1) pollution in indian cites for oct./nov, 2) train travel from mumbai to udaipur

googieschlot

Hello, this is Greg in New York.

I'm going back to India (to try it all again) from Oct. 18 - Nov. 10. Below are the cities I want to visit and I wanted anyone's advice if they knew whether towards the beginning or end of that chunk of time the pollution levels could be lesser or greater. My first trip to India ended after three weeks in Calcutta mostly because the black air was mind-bogglingly disgusting to me. I LOVED things about India but I do want to do what I can do to avoid distressingly high levels of pollution. Does anybody have any thoughts on which order I should visit these cities based on their air qualities in October or November? I thought possibly that in early February in Calcutta that was REALLY EXCEPTIONAL in terms of its bad air quality and was hoping that in October or November these other places could be less painful for breathing and doing a lot of walking through cities:

Mumbai
Jaipur
Jodhpur
Udaipur
Jaisalmer
Bangalore
Chennai
Pondicherry

My second question is about travel between Mumbai up to Udaipur and then on to Jaipur and/or Jodhpur. I have heard that a portion of that trip is really beautiful on land and I really should take a train during that portion. Does anyone know which stretch is the part that I need to take a train for the pretty landscape, and I might fly other portions?

Thanks --

Greg in New York

sego

Avoid all the major cities for pollution, have a nice trip.

googieschlot

Do you consider every city I listed a "major city" ?

And would you say the pollutions levels in those cities is the same all year around?

thanks for your response(s) --

Greg

pikeman

I recently spent 3 weeks in Bangalore and would advise you to drop it from your list.
Why?
Well, traffic is so gawd-awful congested it's almost impossible to get anywhere, and if you do arrive there it's about impossible to find space for anything bigger than a motorcycle. Plus the air pollution levels are pretty bad.
The area surrounding Bangalore is very nice and traffic is much less congested, but I'll never go back again unless I need to.
Pete

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