Archive for the ‘Travel Tips’ Category

Poetry in motion

I love taking the train in India. It’s a great way to see the country, meet people and generally slow down your trip. Indian Railways is the world’s largest employer and the train system is massive and complex. You can book online on the IRTCT site and find great tips on Figuring out India Rail Travel on the wonderful The Planet D site.

 I have many memories of watching India’s sun-baked landscape slide by, but here are two of my favourite train ride stories. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo courtesy Amanjeet K Chauhan of GalleryAKC.com

There’s no bling like Indian bling

India is a shopper’s paradise. You just can’t beat the combination India offers: an incredible variety of gorgeous items, often hand-made, at temptingly low prices. For higher cost items, such as pashmina shawls, make sure you know what you are buying; and that the dealer is reputable. Here’s a list of the top 10 things to buy in India. Read the rest of this entry »

Outdoor yoga class at temple, Varanasi

India hits most foreign visitors with sensorial overload, especially during the first few weeks after arrival.  It takes time to become acclimatized to the crowds, noise, pollution, language, culture, religious practises and the way people relate to each other, and to foreigners.

When you visit or move to any new country, there are so many things to get used to. This is especially true if the new culture is extremely different from what you’re used to. And India is about as far from orderly, efficient, sparsely populated, wealthy and cold Canada as you can get.

However, one of India’s most popular cultural exports, yoga, was readily available in my hometown (Toronto) and I practiced and studied it for well over 10 years before I set foot in India for the first time.

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Casa Piccola Cottage is one of those special places that I always endeavour to find in India. It is a wonderful combination of safe, peaceful, clean, comfortable, affordable, charming and most of all friendly. To be considered for inclusion into my list of special places to stay in India, a hotel or guest house has to be owner-operated — and the owners have to be friendly, helpful and provide personalized service.

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My Incredible India experience began with the incredible people at India Tourism. The helpful people at the India Tourism office in Toronto not only supplied me with contacts and all kinds of brochures and information, they are also sponsoring my upcoming trip. These people really do know India. If you don’t have an office near you, they have a very informative website, and offices throughout India. It’s unfortunate that there are many shady travel and tourism operators in India. But if you go through India Tourism, you can be sure of dealing with reputable people and organizations. Below is a list of Do’s and Don’ts India Tourism supplies to all visitors.

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[NOTE: This was originally published on Transitions Abroad.]

Lodhi Garden, Delhi

I miss the smell of Delhi. I lived there for a total of six months over the course of the past three years, and now I am back in Toronto. Toronto is a big modern city and it essentially smells like a parking garage; Delhi is a megalopolis with an ancient history and smells like cooking fires, tropical flowers, pollution, animals, sewage, incense, and who knows what else. Delhi does not always smell good, but it always smells like something!

I love Delhi for its smells and for the following reasons: it is diverse, colourful, enigmatic, and bursting with life. But these are also among the reasons that many tourists—who are often new to India, having just touched down at Indira Gandhi International Airport—find it so overwhelming.

But I was no doubt lucky. I was spared the usual Delhi arrival dramas that so many tourists sordidly recount, as they detail every shock and trauma. The aggressive taxi drivers. The windowless room in a Pahar Ganj hotel. The child beggars in Connaught Place.

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Traveling to India

I often get emails from women traveling to India for the first time, and they are justifiably nervous about landing by themselves in Delhi at midnight. So, this post is for you. It is a collection of my best tips and advice. You should also check out 10 Tips for Women Traveling India and my page,  Going to India?

1.Go with an open mind and heart

Be cautious, but don’t be nervous. Be open, but don’t be naive. Yes, India is overwhelming to the first-time visitor and most people experience culture shock (you can spot first-timers by the deer-in-the-headlights look they have on their faces.) I have said in other posts on this blog (Traveling solo in India) that India is like the cave Yoda sends Luke into: you will only find what you bring with you. So, don’t bring fear. Most Indians are the nicest, friendliest and most helpful people you will ever meet. Even when they are trying to part you from your rupees, they are mostly very nice about it. (Always remember that there are many very poor people in India who have not had the advantages, nor the opportunities, that we in the west have.) Read the rest of this entry »

[Note: Originally published as Recommended: Travel solo in India by Solotravelerblog.)

When I was 45 years old, I put everything I owned in storage, gave up my apartment and went to India for six months. It was the first time in my life that I had done anything like this. But it was time. I had always wanted to go to India and, after losing both of my parents, I knew it was now or never to go after my dreams.

Was I scared?  You bet. But it was the “healthy” kind of scared – the kind that rises up from within and first whispers, then roars: if you overcome this, you will be forever changed. So I went. I jumped off the proverbial cliff to see how the universe would respond.

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The largest gathering of humanity on earth

Millions of people gather each year in North India to take a holy dip in the sacred waters of the Ganges, Yamuna and /or the mythological Saraswati rivers. Hindu devotees, pilgrims, saints and sadhus from all over India and the world turn up in huge numbers each winter. They believe that a holy dip in the sacred rivers during the  Kumbh Mela washes away sins and can help them break the cycle of life and death and attain Moksha. Read the rest of this entry »

My India list: top places, events and festivals I want to see

I believe in magic. How else can you explain that the more I travel in India, the longer the list of places I want to go gets?! I was inspired to write this list by Mighty Girl’s Mighty Life List, so here goes. Here’s my list at the time of this writing (and I am sure I am missing several things …):

Top 10

1. see sunrise over the Himalayas from Tiger Hill, near Darjeeling
2. watch the start of the monsoon in Trivandrum
3. attend the Pushkar Camel Festival
4. climb Mount Arunachala
5. see a tiger! — perhaps in Kanha National Park, the place that inspired Kipling to write Jungle Book
6. Read the rest of this entry »