India
I fell in love with India in 1994 covering most of the West of the country, starting in Delhi and then north to Shimla and Himachal Pradesh, then south past Amritsar and Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bombay (as it was then), Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and ending in Madras.
Subsequent trips were much more laid back. The first was Feb 2016 from Chennai to Kolkata. By now digital cameras had been invented so the photos are of better quality too.
The next was Feb 2017, exploring Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Highlights included Varanasi, Bandavgarh National Park, Mandu, Orchha and Agra.
In Feb 2019 I decided just to concentrate on Rajasthan and the cities of Jodhpur, Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Bundi and Jaipur.
After COVID I returned in Feb 2023 exploring the Deccan Sultanates at Bidar and Bijapur, followed by the Chalukyan Caves at Badami, Vijayanagaran capital of Hampi and finishing up in Goa.
Goa
5 Mar 2023So I got the overnight train from Hubli to Goa. My ticket was to the end of the line – Vasco da Gama station arriving at 6am. However, I utilised a top tech tip that had been a real boon on this trip. Maybe not so new to more tech savvy readers, but this India trip was the first one I had made really good use of google maps on my phone. I could have been completely lost but when…
Hampi
27 Feb 2023Unlike most people’s conceptions of India, there are plenty of areas with a thinly spread population. Northern Karnataka is one such place. Subsequently public transport is rather sporadic, something I had already experienced. So for my next leg I decided to splurge 3500Rs (£35) on renting a car (with driver) for the 150km/4hr trip to Hampi. The first part of the trip was along narrow potholed roads across agricultural land – mainly sugarcane but also jowari which I found out…
Badami
24 Feb 2023My previous post starts with the problem of getting a bus from Bidar to Bijapur and the fickleness of non existent timetables. this post will be no different. the previous day I’d been told there was a bus from Bijapur to Badami at 6.45am. Arriving at the station at the appointed time I was then told there was no direct bus but I had to get the 6.45 bus to Kerur and change there. That would arrive at platform 4….
Bijapur
20 Feb 2023Sun 19th Feb 2023. I was up and about early and off to the bus station. I’ve often found in the remoter parts of India, bus timetables are a fickle thing. The guidebook may say one thing, people at the bus station say another and then the actual buses confound them both. Today I was told there was a bus to Bijapur at 9.30 but someone else said it was better to get the bus to Gulbarga and change there….
Bidar
18 Feb 2023After 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…
Jaipur
25 Feb 2019My 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…
Chittorgarh & Bundi
23 Feb 2019Getting 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…
Udaipur
15 Feb 2019The 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…
Jodhpur
11 Feb 2019My 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…
Delhi
4 Mar 2017I 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…
Agra
1 Mar 2017From 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…
Khajuraho
27 Feb 2017From 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…
Orchha
24 Feb 2017It 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…
Maheshwar
21 Feb 2017Most 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…
Mandu
20 Feb 2017So I emerged from the tortuous 14 hour overnight bus trip in Indore. Although the bus disgorged its passengers in an unremarkable side street, a helpful autorickshaw driver was immediately on hand to take me to the Gangwal bus station where I could get a bus to Dhar and from there another bus to Mandu. I arrived at Gangwal just in time to be ushered onto the Dhar bus which was due to depart almost immediately. However, I did manage…
Bandavgarh National Park
16 Feb 2017After 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
13 Feb 2017Varanasi 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
11 Feb 2017Lucknow 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…
The Sundarbans
3 Mar 2016As 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…
Kolkata
2 Mar 2016After 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….
Temple towns of Bhubaneswar and Puri
24 Feb 2016After 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…
Adivasi Markets of Odisha and Chhattisgarh
18 Feb 2016After 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…
Chennai to Hyderabad
10 Feb 2016Week 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…
Onward and southward
15 Dec 1994I 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…
Bombay, Goa & Hampi
4 Dec 1994After 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…
Gujarat
25 Oct 1994So I was waiting at the bus stop in Jaisalmer waiting for the bus to Barmer bathed in sweat. It was a fairly short hop of 2 hours. But once in Barmer, I noted that after the relatively clean streets of Jaisalmer I was back to the stench and pollution of a big Indian city and reflected that it wasn’t so much of a surprise that there was currently an outbreak of bubonic plague. From Barmer I took an overnight…
Rajasthan
10 Oct 1994From Amritsar I took the overnight train to Delhi, quickly changing to another for Sawai Madupur. I must have been pretty hardy in those days or just in a mad hurry because I didn’t even stay a night there before heading off to Jaipur. But I digress. The reason for going to Sawai Madupur was to visit the Ranthambore National Park and spot a tiger. My diary says I got a pony and trap from the train station to the tourist office…
North West
4 Oct 1994After my trip to India in 2016, I managed to dig out the photos of a previous trip I did in 1994. It was over 20 years ago but I am still amazed at the changes that have taken place over the years. Not just on the ground in India but also because it was a time before digital cameras, so I had to scan my old photos from a yellowing photo album. I’m not sure how many I took…