One month in India

Today marks exactly one month since we arrived in India. This post will shortly describe my experience so far.

Since my last time here about 3 years ago, a lot of things have changed - India is developing fast, so don't wait 10 years to visit it, do it now.

Most visible change is prices - notably for Rikshaws. First time I used tuk-tuks a lot, but now with travel buddy, we walk a lot more, so this doesn't really impact me, but still - you will now pay almost twice as much as 3-5 years ago for the same ride.

Food is still relatively cheap - you can get full for about 70 rupees if you choose simpler foods or pay 150-200 rupees for more western-style meal with additional drinks/desserts. At least we haven't paid more than 170 rupees in usual restaurants for full-blown meal. Western pizzerias and the like are another story - you could spend 300-500 rupees and not get satisfaction you deserve for that price.

This is one area where I "failed" last time. I guess it was heat - I just didn't eat that much. This time I came here with mission to try and eat as much as I could. India has just outstanding amount of different sweets, street food and dishes from near and far away. Don't be afraid to try everything. Upset stomach once is nothing compared to what you get.

One thing I noticed very early is that there are very little chai-stands on streets compared to my last visit. Price is more or less the same, depending on cup size: 5-10 rupees.

My average expenses per day totals almost 1100 INR/day (~9 LVL), Artur's - 800 INR (~6.7 LVL). I've got more because I had to buy 3G dongle (~1400 INR), ethernet cable to USB convertor (~1700 INR) and 10GB/month bandwidth (~1500 INR). If not for the internet, my average would be 900 rupees per day. Cheaper than living back home and there are a lot of ways to spend less.

For the last week or two we are traveling mostly between hill stations, which means a lot less people and a lot more hills and nature. And lots of tea. While visiting tea places in Darjeeling and Assam was our main goal, we still are in south part of the country. That said, our current place (Munnar) is probably the last town before heading north. Time is flying by so fast - three months looked like much, but when you want to stay in each great place for 3-5 days, you need a lot more than 3 months to see and enjoy most of India. Good thing about long-time travel (and I'm using this phrase loosely - in my opinion long-time travel is 6 months and up) is feeling that you are not really traveling anymore, but it just is [your life].

One thing I now kinda want I would have done is do this journey on bicycle. I follow closely our fellow latvians who took off to India for 6 months on bicycles at the same time we departed. Traveling on bicycle lets you see more and get new experiences. Check out kasparsmisins.lv to learn more about them.

India (and I guess traveling in general) makes you simpler. You stop worrying about where to sit/sleep/eat. Your stomach doesn't mind if waiter brings omlet in his hands or breaks pancake into smaller pieces with the same bare hands. Cookies with expiration date that was last year? Why not? It feels like you are part of everything local.

And you get new friends, even if just for a brief time.

I do miss one thing though - work. Here, I said it...