The city of Varanasi centers on the holy river of Ganges, where people from all over India come to wash away a lifetime of sins. It’s the perfect place for “people watching”, where you can mingle with the fascinating mixture of people who come here not only for a ritual bath but also to wash clothes,...Read More
Couchsurfing* was something we had wanted to do for a long time, but since the average standard of an Indian home can be quite different than we are used to, we were a little bit skeptical to try it here. We had earlier been contacted by a couchsurfer in Khajuraho who seemed genuinely nice. His...Read More
Agra is, together with Delhi and Jaipur, one of the three cities in the famous “golden triangle”, and was the capital of the Mughal Empire. This has had an architectural influence of many buildings and monuments in the city. The most famous building you can find in here is the magnificent Taj Mahal, which was...Read More
Getting train tickets have been a hassle the last couple of weeks, since a lot of the trains we had wanted to take, have been fully booked due to several festivals and the wedding season here in the North. This has resulted in us taking different trains than we had initially planned, and often paid...Read More
The time had come when we would finally meet up with some of Elises friends Ingeborg and Hanne, who are traveling around the world. We had already spent a day in New Delhi, trying to get to know the city and found out that almost everything could be reached with the cheap and efficient metro...Read More
On of the highlights of the desert state Rajastan is the so called “Pink City”, Jaipur. The City has its name because most the houses are painted int he same color; a kind of pink much more red and brown than the pink we think of at home. The city had lots of sights like the...Read More
Bikaner is a city where we have spotted countless camels, but not any tourists. Not much unlike Ahmedabad, it seemed like it was a very industrialized city, with a lot of office buildings and trailer cars. The hotels were also expensive, and it did not help to barter with the people as no one understood...Read More
Ever since watching a documentary on Discovery channel about a temple in Deshnok where rats were welcome, and even holy, I had been dreaming about going there. The day I had been waiting for had finally come, and I was twiddling my thumbs for nearly an hour when we were getting closer to the temple....Read More
Pushkar is a small and charming hill city right outside of Ajmer. The town curls around a lake that is supposed to be holy, and Hindus have to visit the lake at least once in their lifetime. Since it is a pilgrimage town, we felt like we had to take part of one of the religious...Read More
When we arrived in Jodhpur we did not have any clue on what to expect. We had just chosen the city, as it was written in capital letters on our map, and because it was on the way on our route up North. When we arrived in the city we were immediately glad that we...Read More
Since we had grown tired by overcrowded trains with noisy and snoring people, we decided to hire a taxi for a week. As long as we agreed to not stay longer than two nights in the cities we visited, the travel agency we booked through did not ask for money for the drivers accommodation. Gas...Read More
Udaipur is known as the romantic city of India, and is also the place where the James Bond movie Octapussy was filmed. This movie was shown in many of the hotels, guest houses and rooftop restaurants along the Lake Pichola, which is also the place you can see the famous Lake Palace (picture above). ...Read More
As we had gotten a bit tired of long train rides, and hot and humid nights, we decided to fly for the first time since we got to India. The flight was scheduled for 11.20 from Kochi to Ahmedabad, but did not leave the ground before nearly an hour later. With a brief stop in...Read More
130 Kilometers East of Kochi, you can find the mountain city of Munnar. As a part of a package deal, we went for a two day trip together with two Danish and and Australian. On the way, we got to see some elephants taking their morning bath and lots of monkeys and tea plantations. Even...Read More
Kochi is Keralas prime tourist destination, and is a quiet island hidden away and protected from the noisy, commercialized mainland. When we first arrived at the island, a smiling rickshaw driver came up to us and offered us a three hour long sightseeing tour around the island, and wanted only 100 rupees (10 NOK). Such...Read More
After a eight hour train ride south from Mangalore, we arrived in Kerala. Our goal was to reach the island Kochi, but we ended up staying a few days on the busy mainland called Ernakulam first. This part of the city was much more commercialized with busy and crowded streets. It was a fun place...Read More
Even after a whole week of being sick, we had not gotten in much better shapes, but we still had to take the train south to Mangalore to follow our time schedule. The six hour train ride was not something we had looked forward to, as we only managed to get tickets to 3rd class,...Read More
Goa has been a tropical bliss, mainly spent on the beach and on the rooftop of our apartment. The temperature has usually been around 30 degrees celsius during the day, making the days perfect to spend at the beach with seawater dips regularily in-between the sun tanning. At night the temperature drops down enough for us to...Read More
Goa equals paradise. That is the impression we have gotten after staying here for a week. The long stretching beaches have pearl white sand and the people here are more relaxed and friendly than in Mumbai. The weather has been perfect and we have come to settle in an apartment that we now consider our...Read More
After getting our tourist ticket application denied, we had no other option than to take the bus to Goa. This was something we had wanted to omit, because according to the Rough Guide to India “The Mumbai-Goa bus journey ranks among the very worst in India. Don’t believe travel agents who assure you it takes...Read More
