After having dreamed of it for a long time, on May 30, 2023 I landed in India in the chaotic city of New Delhi, a city with many faces and quite large that would host me for two days, the time to book train tickets and begin to approach the Indian people.

             Check out the video 😉

   Subtitles are in various languages

I'll be honest, I didn't like India very much but it was interesting to see it and I'm grateful for this experience, it's a country that I recommend going to see because it's unique in its kind, really, really big and different. The opinions that I report in this article are strictly personal, a country (whatever it is) can make different people feel completely different emotions even if they visit it at the same time sharing the experience together. Below I report the route I traveled and towards the end of the article I wanted to give three small pieces of advice that I would have liked to read before leaving for such an experience.

Immediately after landing in New Delhi I start walking around the city and I am impressed by the amount of people living on the streets and the number of limbless people roaming the streets. New Delhi presents itself with various faces, very clean and tidy in the center with well-kept gardens and large avenues, but it is enough to walk a few hundred meters to then find yourself in the middle of small streets full of people who live in conditions very far from those that can be defined as human, many cows roaming everywhere and a strong smell of urine and faeces accompany the city.

After buying the train tickets in the station (very efficient service and kind staff) I get on my first Indian train that will take me to the city of Varanasi, I go to look for the bed in the carriage and the next morning I arrive in the sacred city.

Having been there in June the temperatures were around with a minimum of 30° and a maximum of 48°. The city of Varanasi has many narrow streets which make the streets shaded and therefore cooler. In the following photo you can see the piles of wood scattered around the city that are used to cremate corpses. Dying and being cremated in Varanasi for a Hindu represents the end of the eternal cycle of reincarnation and therefore the attainment of eternal peace after death.

Every day in Varanasi an average of three hundred corpses burn, a truly particular scenario, unique to see and quite crude as a scene. Out of respect I didn't want to shoot the burning corpses but I assure you it's an intense experience. I have been in the Temple of Shiva and here I have admired the sacred fire which continues to burn continuously for thousands of years and which initiates every cremation.

Very characteristic are the Ghats, stairways on the banks of the river Ganges, the sacred river for the Hindus. Having been there in May the water level is low and it is possible to take a boat ride , walk around the Ghats and see the many Babas sitting and absorbed in their prayers . Every morning and every evening you can attend the Ganga Aarti ceremony which lasts about an hour. Varanasi at dawn is something suggestive

Walking through the Ghats that morning I meet the Baba and we exchange good mornings, so he spreads the ashes from the cremations on my forehead. This is how I greet this ancient city, very special

I get on the train towards Agra, to admire the Taj Mahal, a beautiful monument, built as a sign of love and with a very bloody ending to the story (if you like, go and read what it is about). So I walk through its gardens and I am enchanted by its poetic form.

Leaving Agra I head towards Rajasthan, a very touristic area of ​​India, with little vegetation and which also has the desert, I had high expectations for this area but it didn't excite me much, I preferred the southern part of India more. There are several temples and forts to see here as well as some beautiful wells. The first stop in this area was Jaipur, a town with narrow streets full of local markets, where among the various attractions is the palace of the winds, Hawa Mahal.

After Jaipur via a local bus I head to Pushkar, a small town with a lake in the center, I don't have it because in those days I was going through a rather strong food poisoning. After a few days, seeing that the situation wasn't improving, I decided to move to Jodhpur so that if my health condition became even more complicated, I would have tried to go to the hospital, which didn't happen.

Jodhpur has many cloth shops, a neighborhood called the blue city and various attractions. I visited the Mehrangarh fort built in 1460 and spent pleasant days with the Indian people who treated me very well.

After a few days spent in Jodhpur I decide to leave Rajasthan and on board a night train I head south and the following morning I arrive in Mumbai. Tired of visiting the city after having visited the main attractions and witnessed the metro scenario (an incredible amount of people crowded, be careful if you go during peak hours and I'm not talking about dangers as regards pickpockets, those can also happen of course but I am referring to the fact that you will be overwhelmed by waves of people busy getting on and off the carriages). On board another night train I move to Goa, more precisely to Panaji and the landscape changes a lot, rich vegetation is part of this area

All so beautiful green, many coconut palms and large beaches in the southern part of India, there are many plants with very large leaves and many animals. These photos were taken in South Goa , the part where they say is a little quieter with no raves or similar parties.

