There are several things to do after the semester in Pokhara is finished. I spent the first weeks of the exam period mainly in Kathmandu, before travelling in India with a group of seven people. This post is meant to give some information about travelling in India, and hopefully to inspire some to do so.
Kulturstudier has contacts in Pondicherry to help with accommodation there. The students who went there experienced Pondicherry as calm and safe, making it a good place to write the exam. At the same time, the most famous way to travel in India is taking a train, bus or flights in the northern part of the country. This way you can visit many of the most famous places, like New Delhi, Agra, Varanasi, Udaipur and Jaipur.
People travelling to India is often advised to take the safety concern in consideration before doing so. Although this is important to have in mind, I will highlight that we felt safe most of the time. We took precautions and had very few uncomfortable situations. I would therefore not avoid travelling to India because of a safety concern, at the same time as it is important to be aware of. In relation to this, I would advise you to have a guide at least a couple of times. We spent our first day in New Delhi doing a walking food tour together with a guide. This was also a good way to learn more about India. We were able to see many famous places, hidden gems, and eat great food with a short amount of time. We visited a “spice house”, food market, the red fort, temples, shops, a mosque and lots of other places. New Delhi was full of culture, buildings, people, religions and everything I want to experience during a travel. If you only have time to go to one place, New Delhi would be my recommendation. That way you can also have time to go for one or two days to Agra to see Taj Mahal!
If you are planning to travel India by train, I would advise you to book tickets a good time in advance, at least if you want a slightly more comfortable trip than ours. We learned the hard way by lacking one-three beds almost every train ride. We either took turns sleeping or squeezed together in the beds we had. This was probably what led to the most frustration as well as good laughs, and it went fine (maybe except from the 17-hour train ride with “Delhi bellies” to Mumbai). It is also possible to pay for help with booking train tickets at hostels, but this is more expensive.
All together, we travelled: New Delhi – Varanasi – Agra – Jaipur – Chittorgarh – Udaipur – Mumbai – Goa – Kochi. New Delhi and Udaipur must be my favorite places. By travelling like this from north to south we were able to experience the huge differences between the regions. We saw various historical places and got to know new people. After some time, the travel came to a point where we mainly walked out in the streets and saw where the day brought us. I think this led to the best experiences with India. After three weeks in India, some of us went to Sri Lanka for a week before going home. Sri Lanka was different from India and Nepal, but if you are interested in surfing and beach life, this is the place to go!
All in all, the train rides through India were a great experience filled with laughter, challenges, agreements, disagreements, good conversations, and sleep deprivation, but mainly several good memories I am lucky to share with new friends from Nepal 🙂
-Mina