Backpacking in India
9 January, 2015 - 8 February, 2015
We were planing to visit India for a long time. I read a lot of blogs - both terrifying and exciting. I understand that people who visited India can be divided into three categories - those who fall in love with India, those who dislike India and those who visit India with an organised tour (I assume those people didn’t feel real India at all).
I was afraid a little bit as I understand that our trip to India is absolutely new and other kind of travel. We got used to travel by car that give us feeling of independency and safety.
Last year we spent three months traveling by South Asia, we have been in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam - but everybody said that India differs a lot….
Finally, we decided to go to India. We bought tickets and began our planning. I read Lonely planet and different blogs about India’s sightseeing, booked hotels, trains and buses. I had India in my mind all the time, during three months while planning our trip.
Here I want to share with you our experience of backpacking in India for a month, day by day.
Hope you will like my stories and your desire to go to India will only increase.
So, let’s go…….
Our route in India
9 january, 2015
It is 3 am and it is already 10th of January in fact. We are in India.
We got up early in the morning at 6 am today. Taxi arrived even earlier than we expected. There is something special about the trip in a taxi at early morning when it is dark…
We flew by Aeroflot, with a transfer in Moscow (Sheremetyevo). They fed us with tasteless coffee and a sandwich, which was quite tolerable. It is very convenient pedestrian crossing between terminals in Sheremetyevo airport, so we reached another terminal quickly. It was short break between flights and soon we were sitting inside the bigger...
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10 january, 2015
I slept badly, woke up many times during the night, i feel anxiety. We couldn’t wake up for breakfast and missed it, finally got out of the bed almost at 13:00
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11 january, 2015
It was eventful day today. We got up early in the morning, around 7 am and went to have a breakfast that was included in the price for the room in our hotel. As I previously said we lived in the hotels chain called OYO rooms, but there was no restaurant in our hotel, so the boy from reception led us to another hotel of this chain, I considered. Restaurant wasn’t the cosy one, but the breakfast was good. We had the opportunity to choose from the menu what do we want.
I ordered fried eggs and my friend chose something like omelet. Also we were given milk tea that I liked it too much.
After...
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12 january, 2015
Stare out the window failed. I woke up because my friend called me softly somewhere nearby.
- Waaaaaaaake up. We have arrived!
- Arrived???
- Yeah, I couldn’t believe it, too. But we're almost there.
Surprisingly, because we had to arrive around 11 am, do I sleep so soundly?
My friend told me that when he woke up, first he checked the navigator and found out that we are near our final destination - Jaisalmer, and then he looked out the window and saw the desert and caravans and was very surprised.
While we stuffed...
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13 january, 2015
It’s hard for me to sleep in India because of my very light sleep. There are many sounds in India even at night - either a dog barks, or someone sings a song. So I woke up several time during the night and each time it was difficult to fell asleep again.I decided to use an ear plugs next night. Because of a sleepless night, it was hard for me to wake up at 8 am.
Using our portable water boiler we made a coffee and after breakfast we packed up and went to rent a scooter, which we booked yesterday not far from our hotel.
We forgot our driving license in Ukraine, but owner of the...
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14 january, 2015
This was our last day in Jaisalmer (we were very sorry for this because we really fell in love with this small nice town and if we could change our plans we would stay here for a longer period…. but...we have already booked all hotels and trains). This day we decided to devote to the Jaisalmer itself, visit its fort and well-known haveli. So in the morning after a cup of coffee in the hotel room we went to the fort that was only in 10 minutes from our hotel.
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15 january, 2015
All night long I was laying and living through how we will manage tomorrow. What if driver forget about us and we miss our train. What if we don’t hear the alarm… i know it is so stupid but still I was nervous about all this things.
I want to be relaxed and calm, i don’t want to worry about all this staff, i just want to let the life go as it is. But I can’t. It is so hard for me, I want to control everything that happens with me.
My travels look like fighting with myself, with my fears. It seems that while travelling I am gradually faceted like gemstone, I want to...
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16 january, 2015
My friend persuaded me to get up at 8 o’clock in the morning, as we have many plans and places to visit for today. After the traditional morning coffee which we brought from Kiev and which came to end rapidly, we left the hotel.
