After a four year hiatus, I was back in India. This time, I was to explore northern Karnataka concentrating on the architecture of the Deccanni sultanates and the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, finishing up with a few days in Goa. First up was Bidar, now a small town in the middle of nowhere but formerly the capital of a great Muslim kingdom of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was a bit of trek to get there because as it…
My latest trip to India was almost at an end. I was up early and checked out of the hotel, the Bundi streets were strangely quiet first thing in the morning, as was the station, but the buses were still running and I managed to catch one to Jaipur just as it was leaving. The roads were surprisingly quiet as well so it only took four hours rather than the five and a half I was expecting. Jaipur and its…
Getting the bus from Udaipur to Chittorgarh was no problem. Semi-deluxe, that’s a laugh but I got a seat. The journey was pretty boring, just views of major road works everywhere and dust. The station in Chittorgarh is across the river from the old town so I managed to avoid the trishaw drivers and just walked across the bridge observing the hill fort in the distance. I found my designated hotel, Hotel Ganesh, pretty easily. Their website describes it as the best…
The beautiful lakeside town of Udaipur is supposed to be one of the most romantic places in the world and a travellers’ favourite. I was about to find out. The seven hour bus journey from Jodhpur wasn’t too bad. The station is in the modern, eastern end of the town but soon I was headed by rickshaw into the old town cum tourist centre attractively situated next to shimmering lake pichola. My chosen hotel, the Little Prince Heritage Home, was on…
My 1994 trip to India took in the entire Western side of the country, but I only managed a day in Jodhpur. This time (Feb 19) I was going a bit deeper. I was spending a couple of weeks in Rajasthan and four nights in Jodhpur. The hotel was certainly a bit more expensive. I noted in my diary that it had cost me one pound! This time I stayed in the much more salubrious but still fairly cheap and…
I got a train for the short trip from Bharatpur to Delhi no problem at all. In contrast to Agra, the Delhi air was fresh and the city looked quite green – New Delhi anyway, as I had arrived in the south and was tuk-tukking north to my hotel in Pahanganj, near the main railway station and between New and old Delhi. This is the main backbacker centre and packed with hotels with a price to suit everyone. I usually…
From Khajuraho to Agra was the first daytime trip by train. Thankfully, I suppose, it was very uneventful and arrived in Agra pretty much to time. My first impressions of Agra were not good. I arrived at dusk and all I could see were clouds of dust and pollution and smoke. My throat was already burning by the time the tuk-tuk driver dropped me off at my hotel, the Coral Court Homestay. One positive thing was the fact that he was…
From looking at the map, the short hop from Orchha to Khajuraho should be very straightforward but it isn’t. There are few trains and no direct buses. The guy at the hotel said the best bet was the 7.30am train. Not totally surprising but I got to the train station in plenty of time to find it deserted. Even at 7.30 there were only a few hopeful travellers looking wistfully up the railway line. At 8.30, I managed to buy…
It was fairly straightforward to get 2 buses back to Indore and I arrived in plenty of time to get another overnight train. And shock, horror, this one left on time and I got a good night’s sleep! In fact the only delay was right at the end of the trip but I arrived safe and sound in Jhansi at 11.30am. Jhansi was a bit strange, mainly because it was election time and so all the shops were closed and…
Most of the time I like to take local transport as it’s usually fairly reliable and you get a much better experience of the land and the people. Also, the bus and train stations are a great opportunity to people watch. However, I had been told that the only way to get to Maheshwar from Mandu was to get a series of slow buses so I decided to splash out a bit (800Rs) and get a taxi for the fairly…