1 month in India

When and How

We had 30 days to see as much as we wanted, yay!! As we didn’t have any tickets/accommodation etc booked, we could spend as much time as we wanted in a city that we liked and less time in the ones we didn’t like as much. (Well, kind of.)

Basically, we visited 11 cities in 30 days. I guess we did well, it was a bit rushed because of the holiday season (December = booked out trains) and India is such a big country, but we really enjoyed every second of it. It was an average of 3 days in each city, traveling mostly by train. However, some cities we only spent the day because it wasn’t worth spending the night.

 This trip happened in December 2014, so prices might not be relevant at this stage anymore. But it is more about sharing the experience with you.

One of the amazing architectures - Jaipur


The Weather

In December the weather was great, it was sunny most of the days, not too cold and not boiling hot and we started in the north part as it was going to get cold first and we made our way down to the south which was nice and warm, the perfect beach weather. 
*A long sleeved thermal is a great idea to take.
Sunrise at Ganges River - Varanasi


Communication/Internet

We figured that would be nice to be able to have some sort of communication or internet to give us flexibility during these 30 days. 
To buy a sim card and have data on our phones was a great idea, cheap and very useful as most places in India have coverage. 

So we bought 2 sim cards (Vodafone) so we could communicate with each other just in case and also to use maps and do some research about places to visit, tips etc.


The Transportation

We booked only the 2 first flights, Bali > Kolkata and Kolkata > Varanasi. No return flight was booked as we weren’t sure which city we would end up at.

Most of our trip (95%) was by train which is good to save time and money. And when we couldn’t, we would find the next cheapest option available. 

The 2 main reasons we like the train: 1st because you can travel at night so you don’t waste the day on the road and also save money on accommodation as you can sleep on-board. 

It is not the most comfortable bed but it is far better than some hotels, plus it’s just for a few hours, the longest train trip took us 15h. They serve food and there is toilet etc. Nothing fancy for us as we picked the cheapest option for everything. But you can get 1st class or 2nd or 3rd. We were usually on the sleeper class which is the dirtiest one. Still not a problem if you enjoy adventures.

One of the many sleeper train rides - Dusty Asssssss

The only thing we didn’t know about was that the month of December is the busiest month because of the holiday season. So we ended up having some restrictions when buying our train tickets because they were mostly sold out. So luckily we manage to get a couple of the ‘Emergency tickets’ to get out of the city when we wanted, but that was after wasting some time and stressing out a bit. So if you are traveling in December, be aware of that.



Our Itinerary
Sunshine at the Taj
To find more details about them, check out the following posts about each city:

Kolkata > Patna by plane (It was meant to be to Varanasi but it got canceled)
Patna > Varanasi by Jeep 10h (NOT recommended at all) Train please.
Varanasi > New Delhi by train 13hs
New Delhi > Agra by train 5h
Agra > Jaipur by train 5h
Jaipur > Jaisalmer by train 12h
Jaisalmer > Jodhpur by train 6h
Jodhpur > Udaipur by taxi 6h
Udaipur > Mumbai by train 15h
Mumbai > Goa (Margao) by train 11h
Goa(Margao)=(Goa)Palolem by taxi return 1h each way
Goa(Margao) > Kochi by train 15h
Kochi >< Fort Kochi by ferry return 
Kochi > Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by plane
And finally, some tips to any city in India:
  • Use insect repellent at all times – I got dengue fever there so I would highly recommend preventing it because I was lucky to get the symptoms when we were in Mumbai which is the most modern city and I manage to find an OK hospital. Even though I didn’t have insurance, it worked out 'alright' and I am alive. 
    Me and the lovely Dengue fever at Bombay Hospital 


  • Buy water bottles ONLY from big names chains (McDonald’s, Subway,7/11 etc). They are the only safe water you will find. – We actually knew about it, but we found most of the places selling sealed bottles of water and naive as we were, we thought they were safe to drink just because they were sealed, looked brand new and safe. BAD BAD BAD move. 

  • Eating street food, we did it (a lot and all the time) and I totally recommend doing it because we found SO MANY delicious dishes!! BUT be prepared to potentially get stomach stuff. I got salmonella at the end of the trip for instance. But really we were eating anything that looked good and all the locals were eating and we were ‘aware’ that we didn’t have the antibodies that they have, but we didn’t care. 
  • If you are a girl and you don’t want to be harassed I suggest that you wear clothes covering most of the skin. Up north which was a bit cooler than the South I used pants everyday, long sleeved top most of the time. Even still I felt a bit looked at. Down South on the beach they are more relaxed and of course I could wear shorts and bikini. They didn't seem to care as much. 
  • Always try to negotiate prices! They are charging double, triple or even more just because they obviously know you are a tourist. Just don't be rude. 
  • Don’t trust a stranger, we learnt it the hard way. There are plenty of scammers, some seem to be helpful others extremely friendly and that is just their great acting skill going on there. Of course, we cannot generalize but we found that they were mostly in the North of India than in the South. But still. 
  • Always buy tickets from the train station with the Official train station staff! A lot of tukuk drivers, random guys on the street and even at the train station, will try to sell you tickets or point you to the wrong direction (pretending to be the official) just so you buy from these scammers and they get their commission $! 
Being redirected by scammers - happy days

  • Never tell a taxi/tuktuk driver that you haven’t booked the hotel yet. It happened to us and they will take advantage of the situation! We were looking for a place to stay and the tuktuk driver suggested a hotel which we found out we paid double the price just because he took us there, they hide their commission $ in the room rate. 
For example, we had in mind the hotel we wanted but didn’t have it booked yet and we accidentally told the tuktuk driver that. As soon as we arrived at the front of the hotel, he rushed in before us, talked to the guy behind the counter in Hindi of course so we could not understand and we found out that he negotiated his commission with the guy just for taking us to the hotel. We figured that we were going to pay nearly double the price it actually was. Just so the driver would get his commission. 
  • Tuk-Tuk rides can get a bit annoying specially when you don't have much time to waste. They will try to take you to stores, shops etc Apparently what happens is that they receive a commission or a prize as food or fuel if they bring tourist to the shop. A honest driver told us what happens and asked if we were in a rush or if he could take us to this shop so he could get a pack of rice and some fuel. He also said we didn't need to buy anything, just for going into the shop and having a quick look at some stuff would be enough in order to get his 'commission'. As we were not in a rush and he was really nice taking us were we wanted plus being honest, we went (it wasn't too far away either).
The nicest Tuktuk driver - Kochi Fort

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