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17 january, 2015
We woke up early in the morning today as we were going to reach Ranakpur by bus. We check our from the hotel, catch tuk tuk right on the vibrant road not far away from the hotel. My friend, who became almost an expert in talking with tuk tuk’s drivers agreed on 50 Rupee price to take us to bus station. Very quickly we rode to the bus station, it was only 7 o’clock and bus to Ranakpur departure at 8 oclock. Man in the ticket office said that tickets are sold only 15 minutes prior departure, so we have a time to walk around the station, drink masala tea.
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18 january, 2015
Today we left the beauty of the Ranakpur area and moving further to the popular city of Udaipur.
We found out that there are frequent buses that stop in front of Ranakpur temple and go directly to Udaipur.
While we were waiting for the bus, a good looking indian man 50 years old came up to get acquainted with us. He told us that he is working as a guide and now he was waiting for a group of german tourist to hold an excursion for them around Ranakpur temple. Man was an interesting interlocutor, he said that the Indians are used to live their lives without work, ambitions and money. They work...
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19 january, 2015
It was a long day full of different emotions. We got up early in the morning, just after dawn.
Quickly packed our things we went out into the sleepy town where we found a tuk tuk driver, whom we successfully persuaded to drive us to the bus station for 60 rupees. We had to find a bus to Ahmedabad somewhere near the bus station. As I’ve already written in my article about transport in India - one of the disadvantages of the private company buses is that they always departure from the weird places, but not from the bus station.
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20 january, 2015
At half past four in the morning it is pitch dark and streets are empty in Junagadh. Only the huge carcasses of cows and dogs wander around deserted streets. We have booked hotel in one and a half kilometer from the station, so we decided to reach it by foot.
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21 january, 2015
We decided to get up at 7 am. But when we were ready to go out, rain started. We saw Girnar hill from our window all in the dark grey clouds. We decided to sleep a little bit and wait for rain to stop.
It took a couple of hours while the rain stopped and we decided to travel to the Girnar hill. There were many tuk tuks in front of bus station, but all of them wanted not less than 100 Rupee for the trip to Girnar hill. Finally, my friend persuaded a rickshaw to take us there for 60 rupees. It was our longest trip on tuk tuk, Girnar hill appeared to be far away from the town. So...
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22 january, 2015
Today is a birthday of my friend, but the day turned out to be the worst since our arrival. There is not too much to talk about and there is even no photos of this day.
While we were waiting for the bus to Bhavnagar we found the small shop with different very attractive sweets. We bought some and I said it will be a torte.
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23 january, 2015
We woke up at 4 am because of the noise in the hotel’s corridor. It was almost impossible to sleep, but we laid in the bed, waiting for the dawn.
We check out around 7 am and went to the bus station. The bus to Palitana departs in half an hour - the Indian man in the ticket office said. We could not understand from what platform our bus will depart as all of them were signed by Indian figures.
Bus was late for 15 minutes. As bus arrived to the platform, crowd of indians surrounded the bus and its door. People threw the bags in the open windows, reserving seats. By the time my...
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24 january, 2015
At 6:20 we boarded the bus to Ahmedabad. The bus was old, the seats were not that comfortable, and the door was not closed. So we went all the way withe the open door and it was really cold because of the cool night air that blew through the door.
Later a Hindu couple came into the bus and said that they have booked the seats we were sitting on. They showed us some paper with seals ... We were confused, because all seats almost gone and it was about 6 hours to Ahmedabad.
But we were lucky that the couple was peaceful - they realized we didn’t understand what happens and didn’t...
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25 january, 2015
In the morning man from the reception called us and inform us that we could move to another room that is available now.
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26 january, 2015
This day is not too much to talk about. In the morning we went to the bus station that is quite far away from the city center. We were planning to visit Kumbhalgarh fort, but it appears that there are no buses to fort from Udaipur.
First we asked for the bus in the ticket office on the bus station. And man said that we could reach Kumbhalgarh fort by going by bus to Sadri and then, take another bus in Sadri… We were not ready for too complicated journey, so we went to ask for the bus at the various travel agencies and private bus companies that are situated near bus station. But none...
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27 january, 2015
One more lazy day in Udaipur. It seemed we have been visiting all streets in Udaipur and now know about every corner of the city.
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