Reporting after a month in India

lostinasia

Some transportation bits and pieces: I just got back from a month in India and this would have answered some of the questions I had during my trip.

Part I: Buses and Trains
I had the impression that I’d be taking the train everywhere, and that impression was totally wrong. For a shorter trip like mine, covering distances that weren’t that long, the train was a royal pain in the arse. I bought tickets online before I went to India, but wound up canceling three out of the four (I should have known that I wouldn’t stick to a schedule). The one time I bought train tickets, in Varanasi, it took me most of a morning. Through most of Rajasthan I took buses—I could buy the tickets the day before, they left and arrived at (moderately) convenient times, I had a seat, and they weren’t THAT bad. If you’re traveling huge distances, go for the train, but for the typically 4-6 hour trips of Rajastan, the bus was fine and MUCH more convenient.

For cancelling the train tickets: I'd bought them with a credit card online, and when I went to the train station to cancel them (the whole exercise took 3 hours from hotel door to hotel door), I couldn't get cash back. They took down the ticket information and said with a shrug that I should get the money back on the Visa card, but that was out of their hands--they gave me a cancellation receipt for later use. I've received e-mail notice that the money will return to my Visa; I haven't yet reached the stage in the billing cycle to find out.

I had one more ticket that I wanted to cancel later and I just didn't bother. I was having a good evening with some people I met and I didn't want to lose the evening getting a POSSIBLE refund.

Night sleeper buses are a wonderful invention—above the seats they have berths, and you can lie down in those and bounce around in horizontal comfort. I work really hard to avoid night buses because I can’t sleep in the seats, but with the sleeper buses I was… well, I could function the next day, and that’s the main thing. Those are on lots of Rajasthan’s longer routes.

Arranging transport was no-brainer—ticket outlets were everywhere. I never got conned, although that may just have been luck. Any semi-well known tourist destination has a bus going to any other tourist destination.

Bag security: sometimes the bags go on the roof; they wanted 10 rupees and I gave them five and later wondered if haggling over that point had been a really stupid idea! My bag was small enough that it fit in the overhead space on the Rajasthan tourist buses, so it only went on a roof once and in a trunk once. Otherwise it was with me in the bus, although that was actually a hassle when I was alone and needed to go to the toilet during a bus terminal stop.


Lostinasia's Gizmo report after one month in India.

Lostinasia's packing report after one month in India.

Lostinasia's "discomforting stuff" report.

Edited by steven_ber to add links to other threads.

lostinasia

Continuing from the first posting...

You’re not allowed to take batteries on domestic flights and I carefully packed my torch in my checked luggage; they never commented on my cell phone or camera batteries. I never spoke to anybody who’d actually had issues with batteries, although other people posting here have had problems.

The day I left, I flew in to New Delhi’s domestic terminal around 10am and my flight left from the international at 2:45pm. A free bus connects the two terminals, but do not give yourself a tight connection! I ran and caught the bus, but the guy told me the next one would be in one hour—which seems ridiculous to me. I hope I misheard that.

The departures area of New Delhi airport has money changers and a post office and other things I didn’t look at. After clearing immigration, there are no more money changers! There is a very expensive (200 Rp/ hour) internet café and a Subway (!!) that was perhaps the most surprising and welcome sign I saw in my month in India. There is also a posh departure lounge that cost 500 Rp and included snacks and drinks and who knows what else—had I known about this when I first arrived, I may have gone for it, but I discovered it only when I had about 90 minutes left. I live in Taiwan, so I’m used to East Asia’s airports—Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore. Indian airports are nothing like that and they’re really dull places to spend a few hours.

lostinasia

The only moderately different thing I did: Jodhpur to Ranakpur to Kumbalgarh to Udaipur by local transport. From a map, this made perfect sense and seemed a good way to save time (Ranakpur and Kumbalgarh are right beside each other on a map, and otherwise I’d have needed to backtrack from Udaipur) and money (I wouldn’t take a day trip in an Udaipur car). Well, actually it took LONGER, but it was still fun. Jodhpur to Ranakpur by bus was easy enough: in my Jodhpur hotel they told me an express bus left at 8:30am, and I’m guessing the bus that I took at 8am was NOT the one I wanted, but waiting seemed like a risk. It was the milk run to end all milk runs but I still arrived in Ranakpur in plenty of time to eat lunch, see the temples and relax for sunset. That was a beautiful location—trees and birds and hills everywhere.

The next morning, getting to Kumbalgarh proved entertaining. The whole day I was lucky with bus connections—I never waited more than 20 minutes. First was a 45 minute bus to Sadri (I think)—that was 11 km. A bus from Sadri in the direction of Kumbalgarh left about 15 minutes later—I was told there were only 1-2 buses a day, and I’d probably have to take a taxi. I assumed that, as happened everywhere else in India, a swarm of taxi drivers would be fighting for my business, but THERE WERE NONE. I think I was really lucky to get that bus. The distance was 30km, and it took 90 minutes, but it didn’t get me to a town or to Kumbalgarh—it got me to a crossroads between the town and the fort. And once again, no vehicles, so a 2km walk uphill followed. If you were carrying a lot of luggage (which I wasn’t), this would be really annoying! With excellent bus connections, it had taken me from 8am to 11:30am to arrive at Kumbalgarh. So much for saving time. The bus trip WAS beautiful—lots of fields and water wheels and traditional dress. The people who charter transport must get fantastic photos.

I’d kept track of the road distances using the mileposts on the roads, but I also had a GPS (useful when hiking or on cycling holidays, but just a silly toy on a trip like this), and I discovered that my hotel at Ranakpur was exactly 11km away from the summit at Kumbalgarh—yet my two buses had covered 41km. I believe that 11km is all nature reserve, and somebody in Ranakpur is going to make a killing if they ever organize and market jeep/ hiking safaris through the reserve to Ranakpur. It’d be a fantastic day.

Leaving Kumbalgarh, I had to walk back down the hill, wait for a bus, get to, uh, Kelwara?, and then wait for another bus that left for Udaipur at 4pm and arrived at 6:45pm. Ha ha—I’d woken up that day hoping to be in Udaipur shortly after lunch. It WAS a good fun day, but not something to do if you’re trying to save time! Beautiful beautiful road between Kumbalgarh and Ranakpur--I highly recommend taking it somehow.