I am Balvinder Singh (nickname Bali), a Sikh Indian married man living in Delhi along with my family. I’ve been married eight years and have one son so far, who is 6 years old. I was born in 1974 and in 1996 I enrolled in a Travel and Tourism Course and simultaneously started a diploma course in French. In 1999, after leading French groups, I started to lead English groups with Exodus. Thereafter, it continued from season to season until 2001. With the beginning of this millennium, many things changed and Exodus started to use more specialist local leaders in India. This was a huge responsibility; therefore, our whole team received more intensive training as we started working as independent leaders. The rest is history, with time sweeping so fast and it is now more than seven years since I have been leading Exodus groups independently and must have led about 35 to 40 Exodus trips so far. The diversity of the activity holidays that I have led include trekking in Western Ghats of Kerala and culture and exploratory trips across India from North India to Central and South India and cross country trips from India to Nepal and vice versa. In 2005 I won the Exodus award as the best leader of the year for India during the Exodus leader’s training program in Kathmandu. I have learnt not only to work as a leader but the importance of operating and leading trips in a responsible way. This gives lots of satisfaction to me while working as I feel it’s much more important to have job satisfaction than just earning for our livelihood.
David Kirk travelled on Delhi to Kathmandu
“Balvinder, our local guide was great. He went so far beyond the call of duty to make sure we had the greatest time and remained safe and secure throughout. He also brought a personal dimension to the tour which would not have been there if we had a western guide.” Leader: Balvinder Singh (Bali) Trip: Delhi to Kathmandu (Trip Code: AIN)
Rebecca Kane travelled on Highlights of Northern India
“I will be accused of being on commission to Exodus if I continue to wax lyrical in this way, but Bali (Balvinder Singh) was the best leader we could have hoped for. Insightful, intelligent, caring, interested, fun and attentive, we could not have fared any better than we did under his watchful gaze. He managed to get the right balance of information and relaxation, supplied plenty of chai when needed and totally understood that we’d want to see the ‘real India’ whenever possible. He managed an excitable bunch of people with great skill & ease and shared his genuine passion for his home country whilst providing much-needed stand-up humour on long bus journeys.” Leader: Balvinder Singh (Bali) Trip: Highlights of Northern India (Trip Code: AIC)
Andy Capel travelled to Delhi to Kathmandu
“Bali, our tour guide, was working 24/7 none stop and fitted lots of extra things in to the agenda, which made it even more enjoyable.” Leader: Balvinder Singh (Bali) Trip: Delhi to Kathmandu (Trip Code: AIN)
