Let’s talk about trips! – South India

Living in India I discovered a new passion: planning trips. I think I will be a good trip advisor, or working in a travel agency. No, no I’m not praising myself.

Let’s take south India, the most recent place where I’ve been. South India is amazing. One can make several trips here depending what you want.

In my case… well, it has to be a crazy trip with lots of things to see. Here is my personalized trip:

Hampi: The impressing city made of stone!! The landscape is absolutely impressing! IF you go to the River Restaurant you can have the best view and enjoy your food, food which has only the names of the Indian items just enough to fool informants of Indian cuisines.

Being a very attractive touristic spot, the locals have transformed their houses in guess houses, so it is very easy to find a nice, cheap and welcoming accommodation.

Everything is on walk able distance but if you hire a bicycle will give you more mobility.

Bangalore - the city of gardens. They say it is not a nice city, I say it is beautiful. Half day city tour is more than enough to love the city and without discover the bad things they say about it.  You can choose a travel agency or the private rickshaws that will show you the entire city for free, just visiting some shops. You get your city tour with guide included (most of them speak a basic English – enough to understand the story behind the city walls) and he gets petrol coupons from each store just for bringing people, and more for foreigners. I think it is a win to win situation, more if you are 2-3 persons, who means 400-600 Rps for the half day city tour with a travel agency … and free full day city tour with a rickshaw.

They have an amazing palace – Bangalore Palace and very beautiful botanic garden!

Mysore. Honestly I expected more beautiful palaces, but it was good… If there not been thousands of kinds visiting the touristic spots in the same time as us, staring at the foreigners, shouting and pushing, for sure I would have enjoyed more Mysore.

The Zoological Garden was the most entertaining part because the animals were very beautiful, most of them had a special arranged  zone which reproduce their natural habitat and it was the first time I’ve seen several species like giraffes. The bears which are unfailing in our Romanian zoos didn’t show up.

Ooty! Nice hill station. Lots of tea plantations. You can visit almost everything by your own, walking a lot, enjoying the nature, a city tour will make sure you transportation and nothing else. If you don’t have enough time to walk a lot, a travel agent is a good option.

YWCA is definitely the best deal you can get in terms of accommodation and delicious food.

Munnar – another hill station, very famous for tea. I feel more educated after visiting Munnar. I didn’t know all we call tea is actually infusion and there is only one tea plant and what makes us having so many tea selections is actually the process, and much more, the market strategies.  You shouldn’t miss the Tata Tea Museum and the tea tasting.

Cochin – nice, quiet and very humid, so be ready to sweat a loooot! The travel agencies make very nice backwaters tours: half day on a house boat, and discovering the delicious mussels and the coconut flower water which becomes alcoholic drink after 6 hours, homemade food and on the second part of the day going on the small canals in a canoe enjoying the silence and seeing the Kerala life village.

You cannot miss the Khatakali (one of the oldest theater forms in the world) and Kalaripayat (it is considered to be the father of the martial arts) representations.

Kerala is a very good destination for honey moon, especially for the house boating which allows you to enjoy the silence and the beautiful nature.

Madurai – is hosting the most beautiful temple I ever seen. The city itself is very small, fact which makes it ideal for a short transit visit.

If you want to see more pictures, here you have: Anca’s pics from South India trip!!!

Pictures from my trip to the North of India

And after 3 months… here it goes:

Anca’s photos from Anca’s crazy trip to the North of India!!!

Mumbai -> Varanasi -> Agra -> Jaipur -> Delhi -> MCleodGanj -> Amritsar -> Haridwar -> Delhi -> Mumbai

http://picasaweb.google.com/anca.onuta/NorthIndiaTrip#

Enjooooooooy!!!!

PS: If you like them, let a comment here!

For curious this picture is made by an amazing nice and cheap guide at Taj Mahal. If you want the contacts just ask me.

My trip to North India

I started writing this post at least 5 times and I never finished it. When I came back from my trip, in October I wanted to write about all the crazy experiences in the north of incredible India. During my trip I was building in my mind the post:

My trip to the north. In the first half, everything was according with the plan, no missed trains, no overlapping of seats in the train, accommodation was fine, I did absolutely everything I wanted to, and exactly how it was planed. It was too according with the plan… So boring… On the second part instead, I’m meeting Jac So and together we are making the craziest trip couple ever!

And here it comes:

• I’m escaping from the hotel at 3 o’clock in the morning to don’t pay the accommodation in Jaipur,
• Trains are delayed with hours, hours in which we meet some random foreigners what were just coming from Kashmir, the place where we suppose to go, and they tell us about what actually is going on there
• In New Delhi a rickshaw driver is giving us a wonderful lesson of cheating, Thank you Bhaya!
• Jac So oversleeps and reaches Jammu (the place where we suppose to go in some days) instead Pathankot,
• I’m making some friends on my way alone to Dharamshala and I finish in McLeodGanj,
• Jac So’s back: Anca! We don’t go to Jammu we go to Manali! And after 3 hours and a half in which we stress our new friends we have a new trip plan! Plan that keeps changing everyday and Manali is not included of course,
• On the last day in McLeodGanj we stay till to late in the restaurant and seams there are no way to book a rickshaw for next morning, aka 4 hours later. 3:40 in the morning, Bacshu – the place where we were staying: no car, no rickshaw, no human being, no lights, 2 km in the middle of a dark forest away from the bus, and at 4 the bus was leaving. In the middle of nowhere a cars seams to leave soon; bad luck, Tibetans are not as helpful as Indians,
  Me: Excuse me, how can we go to McLeodGanj?
  The man: I didn’t know.
  Me to myself: Aaa??? What?? How can you don’t know?? I’m in India!! Nothing can happen to me! There will always be someone to help me!!
  Myself to me: Anca, this is not India, this is another culture.
  And suddenly some men came out from the hotel. They took as in their car, I felt like bagger, but whatever. 3:55: McLeodGanj, our bus is there!! Lucky bustards!
• Delayed trains,
• Taking showers in trains stations, everywhere,
• We were visiting an Indian village. Yes we’ve been in the countryside! We drunk the real Indian milk, we ate sugar cane for the first time in our lives, was amazing!

I keep the details for myself. I don’t want to share them; I’m letting you having your own Indian experience.

The end!