India - Everything is possible
India… Where should we begin?! It is the first country of our long trip. And it’s such a gap of culture to start ! This country is full of contrasts and at first you can be confused. But once you get used to this crazy life style, you could enjoy the beauty of India. We spent almost 2 months there.
Our trip in India started by the Rajasthan and some cities in the North. We continued by crossing the Maharashtra to go to Goa. Then we visited the Kerala, we joined the south of Tamil Nadu. We reached the southern of India and we finished this adventure by visiting the west coast. You can find our road map by clicking here. On the map, for each city, you can read our daily journal, see few pictures and get some advices.
L’Inde est tellement immense qu’il faut faire des choix. En 2 mois, notre parcours ne couvre même pas toutes les régions ! On a quand même beaucoup bougé donc on va vous donner nos conseils pour les transports en Inde, les plats que nous avons préférés (parce que pour nous la nourriture c’est très important 😆) et nos bonnes adresses bien sûr !
We really enjoyed discover all these different parts of India ! It's amazing to see the diversity of clothes and architectures, to eat various plates and heard different languages in the same country.
One thing is common all around the country: the pollution. It is really sad to see how India is polluted. First by the traffic which is really dense in the huge cities. But also, because their vehicles are really old so they create nasty black smokes. In addition to this, you will cross mountains of garbage everywhere, in the streets, in the desert, on the beaches, in the lakes and in the rivers. Everyone throws their garbage everywhere.
But the mentalities seem to evolve and the bad habit to change, from what we saw and what people told us. In some cities, they are starting to collect garbage and sort them. The government has created a music to encourage people to clean the streets (« Clean India »). So, it should improve in the next years. Of course, we are not judging, we aren’t doing better in our country. Moreover, I think you don’t care about ecology or about reducing your waste when you don’t know how you will survive and feed your family today.
Nevertheless, the smile of Indian people and their joy to share their culture with us, allowed us to get over these bad points (pollution, staring and cleanliness). We loved India !
We enjoyed to discover the Forts and Temples in the North, sleep in the desert of Thar, try the Dal Bati Churma, watch the ceremonies in Varanasi, chill on Goa’s beaches, navigate in the Backwaters of Kerala and devour all kind of Dosa in the South!
Il est vrai que nous avons préféré le Sud de l’Inde : Goa, Kerala et Tamil Nadu. Nous avons trouvé le sud beaucoup plus détente et sympathique. Cela est peut-être dû au fait, qu’on ait fait plutôt des petites villes dans le sud ou juste qu’on ait finit par s’habituer aux regards constants qu’on nous porte. 😆
Anyway, India is definitely a country to explore ! It has been a wonderful experience for us. We will keep great memories and also beautiful friendships.
If you go to India you have to take Indian common transport! It is a real adventure. It is the cheapest way to travel and it's more eco-friendly. You will meet lots of local people there.
We travelled mainly by trains and buses.
- The trains in India :
For all the information about the trains you can check on irctc.co and erail.in. These are the most useful app to travel by train in India.
You have to know that it is alsmost « impossible » to book a train ticket online. Even most of Indian people can’t do it. You can book a ticket online through some website like 12GO . But we didn’t choose this solution because it is always more expensive at the end. So, these are the two solutions we experienced during our trip:
- Go to a travel agency. They will make the reservation for you in exchange of a commission (50 to 150 rupees by ticket). BE CAREFUL: in Delhi there is lots of scam with the agencies. They fill your head with lots of bullshit to sell you some tour instead of just one ticket. We get tricked and almost every tourist we met got the same experience in Delhi. We didn’t hear this problem in others cities.
- Go directly to the train station. In every train station, you can go to the « ticket reservation » counter. You will have to fill a form with some information: name and number of the train, date of departure, name of each passenger. We advise you to check all the information about the train you would like to take on erail.inbefore to go to the reservation counter.
