Trip report: India
Date of visit: November 2015
My trip to India happened before I decided that I would like to visit all 197 countries in the world. I originally wanted to go Tanzania, but I changed my mind in the last minute and chose India instead as my next destination. Back then, India was without a doubt my most “exotic” country. Back then, most of the countries I had visited were in Europe or Southeast Asia. India was also my first that I finished earlier than planned, but I will come back to that later.
I had two weeks only to travel the second-most populous country in the world, which is definitely not enough. You probably need three months at least to see all the highlights of the country. Anyway, I did the same mistake I did on previous trips by squeezing too many places into my itinerary. My plan was traveling the North for one week and the South for the other. In hindsight, the first part of the trip turned out to be too hectic.
Welcome to India: the chaotic arrival at Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi
Delhi, day one. Or more precisely night one, because I landed shortly after midnight in the Indian metropolis. An officer yawningly waved me through a check point, I didn’t even have to show my passport. Trust is good, control is… overrated.
As soon as I left Indira Gandhi Airport, I got a little foretaste of the next two weeks: people, people and people. Thousands of them. Everywhere. I have never seen so many people outside an airport. And it was in the middle of the night.
My hotel confirmed that they will pick me up at the airport so that I tried to find the driver holding a sign with my name. The search wasn’t successful though. Therefore, I called my hotel but nobody answered the phone. Another taxi driver tried his luck by offering me his service, what I politely refused.
Me: “Thank you, but someone from the hotel will pick me up.”
Random guy: “Alright. Where is the driver?”
Me: “I have no idea.”
Random guy: “Haha. Welcome to India!”
Delhi is pure chaos and you feel that right away when you leave the airport. To be honest, India overwhelmed me right from the beginning.
The hotel returned my call in the meantime. The driver couldn’t find me as he was inside the airport, while I was waiting outside. Together with a Dutch traveler he drove me to my hotel, but before we left the airport, the driver cheated both the Dutch and me by collecting the airport parking fee from both of us. He did it with discretion at least, but I asked him anyway why we both had to pay. He answered with some strange excuses and I realized that it wasn’t worth fighting about 5 Dollars in the middle of the night.
After approximately 30 minutes, we arrived at the hotel. “This is not the hotel I booked” protested the Dutch. The driver didn’t seem to care too much. The Dutch protested again, but they told him that he would stay in the sister hotel of the hotel he had booked. However, this ‘sister hotel’ apparently looked way more run-down than the hotel the Dutch originally booked. Classic. Doesn’t happen in India only. It was almost 4 AM, when I entered my shabby room. I finished my day with two Kingfisher beers before I fell asleep.
Claustrophobia in Delhi
I woke up a few hours later and was looking forward to my first real day in India. It turned out to be a challenging one.
Delhi offers an overdose of everything: people, colors, scents, stray animals, dirt, traffic, smog and so on. It’s the second largest city of India and one of the largest cities in the world. New Delhi, the capital of the country, is only a district of the city by the way.
Navigating through Delhi was a difficult task in the beginning. Normally, I like to discover a city by myself, but I gave up after two hours. It was just too much, as touts were constantly trying to scam me. If people start talking to you on the streets of Delhi, it’s probably not because they want to help you. They try to rip you off. Practical tip: if anyone asks you if you have been to Delhi before, just say yes. Even if you just had arrived five minutes ago.
The first two hours in Delhi were a hassle in the breeding heat. For example, a group of young Indians did not want me to enter New Delhi railway station, as it was “closed” for foreigners that day due to an Indian holiday. Bullshit. I tried to ignore them and just passed, but they chased me and insisted that I can not go further. It wasn’t the only incident though. People constantly approached me and it started to get annoying. As a consequence, I returned to my hotel and told the receptionist that I needed someone to show me the city. I paid between 30-35 Dollars for a driver and a guide if I remember correctly.
After the first culture shock, the city excited me a bit more. The sights and attraction of Delhi are impressive and there are many of them. I started the sightseeing tour by visiting Jama Masjid, one of the largest mosques in India. The mosque was built in the 17th century, and it’s one of the most spectacular sights in Delhi. There have been several incidents at Jama Masjid in recent years. In 2010, gunmen on motorcycles opened fire in front of the gate injuring two Taiwanese tourists. It turned out that the fundamentalist Indian Mujahideen were responsible for the attack, as they claimed that the Imam of Jama Masjid were letting semi-naked tourists into the mosque.
