Tips for Shoe-Stringing Through India

The following is a guest post by Gina Williams. Gina Williams is a guest post and article writer bringing to us information on traveling through India on a shoestring budget.

Gina also writes about motorcycle accidents.

Plan, plan, plan!

This is perhaps the most important step of all when traveling on a budget.  To buy a plane ticket to India and wing it from there is a mistake.  Planning allows you to get as much as possible out of your trip, and to know where you’re going and what to expect when you get there.  This is especially imperative if you are traveling to multiple cities within India, which most people do when they travel there from long distances.  Ill-planning can lead to your having to search for sleeping and travel accommodations instead of enjoying the very trip you’re on. 

You should:

• Book all lodging and travel accommodations ahead of time; this ensures that you get quality lodging in safe areas for reasonable prices. 
• Be aware that India’s bigger cities, like Bangalore, Delhi, and Mumba, will be more expensive for lodging and food; plan accordingly.
•  Do research so that you can set a daily budget for food, lodging, and overall budget for your trip. 
•  Read other travelers’ experiences; forums and travel blogs are a great way to gain inside information about cultural practices, safety, and so on. For instance, you’re doing the right thing reading this blog.  The below chart of expenses by city was found on another blog about traveling through India:

Save Money on Expenses

The typical trip to India will involve 3 expenses that make up the brunt of your budget: travel, lodging, and food.  One way to save on all three is to go to India during its off-season, which is from the end of January to the middle of May and the beginning of September to the end of October. 

Here are other ways to save money on them.

 Save Money – Travel

To save money on traveling from city to city, you should travel by train rather than plane.  Opt for 3-tier reservations or, if you are on a really tight budget, Sleeper Bunk reservations.  The 3-tier class has air conditioning and is more comfortable than Sleeper Class, which does not feature air conditioning and is much more crowded.   Choosing bus travel over taxi travel is also a great way to save money.

Save Money – Lodging

When many people consider lodging while traveling, their first thought goes to a hotel.  But not us shoe-stringers; when we travel, our first thought, is, “how can I not spend too much for a room I might at most spend 8 hours a day in, sleeping?”  When I traveled through India, I used Hostels.com to find and book my hostels.  There are, however, many different websites that offer hostel booking; here are a few more:

• Youth Hostel India
• Hostel Bookers
• Hostel World 

Save Money – Food Expenses

Saving money on food in India is not difficult as long as you are conscious when you choose your restaurants; eating at local restaurants is usually cheap, at least until you get into some of the bigger, more expensive cities.  An interesting option is thalis, which are reasonably priced all-you-can-eat meals at local restaurants. 

Tips:

• When looking for a place to eat, ask other travelers you see where they’ve eaten and if the prices are reasonable. 
•  Eat at local street food stands.  These are usually inexpensive and will give you a taste of the local cuisine.  Be sure, however, to eat at places that won’t make you sick; only eat food from these stands if it looks fresh and clean.
• Avoid tourist restaurants; they’re overpriced and usually not that good.
• Dine at sit-down restaurants once per day, preferably at lunch, when food prices are cheaper.
•  To avoid getting sick (and incurring medical costs):  Eat meat only at restaurants that are nice and  Do not eat in empty restaurants.

Life On The Highway

The following is a guest post by Goutam Doulani about his hitchhiking trip from Banglore to Ajmer. You can reach him at gautamoncloud9[at]gmail[dot]com.

It all started 5 years back with the Motorcycle Diaries. That was the day I
first fantasized about going on a trip of my own. Things got busy and I
didn’t think much about it till I heard of Christopher McCandless. Holidays
were coming up and I really didn’t want to go home.

The plan was that there was no plan. All I was going to do was to stick on
the National highways asking people for rides till I made it to Amritsar and
then I don’t know. I basically wanted to get lost. Told a couple of very
close friends about it and they were encouraging. All I had to do next was
tell my parents that my exams had been postponed.

5th of July, that was the day I caught a bus from Bangalore to Goa from
where I was to start my trip. The very first day I realized what a mistake I
had a made, it kept raining for two days. The next afternoon I found the
NH17 and I started my journey. To be honest it was easy getting rides in the
beginning but as I got further away from the city it got tougher and
tougher. The next two days all I was doing was eating vada pavs, asking
every passing vehicle for rides and sleeping in cheap lodges. The rain got
the better of me and I never made it to Mumbai, I took a bus to Surat.

