Stadstour met gids in Pondicherry met gratis drankjes

Superb tour, very informative,

On a recent trip to Pondicherry, my wife and me booked a full day sight seeing tour with Avatar Tours & Travels. Mr Mani came himself as our tour guide and drove us around. We covered multiple locations including some that were not listed as a part of the itinerary but we were happy to visit those. Mr Mani is knowledgeable about the history and culture of the city as also specifically of all the locations be took us to visit. He is very friendly and respectful. The car was neat and clean as also very well maintained - with the AC running perfectly. My wife and me have no hesitation in rating our Avatar Tours trip as 5* and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in a guided tour of Pondy.

Mani was a great guide, and we had a wonderful experience touring Puducherry. Highly recommend.

We booked a Pondicherry and Auroville tour online with Avatar Tours. The day started well — Mani was professional, spoke good English, and gave us a very enjoyable full-day tour. We then arranged additional trips through him for 9,500 rupees: 1,500 for a one-way trip to Auroville and 8,000 for a driver, English-speaking guide, and half-day tour to Mahabalipuram. He requested full payment upfront; we paid 4,500 as a deposit and agreed to pay the remaining 5,000 the next morning. On the day of the Mahabalipuram trip, he arrived 35 minutes late. We paid the remaining balance of 5,000 directly to him as he had requested. After the Mahabalipuram tour, Mani sent us a WhatsApp message telling us we had to pay our guide an additional 1,000 rupees, claiming it was due to Sunday guide fees. This was never mentioned or agreed beforehand. We called him to discuss the extra charges, but he became loud and aggressive and would not listen to anything we said. He said he would instruct the driver not to take us to our hotel unless we paid the extra money. We felt pressurised into paying the additional charges otherwise we and our luggage would have been abandoned in a place we did not know. Another point to mention is that we used a different taxi for our return trip back from Auroville and we were only charged 600 rupees — 900 less than what Mani had charged us. Another overcharge! Based on our experience, his attitude and the way in which he treated us was very disappointing. It was more to do with the way he does business rather than the money. Perhaps, we should have looked at previous reviews as it seems other tourist have experienced exactly the same. To summarise, Mani was a good guide but we would strongly advise other travellers to clarify and agree all costs in advance in order to avoid difficult situations and unexpected charges.

Our first visit to Pondicherry so we booked a full day tour with tripadvisor to see all the main attractions in Pondicherry, our tour guide Mani contacted us to pick up from our accommodation. The tour was very interesting and Mani is a very good and informative tour guide, he is so knowledgeable which made our tour very enjoyable. We visited the Matrimandir in Auroville and met another tour guide who offered us a half day sightseeing tour around Auroville, which we agreed to do the following day, we mentioned to Mani that we needed to get a taxi from Pondicherry to Auroville to meet the tour guide and we he said he could pick us up the next morning, we agreed a price of 1500 rupees for one way trip, we later realised when we got a return taxi that the fare should have been 600 rupees. We also mentioned to Mani that we were going to Mahabalipuram for the day and needed a tour guide for our visit, Mani offered to arrange a tour for us and a tour guide, he gave us a price for the tour and driver to take us from Pondicherry to Mahabalipuram and stay with us for half a day. Mani requested that we pay for the trip in advance but we agreed to pay him half of the payment and the rest the next day. The driver and Mani met us at our accommodation the following day and we paid the remaining money for the trip, we asked mani for the details of the trip and where we would meet our tour guide, this is were it got very confusing as we did not realise that the taxi and our suitcases stayed with us during the tour and our tour guide followed us on a scooter and it was a walking tour. At the end of the tour we had a message from Mani saying that as it was Sunday the tour guides are in demand and we had to pay an extra 1000 rupees on top of the 8000 rupees we had already paid to Mani, which we were not happy about so we rang Mani and he got quite aggressive on the phone, demanding that we pay, at first we refused, then Mani rang the taxi driver and instructed him, if we did not pay to leave us and our suitcases where we were and not to take us to our accommodation !!!! Please Please be very wary of this man and the hidden extras !!!!!

Thanks to this tour, we were able to experience the spirituality lived in temples and ashrams. We appreciated the beauty of the city’s paper art and the importance of this tradition, while enjoying the local cuisine. We felt as if we traveled back in time at the caves. The entire journey was fantastic and highly recommended.

We spent two full days with our wonderful guide Mani, immersing ourselves in Puducherry and its fascinating culture. The first day we visited the city itself and its surroundings (including Auroville and a mangrove boat trip); the second day we visited with him the archeological sites of Mahabalipuram. Both days Mani offered us a perfectly curated tour, including everything essential, never missing a beat and giving every single tourist site its full due; e.g., at the Aurobindo Ashram we took ten minutes time for a meditation session in the flower garden; and in Auroville we walked to the Matrimandir to really soak in the magical atmosphere of the place. The two days we spent with Mani were some of our best days of our entire India trip. Thank you so much for this experience.

It was an excellent experience, the guide Mani was very knowledgeable about the local history of Pondicherry. He was friendly and accommodating . We left Pondicherry knowing a lot more about its history and culture.

Driver gave us a great experience with lots of information & allowed us to personalise what we wanted to see. Highly recommend

Manikandan was very knowledgable & very informative on the history. I would highly recommend him especially if you want to learn more about the culture & history.