After Varanasi I headed south into Madhya Pradesh. On the map about 400kms away, metaphorically a million miles. I left at 10.30 on the overnight train from bustling, noisy Varanasi train station and arrived deep in the Indian countryside at Umaria station at 8.30 the following morning. I was met by a bunch of auto-rickshaw drivers and one took me to the nearby bus station. I say bus station but it was just a dusty open space with a few…
Varanasi is said to be one of the oldest cities in the world, one of the most sacred to Hindus and one of the most colourful and fascinating cities on Earth. That’s some intro. But it is also one of the noisiest places on Earth. Once out of the train station I was assailed by an army of autorickshaw drivers and soon one of them was weaving me and the rickshaw in and out of some of the most crazy…
Lucknow was the first stop on my latest month long sojourn to India (Feb 17). For this trip I was to concentrate on the heart of India and just two states: its most populous, Uttar Pradesh, and its second largest, Madhya Pradesh. I’d chosen Lucknow to start because it was a bit off the tourist trail so I wouldn’t get any hassle but it had plenty to keep me interested and it would be a fairly gentle introduction to India…
As I had a few days spare on my Indian holiday, I decided to book an overnight trip to the Sundarbans. It was possibly the best decision I made all holiday. I did a bit of research and decided to go on a tour with tourdesundarbans.com and they were fantastic. December and January are their peak months when their tours get packed but at the end of February it was only me, Yogish, an Indian guy from Mumbai and two Canadians Jake…
After a few days at the seaside it was time for another flight and a complete change of pace. Like Chennai, Hyderabad and Vizag, Bhubaneswar had a modern airport with cheap flights everywhere, so I booked on another Indigo flight, this time to Kolkata. 1500Rs for an hour flight was pretty good I thought. I wasn’t sure about Kolkata. I had visions of poverty, pollution, traffic congestion and all that goes with a huge Indian city of 14 million people….
After a week in the Adivasi heartlands it was time to return to modern India. It is often said that travel in India is all about the train but this was to be my only long distance train journey. 20 years ago I was used to interminable queues and the frustration of trains already fully booked up. This time it was as easy as a few taps on my laptop. Well, it wasn’t that easy, I needed to register on…
After a few days in the heat, hustle and bustle of Hyderabad, I was headed for a different world – the tribal markets of Odisha and Chhattisgarh. But to get there, I first took a flight to the seaside resort of Visakhapatnam. Vizag is Andhra Pradesh’s biggest city and port but staying near the wide, long beach, and sniffing in the fresh salty air, it definitely has a resorty feel to it. There is also a very wide prom and…
Week 1, Chennai to Hyderabad, Feb 2016 According to the Lonely Planet, with its withering southern heat, roaring traffic and scarcity of outstanding sights, Chennai has always been the rather dowdy sibling among India’s four biggest cities. I don’t know about dowdy sibling but I have have to say Chennai doesn’t really have much going for it. Having said that, it IS India and therefore there is always something to see, taste and experience. And I spent a couple of…
I stayed in Hampi for a few days relaxing and exploring more ruins and then got yet another overnight train, this time to Bangalore. I can only assume I kept on travelling overnight to save time and money (on hotels). I didn’t have much luck in Bangalore as all the hotels seemed to be full so I went back to the train station and got a train to Mysore. I had more luck here. My diary just says I stayed…
After a pleasant few days in Diu it was time to move on. My next stop was Bombay (as it was still known then). Nowadays I would have no hesitation in finding a cheap flight but then it was another long distance trudge by road and rail. It started with an overnight bus journey to Ahmedabad. It wasn’t an auspicious start as I noted we only moved 8kms in the first hour and although the bus was only one third…