Most people in India are Hinduists (80%) followed by Muslims (14%). The Sikhs are a small minority, only 1.72% of the population follows Sikhism. Given the fact that 1.2 billion people live in India that’s still more than 20 million Sikhs. Sikhism is one of the youngest religions in the world and one of the religion’s most famous buildings is Gurudwara Bangla Sahib in Delhi. Gurudwara is the word for a Sikh house of worship. As everything in Delhi, Gurudwara Bangla Sahib is also a very busy place but it’s absolutely worth visiting it.
After a short stop at Humayun’s Tomb, we finished the sightseeing tour by visiting the famous Lotus Temple. It’s another impressive sight in India’s metropolis, and of course it’s over-crowded like everything else. Not only that thousands of people were standing in line in front of the entrance, there were also thousands of people on the site. This is India and you get used to it after a while.
I met my tour guide again at noon on the second day. We started the day by visiting Qutb Minar, a 74-metre high minaret, and continued with other sites such as the Hauz Khas Complex, Safdarjung Tomb and Lodi Gardens. After watching the sunset at India Gate, a war memorial of World War I, the sightseeing tour on day two was over. All the sights I’ve visited in Delhi were fantastic and I believe that there are not many cities in the world, in which you can see that many spectacular sights.
Two full days in Delhi aren’t enough to see all the attractions. To be honest, I appreciated the city more in the end than in the beginning, as the first hours in Delhi were madness. Delhi is so over-crowded that walking down the streets make you feel claustrophobic. Imagine rush hour at a metro station in a large European city like Berlin or London. Well, you’ll have this feeling in Delhi anytime and anywhere. The density in this city is just incredible and it’s probably topped only by Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka or Karachi in Pakistan.
From Delhi to mighty Taj Mahal
The most famous sight in India is Taj Mahal, one of the seven new wonders of the world. I did not intend to spend a lot of time in Agra, the city in which Taj Mahal is located. But of course, leaving out the Taj wasn’t an option either. Therefore, I’ve booked a private driver from Delhi to Agra and from Agra to Jaipur on the same day. We started the journey at 6 AM and arrived in Agra after a bit more than three hours.
I have seen plenty of pictures of the Taj before, but I did not expect to see something that spectacular. If you have been standing in front of it, you know exactly what I mean. The Taj has an aura like no other building in the world. The mass of the building is impressive, and the reflecting sun rays on the ivory-white marble walls are just incredible.
Taj Mahal means crown of the palace. However, the Taj is neither a palace nor a temple. It’s a mausoleum. My driver organized a guide for me and I got these explanations from him. It was a good decision to see this attraction with a guide, as he could tell me the whole story about it. Seeing Taj Mahal without knowing anything about it is only half the experience. To be honest, I have seen a lot, but the Taj is still one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.
Agra has 2 million residents and is a small city by Indian standards. However, the city has not only the Taj Mahal but also the Red Fort. It’s another impressive sight and you can see the Taj Mahal from a different angle there. Red Fort is one of many forts in India and most of them are actually castles or fortresses, but were given the name fort by the Brits during their reign in India.
The drive from Agra to Jaipur was long. We were passing through small villages and cows lying on the highway. As Cows are holy in India, no one will tell them to move. It’s not unusual that a cow lies in the middle of a crossing and the cars wait for hours until the animal leaves. Sometimes, a cow appears right after a curve on the highway and the driver has to react in the very last second in order to prevent an accident.
Fatehpur Sikri
Fatehpur Sikri is the former capital of the Mughal Empire and a small city between Agra and Delhi. We made a short stop so that I could see the sights of the city. My driver handed me over to another guide without asking me. I really enjoyed the sights, but the tour guide was terrible. We stopped over and over at a place where I should buy or donate something. When I told the tour guide that he should save the time, as I wouldn’t buy anything, he said something in Hindi and it didn’t sound like a compliment. He did that twice, and after the second time I asked “is there a problem?!” – “No, Sir, no. Everything’s fine,“ he lied. As soon as we were back at the car, I told the driver to leave immediately. The cheeky tour guide did not get a single rupee from me.