Gujarat turned out to be lucky for me. I got two long rides and by noon I
was in Ahmedabad. Fell in love with the Sabramati Ashram, that place is
blyss. Accommodation was expensive in Ahmedabad so I decided to travel by
bus in the night to Udaipur. By the time I boarded the bus I was drenched in
rain and had to travel that way(shivering all night). Next day was even
worse, I overslept and landed up 60 kms away from Udaipur in Nathdwara.

Rajasthan was cruel. I hadn’t slept on a bed or brushed or bathed  for the
last 3 days and I had been walking for hours with nothing but barren land on
both sides. That was when I realised I couldn’t go further. People there
expect money for rides. The fun  was lost. I finally paid a truck driver to
take me to Ajmer. The journey was over.

This is what happened everytime a vehicle stopped.
“Where?”
“As long as you are on the highway”
This way I managed to meet some amazing people on the way. They admired what
I was doing which inspired me to move on. It was fun chit chatting with
them. These truck drivers do have a tough life.

If you are travelling alone make sure you don’t panic. I don’t remember how
many times during the trip all I wanted to do was go home. You have to get
over those phases. When you have been walking for hours asking for rides and
finally someone stops you will want to kiss that person. There will be times
during the trip when you will be like “This is exactly what I wanted”.

May be 1 in every 30 vehicle will stop. You need to have patience. Someday I
would love to do everything all over again obviously with no plans.

You only got a 100 years to live so if You have ever wanted to something big
and different then what the hell are you waiting for?

Thing that is Constant - The Change

Going by the Omnipresent adage “The Thing that’s always Constant is The Change” this blog is also undergoing a complete Metamorphosis in coming weeks.

We started this blog as a Travelogue for our Maiden Hitchhiking trip to the North East India on a shoestring budget of Rs.150 per day.The trip was a great success though we couldn’t cover all the places we initially planned to.

Now that the trip is over, What’s Next?

We plan to Transform hitchhikingindia.com into something which is more than just a travelogue. A place intended ‘for Travelers by Travelers’ bringing content for avid and novice travelers alike. We are still in the process of charting out future Road map. We hope to get some innovative and creative stuff on board.

The plan is to get up and running by September 2010 if everything goes according to plan.

We’d like to thank all our readers for supporting us and following us through our crazy trip.

Do tell us if you have any suggestions as to what kind of avatar you would like to see us in and if you are crazy travelers like us and want to be part of the project, then do send me a mail at indersen[at]gmail[dot]com and we can meet over coffee or chat over internet.

-Adios,

Inder

Talk about our trip at Lamakaan

We were at Lamakaan yesterday speaking to members of the GHAC about our trip. The first part (took more time than I had expected) was showing them pictures from the trip and then told the entire story of the journey. These pictures are already on our website and at the Hitchhikingindia fan page.

While on our trip, we asked some of the people we met what they would do with Rs. 150, here’s a small video we had made out of the responses which we showed yesterday.

The last part was where I talked about the 10 things we learned on this trip. Here’s the presentation. Unfortunately, I completely forgot switching on the audio recorder or I would have posted that as well here.

10 Things we learned on our Hitchhiking trip

Thanks to all who came and relived our trip in those two hours :).

The end of an adventure

Over a period of one month, we explored the North East of India. A region usually considered remote and often times, dangerous. Tourism has picked up only recently here, after a long period of insurgency and political turmoil. That may be a blessing in disguise however, as most places are untouched by touristy commercialism.

Our trip was not just about visiting the touristy destinations; our plan was to do the trip on a very tight budget. Our target was to spend no more than Rs. 150 per day – a ridiculously low amount in these days. If we had to achieve this target, we would have to get ingenious – we would have to hitch rides and get the cheapest possible accommodation and food. Hitching rides is something our few friends in the north east had not heard of while they were there. Also, with things the way these days are, it is considered extremely unsafe to pick up a stranger along the road. We had no idea where we would stay or what we would eat though. It was a challenge unlike any other.

In the one month we were traveling in the north east, we have lived in homes big and small; ridden trucks, buses and every other kind of surface transport; eaten simple and rich food; faced danger at times and were treated royally at other times. We never knew what the next day would bring but we learned to adapt quickly and coped with surprises.

Our trip may have been about adventure travel, but we ended up discovering the abundance of human generosity and making friends where we hardly had any. The people in the North East are beautiful not just in appearance but they are equally beautiful inside. We have been welcomed into homes very warmly and have been helped by complete strangers many a time. We had never imagined in our wildest dreams that we would not be paying for accommodation for 26 of the 31 days we were in the North East.

What has also helped us is the support we had from the hundreds of folks following our travels from across the world. They have encouraged us, given us advice and tips and motivated us to do more. 

