This is a blog I wrote in 2015 when I was 28. My then girlfriend and I travelled in India for 6 months. Here is the result
Source https://mikolashuzaurus.wordpress.com/
It’s been six months since I last put pencil to pad. Today is Friday. A quick recap of the events of the last few days is necessary, mainly, so I can get my bearings..
We landed in Mumbai at 22:00 Tuesday night. Dodging all the dodgy “taxi drivers”, we went straight to the official taxi service, pre paid our fare, and headed to our taxi. As we had been forewarned, he went into his automatic spiel of “Your hotel is not good, very busy, there is a festival, there are no rooms, very crowded area” etc.
Forewarned and forearmed with our reservation, we deflected his scams with persistence and diplomacy; “We already have a room there”, and “Yes, we would love for you to take us on an EIGHT HOUR (!!) sightseeing tour of Mumbai. We will call you tomorrow. No, no, we don’t know what time we will wake up; don’t call us; we’ll call you”, (always a good idea to give your taxi driver incentive to bring you safely to your hotel).
A mission that turned out to be more cumbersome than we had thought. I won’t go into too much detail describing Mumbai, I will just say this. Picture a city. Now picture a metropolis. Now double that in size, and to top it off, fill it with ten times more people than it can fit. For me, this is Mumbai. Granted, we didn’t see the city, and so, this is based solely on arriving from the airport at night to find a bustling, lively, party-filled city. Not exactly my idea of fun…
Realizing we had very little to look forward to in Mumbai, we quickly made plans to head to Hampi, the closest recommendation we had. We made our way to the train station, whereupon we embarked on our quest to understand how the hell one gets to Hampi. Five ticket booths, two trips to the information booth and one internet café later, we finally managed to wrap our heads around it. There is no direct train to Hampi. We have to take a 16-hour train journey to Guntakal (you’ve never heard of Guntakal??); from there, a three-hour train journey to Hospete and a half-hour bus ride from there to Hampi.
I guess we really have arrived in India.
To be honest, the non-a/c sleeper train was a much better experience than I had expected. Exchanging the towering buildings of Mumbai for the beautiful open scenery of the countryside was all the validation we needed to know we were on the right track. That being said, it was a grueling two/three days of public transport.
Finally, at 22:00 Thursday night, we arrived in Hampi, just in time for the last day of a festival. Candles were set up on the floor for three hundred meters, leading up to the temple, a beautiful visual representation that we have indeed arrived. Last night was the first night we slept on a huge king-sized bed. The best sleep I’ve had in a long time. Currently, I am waiting for my breakfast in a very friendly restaurant, eager to see what today has in store for us. Quite an introduction to this gigantic sub-continent. In its own way, a perfect start for our next adventure.