triangle-New Delhi, Agra, Jaipur plus airport dropoff-I paid Rs20,800. They also quoted airport pickup at Rs-800 to Rs1300 but our hotel has complimentary service. This includes all accomodation & meals of driver, toll and petrol. I can say that I was satisfied on the whole with their service-Kamal, the driver had adequate command of english, and has more than 10 years service with them. He is not a guide but you can get along quite well without one-esp if you have a lonely planet book!. My only grouse would be that they will suggest that you shop in certain places (jewellery/fabrics) that are much higher priced than the normal shops e.g the jewellery shop priced silver at Rs140/gm while the high street were at Rs50 to Rs60. But this being India, seems everyone has ways to make extra income. As long as you understand that there is no compulsion on your part to buy anything and a lot of the visitors to the shops do depart empty handed. One last thing-you are expected to pay for the trip upfront when you see the driver-in my case, I asked the Manager to come by and collect the payment. This is at least better than having to make a deposit, which is what happens with some tour companies. Also you are expected to tip the driver-10% was the rate recommended to me by the Manager. I deemed it well deserved as there were days when he had to drive quite late at night-past 8pm for us to reach our destination. I highly recommend them as a professional unit.