Our final expense figure of Rs. 221 per day may have been higher than what we had our target expense and we may not have hitchhiked all the way as we aimed to but we achieved much more – exposing the better side of the North East to the world and proving that budget (shoestring in fact) travel in India is possible. And that is what made our trip successful.

Do leave your comments and let us know what you thought of our journey or if you have any ideas/brickbats/suggestions/etc.

Update: If you are on Indiblogger, do vote for us in this travel related contest - http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=21967

Gear we used in our trip

In case you ever wondered how we brought you the pictures and the articles we did, while we were traveling, here’s a list of the important equipment we carried.

Backpacks - Wildcraft Alpinist

We have put these 55l backpacks on trucks, buses, trains and don’t remember what else. The backpacks have been very resilient all through the rough use. The padding on the back and the shoulder is good too. Have since used it on a 50km trek and didn’t disappoint at all.

Computer - Lenovo Ideapad S10-3

Our requirement of a tiny computer in order to keep you all updated as we traveled was only going to be satisfied by a netbook. After a little research, we bought the Lenovo because of the wide service network. Performance has been good - of course we had to load Windows XP instead of the default Windows 7 starter pack which is completely useless.

Internet - Tata Photon+

We were warned while buying the connection that the internet speed won’t be of Photon+ but only of Photon (slower than Photon+) in the NE cities, but it has been enough for our purposes. Internet has worked in most places - wherever Tata Indicom mobile connection works and it has been ok. Will have to compare internet speed in Hyderabad though.

Cameras

Canon EOS 450d

As with other DSLRs, the main advantage is you can take great pictures in very varied conditions, however the camera is bulky and needs special lenses to unleash its full potential.

Panasonic DMC TZ1

This is a very old model, at one time was the smallest camera with a 10x optical zoom. The biggest advantage is that you can carry it your pant pocket and leave your hands free.

Tent - Quecha T2

This was a 2 person tent which we were able to pitch in Tawang, but could not actually sleep in it. We were able to pitch it in about 15mins - it is quite straightforward even for newbies like us. The weight (3.4kg) was on the higher side though.

Sleeping bag

We got a Himalaya sleeping bag with us which we only got to use once - in Bomdila. Mostly we got got accommodation where we had bedding too, but it must have made a good impression on our hosts when we looked prepared for any situation!

GPS - Garmin Etrex Vista H

We haven’t uploaded any of the tracks we have recorded yet, but they will be coming soon. Duracell batteries worked for 18hr approximately. The sensitivity was also good - works even inside cars/buses (if you are near the window). The UI is a little bad though. 

Audio Recorder - Zoom H2 Recorder

We never got a chance to use the recorder (to record local music) because of several reasons so can’t comment on its performance.

Flashlight - Mini Maglite (2cell AA)Never underestimate the need for a good flashlight - we realized that early on when we had to walk 2km in pitch darkness near Siliguri. This flashlight throws pretty powerful beam for its size. Good things do come in small packages.

Multifunctional Headgear

This was one of the more useful gear we carried - especially in the cold climes of Arunachal. We could use it like a muffler around the neck or cover our ears and nose and other stuff too.

Disclosure -

The headgear, flashlight, tent and sleeping bag were sponsored by OntheRocks.

The netbook and GPS were sponsored by Makemytrip.com.

The backpacks were sponsored by Wildcraft.

The internet connection was paid for by upto75.com.

We bought the audio recorder ourselves :).

Guwahati - Once burned, twice lucky

The capital city of gateway to the North East (Assam), Guwahati is a bustling cosmopolitan city. We were in Guwahati thrice – first time when we got there from Silchar, second time when we were on our way to Arunachal and the last time at the end of our trip. Our experiences there have been different each time and they only got better each time. The first time, we had to spend a fortune (relative to our budget) and book a hotel room as our host had to leave town on some urgent business. The second time, we got an amazing host and were treated royally. The third time, we became good friends with someone who we had only known online earlier.

Our first visit to Guwahati was quite chaotic. We got there after multiple tedious bus/taxi rides from the Assam border via a supposedly disturbed area (Bodoland) and it was already dark by the time we reached. We were not only tired, but hungry too. To add to this, our host had left town on some urgent business. Now we were hungry, tired and without a place to stay. After a few frantic phone calls, it was clear we were not getting any other hosts for that night. So we got to the hotel our ex-host booked for us and crashed. The hotel room was totally out of our budget, but we had no other option at that time. The next morning, we were clear that we had to leave the hotel room but had no plan of where we were to go next. When we got to know that there may be a bandh the next day, we decided to get to Shillong (which resulted in one of our most interesting rides).