I spent several days in Palolem , a quiet place where you can see the fishermen on the beach and there I had my first swim in the Indian Ocean . It is an area with many rivers and in certain parts there are many Mangrove plants

Lots of fruits, many banana plants and here in the following photo are the Giaca Fruits, which are the largest fruits in nature among those that grow on trees (wikipedia says it eh 😂). A particular fruit, I like it very much, inside it is very sweet and has large seeds

After Palolem I move further south and enter the region of Kerala, similar to Goa in terms of vegetation and with large beaches. Here in the following photo I was in Varkala, a town on the Indian Ocean

From Kerala I took the train to Chennai where I then went to the airport for the direct flight to Sri Lanka. India is a particular country, the Indian people have treated me well, there are so many and among them there are many good people. It is a raw country in many respects, difficult to describe because it is so different in various areas, in India you learn to distinguish poverty from misery, you see very harsh situations and ways of doing and living that are a bit difficult to understand, however they must be respected.

          Three Little Tips

The first tip concerns the trains, you can go to (almost) any part of the country, they are comfortable and cheap and allow you to cover long distances in a short time. The slightly more difficult thing is the theme of "getting tickets" because (hard to believe but it is true) in India as regards the purchase of tickets online, the percentage of probability is written on the site (I'm not kidding ) that you are able to buy the ticket, it has happened to me several times to buy the ticket, pay it by credit card and after a few hours receive the message that the ticket is not available and a bank transfer from the train company with the reimbursement of the tickets . I advise you to register with the IRCTC where you will be asked a lot of questions and then download the "Ixigo" application which allows you to buy tickets (if you have the IRCTC profile) and monitor the status of the trains (you need a Indian number so it is better to register after taking the local sim and insert the Indian one as nationality.The most convenient thing is to buy the tickets directly at the ticket office, which if you are in the central station of Mumbai you have no problems but if you need a ticket in the morning at five o'clock in a small remote country of India the situation becomes a little more complicated because there are kilometers of queues of people or the ticket offices are closed.Get your tickets well in advance (days before) and when you are waiting for the train if you are in a station in between, expect at least an hour's delay because that's often the case.

The second piece of advice concerns the question of food. I'm not making a matter of taste here because that's a personal thing, I'm talking about other matters. They usually cook (not everywhere, I don't want to generalize) large quantities of food and serve them after several hours. In this period of time especially in the warm seasons there may be insects and bacteria which then go on to the food. Pay attention to how long they take to serve you the dish ( if they take that long it could be a good sign because they are cooking it on the spot ) . I got pretty bad food poisoning and trust me if you can avoid it you will have a more pleasant experience. Bottled water and even brushing your teeth better be careful . Not all foods are spicy but many of these are, I didn't like Indian cuisine and I find it quite monotonous, after a month of always eating the same four things I started cooking my own meals. If you are in India, enjoy good Chai (a typical tea-based drink with spices and milk) and great Lassi (a kind of smoothie with possible various fruit flavours), they are delicious.

Third tip, the bed mosquito net. It weighs little in your backpack and trust that it will change your experience for the better. Whether it is in Varanasi or in Rajasthan or in the southern part of India (especially in the south) it is full of mosquitoes. Not so much during the day, in fact I haven't heard of them during the day but at night it becomes quite difficult to sleep, I bought one in Varanasi and then used it practically every night spent in India.

I have heard many testimonials about India before going where they talk about it as a dangerous and difficult country. I don't consider it a dangerous country (my personal consideration with this I don't want to incite anyone not to pay attention or to give less weight to their own safety). It's a bit complicated for travel if you don't organize yourself in advance and the food issue if you're not a lover of spicy and spicy food can get heavy if you stay several weeks. 

How many horns blowing in India.

            Check out the video 😉

   Subtitles are in various languages