The Itinerary... and the tough decisions (says the Garbz)

So here's the dilemma. Mumbai is a a must-stop. After all, without Mumbai and the wedding, there would not have been an India trip this year. 

Ghada has set her heart on Jaipur (I hope that in due course to know why precisely that city has figured so powerfully in her imagination). Then she wanted to throw a trip to Nepal into the mix. But the trip has not yet started and she has already started being difficult. She wants to spend time in Lebanon, and since Time, like Matter cannot be created, nor destroyed, only transferred or transformed... what extra time she spends in Lebanon comes at the expense of time spent in India. 

So we have from the 1st of September, till the 14th of September. And our hands are tied until the 5th with commitments for The Wedding. This leaves us with time between the 6th and the 14th to see what we must. 

A few points:

1.  I have given up trying to plan, as I typically do, the trip by myself. Navigating the world-wide web in search for clues on how to plan a trip to India has left me more frustrated than anything. How can a distance of 250km, as it appears on my beloved Google Maps really take 5 hours.
2. How can a train ride from Delhi to Jaipur be an almost 24 hour affair. 

and on and on. 

I figured that with so little time on our hands, the focus of the trip should be in the Jaipur-Agra-Delhi triangle. We could hire a car and driver (strange thought), and have the liberty of seeing as much as we could in the area. But the mountains were big on my list of priorities, and Ghada wants to Ummm, (no really, she wants to "Ummm") in some remote monasteries. 

Shimla is high up in the mountains, it is where the British retreated for the hot summers. It's close (relatively) to the triangle. That's an option. 

But my heart has been set on a visit to Darjeeling. If I can't be in Everest, shouldn't I at least see it- from a distance? 

Try to figure out how to actually get to Darjeeling. For a country with over a billion people, it seems not all towns have Daily flights. Our time is short. Our options are limited. 

Then there is Khajuraho (shown in map below as a red cross). It is home to the temples of love. It seems to be at least on the way to final destinations. But throwing it into the itinerary seems to be creating more problems. 

I cannot be as ambitious in my plans as I typically am. 

(The trip hasn't even started yet, and does one sense a lots of "I"s?)