The second time we got to Guwahati, we had a little more experience traveling and so had a plan, accommodation set and a backup plan too. Plans have a funny way of not working out though. We wanted to leave Guwahati as soon as we got our permits for Arunachal Pradesh (we had accounted for one day), but things got mixed up and we had to actually stay there longer. Our hosts were ever so gracious and didn’t mind our sudden change in plans though. Talk about coincidence though - remember the beautiful paintings painted by school kids on the walls of the stadium compound? Our host was the principal of that school! We got to hang out with our host’s son and his friends for a bit too. The interesting part was that our host was a great traveler and motorbiker - his most recent ride was to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. We later met his nephew who had done a solo motorcycle ride from Pune to Pondicherry!

While we were in Guwahati and not running around the Arunachal office, we visited the Kamakhya temple. The temple sits atop a hill and is one of the 51 Shaktipeethas. We were lucky to have an informative gentleman standing next to us while waiting to get a darshan of the deity. He explained to us the importance and the history of the temple and why there is no statue of the deity in this temple - which would have flummoxed us if we hadn’t heard the story first. The big surprise for me (Ajay) was when I saw animal heads inside the main temple! I got to know later that animal sacrifice is common in temples built for Kali mata. A little distance before the temple, you can great views of the city.

One of the sacrificial altars at the temple

Views of the city from the viewpoint near the temple

The third time we were in Guwahati, we stayed with another traveler friend - Subhadeep. He had already helped us with tips and advice for traveling in the NE. He is a motorbiker too and a travel freak. He had earlier driven to Tawang on his bike! Not just that, he had driven there in the winter when there was snow and ice on the roads. We were just back from Arunachal and now knew what a task it must have been! It is not easy to drive there even in a 4X4, let alone a bike. Our stay this time was marked by heavy rains, waterlogged streets, warm hospitality and a celebratory dinner to end our trip.

With Subhadeep - our celebratory dinner.

Tawang

We had earlier been told that the tourist lodge in Tawang was booked full and we could only get a room if there were any cancellations. Still, we decided to test our luck and walked up to the lodge, a short distance up old bazaar. Luckily for us, we did get a room! The caretaker was apprehensive and was telling us that the rooms were not that great, little did she know about where we had lived in the past one month. The room had two beds, razais and a geyser in the bathroom – this was luxury! As we had arrived in the afternoon and the sun was still out, we quickly got out to explore the place and also to have our lunch. We were surprised that most of the shops in the market were closed. On asking a shopkeeper, we got to know that Monday is the closing day for the market here. When told that we wanted to have lunch, he came with us and showed a nearby restaurant. This was one thing we saw happening again and again in Arunachal – the locals go out of the way to help you. We enquired a little bit on what we could do in Arunachal and roamed the markets a little bit. As in other towns of the North East, the people retire early and so did we.

When we landed in Tawang, we were really happy to see the sun shining bright. It still was a little cold, but the bright sun lifted our spirits. When we woke up the next day however, the whole mountain was covered in a heavy cloud. However, we braved on to our first stop – the Tawang Gompa. Tawang is the birth place of the 6^th Dalai Lama – the religious leader of the Buddhists and Tawang was also the place where the 14^th Dalai Lama crossed over to India more than 50 years ago. It is apt that it has the biggest monastery in the world. The Gompa is a huge complex – schools, a museum, prayer halls, center for religious and cultural studies are all located inside the monastery complex. We were lucky to witness a small procession of the Lamas as we entered the gates of the monastery.

The clouds which had come down upon Tawang had not yet cleared and we were left wanting with a view of the Ani Gompas. Background – Buddhist monks are generally male and they do not marry. It is a practice among Buddhist families to give one male child to the monastery at a young age and are educated in the religious texts at the monastery itself. However, there are female monks too, called Anis. They become nuns voluntarily. There are three Ani Gompas in Tawang and it our plan was to hike along the hills to them from the main Gompa. We had been tipped of this trek by Phejin – our friend in Nagaland, who had done in a couple of weeks earlier with some tourists. We asked for directions and were pointed to a narrow dirttrack going down the hill near the main Gompa. We had made a new friend at the Gompa – a student from N.I.T Silchar who had completed his engineering course and was roaming before joining his job. Off we went along the trail – it was quite slippery at some places and our running shoes weren’t a lot of help. We were worried about leaches and were doubly careful while walking. On the way, we found a roaring waterfall which was just as beautiful as Phejin had described on the phone!

