My girlfriend and I are headed to India in October and due to flying with Air Asia our destinations in India are limited. We have 5 weeks allocated for India and I expect we will spend most of this in the North, I am particularly interested in the deserts, Goa, himalayan regions, Agra and Varanasi. Our flight options are more or less between Bangalore and Kochi.
I am currently leaning towards Kochi as this would allow us the option of visiting Kerala and renting a barge for a couple days. However it seems to me like this will add another day full of train travel to our trip. I have spent several trips swamped in the act of travelling rather than enjoying the experience, something I would like to avoid this time around.
Alternately, for $150-200 more we can fly directly to Mumbai with another company though this hardly seems worth the act of saving one night on a train.
Any opinions or alternate itineraries would be appreciated.