We arrived in Jaipur at 8 PM. After three nights in a run-down hotel in Delhi, I pampered myself by booking a five star hotel. The driver returned to Delhi right after dropping me off at the hotel. He drove approximately 10 hours combined from Delhi to Agra and from Agra to Jaipur. He would have another 6 hours from Jaipur to Delhi. Resting time seems to be a foreign concept in India.
Jaipur, the pink city vs. Jodhpur, the blue city
Rajasthan is India’s largest state by area. It’s also one of the most interesting states for travelers who are into history and culture. However, I was a bit overwhelmed by all the sights I witnessed the three days before. Although I wanted to take it a bit slow in this city, I visited Jaipur’s main attractions the following two days: Jantar Mantar, Amber Fort, Jal Mahal and Hawa Mahal. All of them were fantastic.
Jaipur is called the pink city by the way, as most buildings in the city center are pink including Hawa Mahal, the palace of the winds. Taking a picture of Hawa Mahal was a bit difficult, as you have to find a space between the traffic in order to take a good shot. It was worth it though.
Three million people live in Jaipur and the city has a more relaxed vibe than Delhi. That doesn’t mean much though, as Delhi is insane and Jaipur is still an Indian city with incredible traffic, pollution and high noise levels. Still, sleeping in a 5 star hotel helped a bit to relax after my time in Delhi. And I didn’t know that the most terrible night ever in a hotel was yet to come.
If I had to name my three favorite countries in terms of food, India would certainly be one of them. The variety of food is much bigger than you know from Indian restaurants in Europe. However, I followed a vegetarian diet while traveling through India. The dead chickens which sometimes lay in a puddle of mud on the streets disgusted me too much.
Speaking of meat, finding beef and pork in India isn’t easy anyway for religious reasons. Chicken is king. I’ve been to a McDonald’s in Jaipur and noticed that they have the FishMac and five different chicken burgers.
Nevertheless, the two days in Rajasthan’s capital were the two most uneventful on that trip and I continued my journey to Jodhpur.
When I was thinking about Indian trains, I always imagined old run-down trains with hundreds of people sitting on the roof. I wanted to have that experience and decided to go from Jaipur to Jodhpur by train. Most of the stories about train rides sounded terrible, but the truth is: it’s not that bad. There are six different classes and I booked a ticket in class 3.
Long story short: booking the train ticket was challenging, but the ride was fine. I had a train compartment with four beds for myself. Of course, it was a bit grubby, but I had expected it way worse. People sitting on the roof of the train is by the way something you will rather see in Bangladesh than in India.
A wild tuk-tuk ride got me to my hotel. If I had knew that this was going to be my worst night ever in a hotel, I would have immediately checked out again. The hotel manager told me that the hotel was overbooked. However, they offered me a free room, but it was one of the hotel owning family member’s room. As I was too lazy for looking for another hotel, I agreed. What a mistake that was.
The room wasn’t bigger than 6-7m2. There was nothing in it but a bed. A filthy bed, it was gross. The mattress was harder than granite, and as if this wasn’t enough, an insect was hiding under the bed making loud noises all night long. I couldn’t move the bed and had no chance to find that little beast. After three hours, I couldn’t bear it anymore. A sleeping pill was my last option…
Jodhpur is the most beautiful city I saw in India. With many stray dogs, though. Seriously, I have never seen so many stray dogs than in Jodhpur. It was even worse than in Delhi. Apart from that and the terrible night at my hotel, I enjoyed Jodhpur. Most of the houses in the city are in blue color, which is the reason for the city’s nickname the blue city. I visited Meharangarh Fort, the third fort within three days. And I was tired. Tired of sightseeing. I have been visiting site after site and needed a break.
Fear and Loathing in Goa
Goa is the smallest state in India. It used to be a famous travel destination for hippies, people who escaped from the western way of life and other confused folks. These good times are over, but you can still get this hippie feeling in certain parts of the state.
My ride from the airport to the hotel was quite entertaining. It was a long ride and I negotiated hard for a good price. “Would you mind if I make a short detour and pick my family up?” the driver asked. I did not of course and after a few minutes there were 10 more people in the minivan. Goa is bigger than most people think. It took me almost an hour to get to my hotel from the airport.
I was looking forward to palms, nice beaches, tropical weather, but I did not find any of that except for the latter. It’s India and even the beautiful places look dirty somehow. Goa is divided into the North and the South. The South is apparently the more beautiful part but without nightlife. I headed to the North and stayed in Baga, which is one of the most touristy places in Goa. After the bad experience in the hotel in Jodhpur, a five star hotel was crucially needed again.