If the train that you want is not available on the website then you can check or ask to buy your ticket with “ Tatkal " quota. It is a category just for foreigners. It will be a bit more expensive of course but you will be able to take the train. Be careful to not buy a ticket on « Waiting List » because you will not be sure to have the train and if you are several to travel you will not be certain to be in the same coach.
You have the choice between many classes for the train in India. This choice depends on your budget and the comfort you need. The classes are :
- 1AC (2 or 4 private beds with AC)
- 2AC (4 beds with pillow, sheets, curtain and AC)
- 3AC (6 beds with pillow, sheets, AC but no curtain)
- SLEEPER (6 beds without AC, no pillow or sheet)
- CHAIR CLASS (chair with AC)
- SECOND SITING (chair or bench without AC)
We have a small budget (because of the long trip) and our need of comfort depends of the longer of the travel. So, we always chose 3AC class for night trip and SLEEPER, CHAIR CLASS or SECOND SITING for a shorter trip or a day trip. For the AC classes, it is better to have a sweater with you, it can be cold during the night.
- The private buses :
Sometimes you don't have train between two cities. In these cases, we took buses. It is easy to book online with RedBus or irctc.co . For the buses we always chose beds without AC. But it’s better to take trains when it’s possible. The roads are really awful in India so it can be dangerous specially when the rain is there!
- The local buses
We avoid taxis or tuk-tuk. So, we took local buses to move around a city (if it is not a walking distance) or between two nearby cities. We were always the only foreigners. It was really nice to met Indian people and travel like them. Take local buses is easy, you just have to ask people which bus you want to take. They are always happy to help. You will buy the ticket directly in the bus and it is usually really cheap!
The entire Indian food is so tasty ! It's spicy of course, but not so hot that we could imagine at first. There are so many different dishes. We didn’t get the chance to try them all in two months ! After one month you might be boring about rice and vegetables but at the end, you'll miss the indian cooking for sure. For several reasons we made the choice to eat only vegetarian meals. That’s why the following list contains only dish without meat. But for the ones who like meat don’t worry, you will have plenty of choices.
- Paneer Butter masala (you can find it everywhere in India)
- Dal Bati Churma (Rajasthan meal - one of the best we tried)
- Malai Kofta
- Bengal (eggplants)
- All kind of Dal
- Masala Bindi (small green vegetables)
- Thali (it is a plate with several small meals, some rice and naans)
- Byriani (rice with vegetables)
- Differents breads (naan, chapati et paratha)
- Aloo Paratha (bread with some potatoes in the North and Rajasthan)
- Samosa/pakora (everywhere in the street)
- Pani puri or Bhel puri (street food)
- All kind of Dosa (only in South India, you can have it for breakfast or diner, it’s a kind of big crepe with potatoes , some salsa and pickles)
- Uttapam (only in South India, for breakfast or diner)
- Gulab Jamun (the best one) and all the others Indian cakes !
- Kulfi (national ice cream)
Flight ticket: 200€ / person
Budget for a month: September : 37305 INR = 473,50 € / person
October : 29075 INR = 365 € / person
Daily average: 14,00€ / person
Some price ranges:
- Accommodation: from 300 INR (3,80€) to 2700 INR (34€) (34€ was an exception, normally we were around 10€/night)
- Meal (for both of us): 200 INR (2,50€) to 1000 INR (12,50€)
The budget of October is more realistic because in September our budget is a bit higher due to the scam in Delhi. In Delhi we had difficulties to find a train ticket to leave the city and we get scammed by a tourist agency. They manage to get in our heads and sell us a “tour” (trains+ hostels with breakfast) for 20 days in Rajasthan. It costs us 400€ each, that’s why our September budget is a bit higher.
Once again be careful if you go to Delhi! Even if you know about that, they are really good to sell you what they want. Almost every tourist we met in India get scammed in Delhi.
We hope that you found this post interesting. Don't hesitate to put some comments or ask us anything. For more information you can check our itinerary and the different guides on India just below.
