| No Comments | 388 Views Use padlock and chain to secure your luggage onto train or bus racks. It is common to hear stories about luggage theft, so watch out your belongings on trains. Even indians do and there is people selling chains in many of the train stations.
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The first image that people recall when thinking about India is most probably the one of a gorgeous white marble building, which is said to be the most extravagant monument ever built for love. Everyone knows the Taj Mahal, a World Heritage mausoleum built between 1631 and 1653 by the grief stricken Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child. Such was the love that he felt for her that the emperor decided to perpetuate it and leave testimony forever. You can admire and take pictures of the entire monument (including the surrounding walls and gates) from many of the hotel’s roof top restaurants in Taj Ganj area, which is the place preferred by backpackers because of the cheap hotels and proximity to the Taj Mahal. The views are superb, although a bit far and quite foggy in the morning.
| No Comments | 52 Views The reason to go back to Delhi was more a necessity to sort out certain things than a real desire to visit the city, although it was nice to be hosted at our friends’ place and spend time with them again. They are real travelers and it was good to exchange travel experiences with them. Our stay it’s been longer than planned this time and it helped us to get to know some “off the beaten track” places in the city that more tourist don’t get to visit, although we have left the most touristy routes for another time (if there’s a third one). We have been able to rest properly, watch films and satellite TV, go out, eat and also to update the Smartnest backpackers travel blog… we even cooked again after 2 months dreaming about it!!! Our spanish omelette and spaghetti were our friend’s delight. After a week we finally succeeded to get a train ticket to Agra and left Delhi early in the morning.
| No Comments | 156 Views Travelling at night in a sleeper train is a good way to avoid the long hours sitting in packed carriages, they are more comfortable than you may think and time passes faster. Don’t dream about travel, travel and dream at the same time!!
We could not always catch an sleeper train due to bad schedule from our side or to non availability, so we had to travel during the day and share not only words but also our seats with a bunch of young indian people, who were too curious and stared at us during the whole trip. A whole carriage staring at you during several hours can be very annoying, believe us!! We thought we would never get to the station…
| No Comments | 157 Views Try to travel by train, it is safer and more comfortable than buses. They are frequent on the main destinations and it is by far the cheapest way to travel in India. Once we arrived in Gorakhpur after crossing the border from Nepal to India, there were both buses and trains heading to Varanasi, the first one was 250 rupees while travelling by train cost around 120 rupees.
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Varanasi’s history dates back to 1400 BC and claims to be one of the oldest living cities in the world. It is also called the “City of Life” (Kashi) and paradoxically it has always been an auspicious place to die, hosting still nowadays numerous people awaiting to their death. It’s the city of Shiva, the destroyer, without whom creation couldn’t occur. And the Ganges, or Great Mother as it is know to Hindus, spreads out life by the flow of its Holy Water. This is why Varanasi’s (Benares) mystic and charm are still alive, since it posses both death and life and it has always been the place to pilgrim if you are newborn, adult or about to die.
There are different areas in town where hotels and restaurants concentrate but it is by the Ghats where the holy atmosphere of Varanasi can be breath. This part of the city is amazing. Something that provides an older, quieter and cosier aspect to it, is the total absence of 3 and 4 wheelers beyond one point. From there on, only bikes and people can fit in the colourful labyrinth of alleys which is Godaulia, the old town. This is the best place to stay for backpackers, very cheap and full of travellers. Time stops in Varanasi and it doesn’t matter if it has been hours, days or weeks what you have been spending there, the Ghats are simply magic and will always enchant you. Life and Death occur by the western side of the Ganges and the ghats are a constant flow of people willing to wash away all their sins in the river. Varanasi has been to us a great and delightful experience, like if we were inside a bubble and time would have stopped.
| No Comments | 318 Views Travel in India can be long, hard and tiring. Avoid any rush, stress or having an important date which you shouldn’t miss. You won’t be the first traveller missing his plain back home or a train transfer in the station due to delays.
| No Comments | 62 Views Travelling around India can be hard. From the Indian border in Sunauli, we got in a bus to Gorakhpur and enjoyed the human warmth of an indian local bus encapsulated between dozens of people. Plans don’t always work as they should, and we had to wait in the station until the train to Varanasi left in the late afternoon. Furthermore, it was expected to arrive in the holy city at around 7 pm, so that we would have enough time to find a place to stay, settle down, rest, have dinner… Unsurprisingly, the train was going quite slow during the whole trip and it end up with a 6 hours delay, which were a real nightmare for us. It was 1 am as we got to Varanasi Junction, it was a bit cold and all the hotels around the station were closed or full. There was no other place to spend the night and we just settled down on the floor in the main entrance of the station, right between an indian family and a group of sleepy pilgrims. We slept short but good and all our things were still there as we woke up, so it was a good lesson to learn, that in case of delays, cancellations or whatever it could happen to our train schedule, we can always lay down in the station and have a nap without being disturbed, robbed or scold. Indian way is the best way to do things in India!!
| No Comments | 46 Views Odyssey is the proper word to describe a local bus ride within Nepal. What is supposed to last for 8 hours, will end up with at least another 4 hours delay. What is supposed to be a direct journey with no transfers, stops continuously and drops you off at your own luck to continue the trip in another bus. What is supposed to be the last stop, is at the end much further away than where your bus leaves you and you have to catch another vehicle to arrive to your desired destination. These all happened to us several times in Nepal, specially on our way from Kathmandu to the nepali border of Sunauli. The bus started late, arrived very late to a place where we had to get off and where we had to catch another bus, and tried to stop in a city some kilometres away from the border (we could luckily convince the driver to take us to the border without paying any extra charge by showing us outraged).
| No Comments | 45 Views We didn’t know much about Nepal when we realised that winter in the mountains is cold and we should start our visit to the world from the top before it got colder. We arrived to the country looking for mountains and first thing we found was plain tropical jungle landscapes. We had the idea of a smiley and friendly Nepali and our first contact is with a guy who tries to manipulate us at his convenience. The tranquillity that we had imagined was substituted by noisy traffic, pollution and dusty streets. The advantages of a small country disappear with the long hours spent in packed buses. In short, a two months visa, which seemed not to be enough when we first arrived, was in the end longer than we needed to visit the country.
In the meantime we have got the most out of Nepal. They have got the most out of us, as well. We have enjoyed the country and the people and hope they enjoyed us as much as we did. We have played with children, talked to adults and respected the elder. We have seen many different cultures and traditions and got amazed by all of them. We have got soaked in colours and wild nature. There were celebrations and sadness. There were honest people and cheaters. Unfortunately the bad things forced us to leave the country searching for the peace that we only found in the mountains. Well, even if this post sounds a bit negative, travelling is such a great experience, that it’s worth to know its bad side in order to appreciate it all. Nepal is great! You have to climb its mountains, discover its jungle and trek all its paths. Learn its cultures and origins. Bargain in its shops, ask people, answer them. You have to live their lives and learn to see things like they do… And these all is what we did, we decided to keep all the lovely things we have seen and leave the bad ones there, where they belong.