The first night out in Goa did not meet my expectations, as the nightclub I have been to was unspectacular and expensive. It was my first night out in India and I was really looking forward to it. Entrance policies in Indian clubs are like that: women can enter without admission, men accompanied by girls pay 10 dollars, single men pay between 40 and 50 dollars. Anyway, I enjoyed the night as much as possible, but it wasn’t a night to remember. Moreover, I felt so motivated that I had an ugly hangover the day after. I slept most of the day and it was the first the day of my holidays on which I did nothing.
When I explored Baga the next day, I realized that there is not much to see there. The beaches are okay though but full of cows. I started to get a bit bored. Goa was not was I expected, but I had two nights left and wanted to make the best out of it. I did a bit of research and found out that Anjuna is one of the remaining hippie towns in Goa. I decided to go all in that night.
Curlies Beach Club is the place to be in Anjuna. I arrived at 10 PM and saw the most shabby nightclub I could ever imagine. Not the club itself but the people in it. This is the place where you meet the hippies Goa is famous for. It was a crazy night, and I don’t want to go into details. It was a crazy night and I spent the entire next day in my hotel room.
Mumbai, Bombay, Slumbay
Exhausted from Goa, I arrived in Mumbai the next afternoon. Mumbai is India’s largest city and as chaotic as Delhi. While Delhi is arguably India’s best city for sightseeing, Mumbai is the trendier city and more business-orientated. Apparently, nightlife must be good in the city formerly known as Bombay. I went to bed early in order to see the city the next day.
The good thing about Mumbai is that the most important sights are all concentrated in the South of the city. I walked from my hotel to the famous Taj Mahal Hotel and the Gateway of India before having lunch in Leopold Café, a place that is popular among backpackers. It was a Thursday and I had two more days, but I felt that I did all the sightseeing that day and asked myself what to do the remaining days. One possibility was visiting Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, by a guided tour. Alternatively, I could just go out and get a taste of Mumbai’s nightlife.
When I came back to my hotel, I felt weak and tired. Another day in another Indian metropolis with all the dirt, the pollution, the insane traffic, the claustrophobic feeling etc. took all my energy. My wanderlust had disappeared and I just wanted to go home. The combination of a very stressful first week and the party in Goa was simply too much for me. After a two hours nap, I did not only feel exhausted but also a bit sick. Getting sick in India was the last thing I wanted at that moment. Therefore, my decision was clear: I would go home as soon as possible.
Luckily, I found a flight for 300 USD from Mumbai to Basel via Istanbul. The flight was going to depart in six hours. To be very clear, it wasn’t an easy decision. I have never finished a trip earlier than planned, but it was the right decision in the end. I arrived back home on a Friday afternoon instead of Sunday, and I remember that I slept almost the whole weekend and left my apartment only once to buy some groceries. India definitely defeated me.
My travel experience in India
In times of writing, I have already visited 64 countries. However, India was probably the most challenging of them. India is not only physically challenging but also mentally. I have never seen poverty like in India, where children grab food leftovers from dumpsters or people lie at the roadside, hundreds of flies sitting on their body and you have no idea whether the person is dead or not. Pedestrians just pass by and don’t care about these people.
India is a country full of contrasts. Of course, there are a lot of good things about the country too. When it comes to sightseeing, India was one of the most spectacular countries I’ve visited yet. Moreover, the food was delicious and I was actually one of the 20% who did not get problems with my stomach during my travels in India.
The second-most populated country on earth is still a mystery to many people from the Western world. Of all the countries I have visited India (together with Japan) was mentality-wise the most different one from what we are used to, but this is what makes India also very fascinating.
India is one of the most polarizing countries in the world. Travelers either love it or hate it. Of course, I once again don’t fit in any of the two categories, as I have kind of a love-hate-relationship with India. Rarely has a country fascinated but also disgusted me that much at the same time.
In the end, my trip to India was overwhelming in a positive and a negative way. I remember that I said I would never go back to India just when I came back. However, I don’t rule it out to revisit the country someday. I know many people who travel the world but don’t want to go to India, and all of them have different reasons. In my opinion though, that’s a mistake. Seeing the world is incomplete when you skip India.
Find the trip reports of the other countries I’ve visited here!