After a longish photo session there, we started climbing uphill to the meadows we had seen earlier on the way to the main monastery. A meadow on the top of a hill with cows grazing peacefully – an idyllic scenery. We went exploring to the peaks at the edge of the hill and then set about pitching our tents! The location was picture perfect for a night of camping.

However, our joy was short-lived as a few locals there warned us against camping as the seemingly peaceful cows were only half domesticated and by 4pm the whole meadow would be full of them. With a heavy heart, we packed our tents and went on our way to the Ani Gompa.

We had earlier seen a diversion in the trail to the meadow and had guessed that this was the way to the Ani Gompa. We backtracked to this point and took the diversion – big mistake. After we went on for a short while, we found that the trail divided again. This kept happening and we kept going on till the time we were quite lost. Now, we were on the same hill as the Gompa and we could see it too, but going further was getting harder and harder because of the thick brush. It was already late afternoon and would get dark soon too. We decided we would push it through the brush anyhow and kept going. Those couple of hours were quite enervating – there was no proper trail and we were climbing at a very high altitude. We did finally get to the Ani Gompa however – with some clothes torn and a few scratches. The Anis at the Gompa had some kind of a prayer going on and we were hanging around outside, reluctant to go inside and disturb them. Seeing us, some of the younger Anis called us to their kitchen to have some tea. They told us that the prayers would go on until evening anyway. So we had some of the famous butter (made from Yak’s milk) tea and made told them about what we were doing there. Contrary to the reports we had read earlier about the Butter Tea, the one we had was not smelly. It was a little bland though.

In the Ani Gompa kitchen

The Ani Gompa we went to

The Gompa we missed because of the all encompassing mist

We enquired and found that there was the road to Tawang was further up the hill. The distance was nearly 12km and it would not be possible to get any rides without booking a cab beforehand. After the tiring trek, this was not such great news. However, we braved on and got to the road. We saw an empty van parked there and that raised our spirits –maybe we could hitch a ride. We looked for the driver who we suspected we had passed on the way up from the Ani Gompa, but to no avail. We had no other option but to start walking and hope to get to the town before it got too cold. We got talking to a couple of locals on a motorcycle and they told us that there was another Ani Gompa on the way to Tawang. As we kept going, the clouds came down upon us again; we missed the road to the second Ani Gompa entirely! We walked a few km, asked rides from Army jeeps but got turned down but finally got a cab going to Tawang. A tame ending to an otherwise exciting day.

Journey to Tawang

After our hair-raising Sumo taxi ride to Bomdila, we were more careful this time and booked our tickets early to Tawang. This time we asked for the front row seats and got them too – that meant we could get better views of the drive. After traveling in the last row of almost every vehicle we had boarded (excluding trucks where the first and last row are the same), this was a welcome change. Imagine our surprise when we saw that our driver drove ever so gently on the winding roads. Added to that we had music playing too in his vehicle! This journey was going to be a lot of fun – or so we thought. Right after we got out of the town, he boarded more passengers – now we had a lady sitting with us in the front row, 3 passengers and the driver in total. It gets really tough when the driver had to change gears and you have to move and on these roads, changing gears is required almost every half kilometer. Result – you cannot sleep. And, sleep is the best medicine for enduring long uncomfortable rides in our experience. The journey to Tawang is very scenic and is mentioned in numerous articles. The big draw that Tawang holds over Indian tourists is that it snows there in the winter. With most Indians never seeing snow because of the temperate or sub-tropical climates, seeing snow and experiencing snowfall is high on the list of any must-do items of an Indian. (However, we had seen enough snow in Chicago and Sweden earlier and were hoping there wasn’t any. We were planning to pitch our tents to save on hotel costs – we had enquired at the tourist lodge and they were booked full. Having snow would mean we would not be able to camp either.). At this time of the year though, there was only a slight chance of us encountering snow.

Bad roads on the way to Tawang

One big reason for the drive being scenic is that the road goes beside the river Kamang for the most part. Although we could only see the dry river bed most times, the effect of a river at the foothills of misty mountains is ethereal. We also saw some yaks on the way, but we couldn’t click any pictures of them as they were always in a military area. There is heavy presence of the army in Arunachal Pradesh because China considers it to be a part of their country – One China policy (sic). We requested our driver to stop for a little while at Sela Pass – the highest pass (13700ft) on the Tawang road. Sela pass can only be described in pictures.

Once we crossed Sela Pass, it was easy going and we got to Tawang by afternoon.