India: scratching the surface

‘Madam and sir, you are both very beautiful. I hope you stay in India for one hundred years’ said Manoj the auto rickshaw driver in Aurangabad. We shared his hopeful sentiment (Indian Immigration, who sometimes act as though granting a visa is akin to sponsoring terror: not so much). We’d arrived in India a couple of weeks prior and slipped back into the rhythm of things as easily as putting on a pair of flip flops and a string of chakra beads. As our auto careened around a sharp corner and then straight into a busy roundabout, I thought about how nice it was just to be addressed at all. In the last few countries we’d been to, men mostly only spoke to Oyv.

I’ve been to India many times before, but I just keep going back. India never ceases to amaze me. In part because no matter how much time I spend there, it still feels like I’m just scratching the surface.

India tends to inspire a lot of big feelings amongst the travelers who roam this country for weeks and months. People love it or hate it or very often, a bit of both. If you’re one of those teetering on the edge of hatred and looking for something to push you right over that edge (outside of the traditional methods such as booking a train ticket), then I invite you to shop at an Indian Costco-type hypermart.

I went into one of those not long after we arrived. At least eight employees hovered in each aisle mobbing shoppers with annoying questions and ridiculous deals. One stood right next to me while I tried to pick a deodorant. ”Shower Fresh’ madam? ‘Spring Blossom’? ‘April Rain’?’ he listed every fragrance as I plucked one from a shelf far above his head, and moved on past the facewash. ”Cucumber and Turmeric’ madam? Very healthy! Buy four get six free!’ he added enticingly. He followed me to the long row of pantyliners and pads: ‘For daily use?’ he wanted to know. I’d already asked one of the eight women standing there about tampons (they aren’t so easy to find). She announced my request into a mic and rushed off somewhere. In the lull, my new personal shopper seized the opportunity to make another sale: ‘Tooth whitener madam?’ he offered helpfully. I stopped smiling.

But I was only looking for deodorant and tampons, not a reason to hate India. Actually I love the place.

Let me count the ways…

One morning as we lingered over chai and parathas at our guesthouse on one of Varanasi’s atmospheric ghats, we got to talking with another guest, a woman from Kolkata who’d come to the city with her husband. They’d brought her ancient father-in-law with them so he could lay eyes on India’s holiest city and dip into the Ganges one last time.

She took a break from patiently arguing the old man into eating his breakfast, and asked about our travels so far. It quickly became apparent we’d been to India more than just once. ‘Have you been to Kolkata?’ she asked, and we answered yes. ‘Darjeeling? Up to Ladakh? Orchha? Kerela? Amritsar? Patna….not Haridwar too?’ We just kept nodding, as she reeled off one city or state after another. ‘You’ve traveled more of India than we have’ she said finally, laughing. ‘What is it you like so much that you keep coming back?’ she asked.

Well. India is a lot of things, but disappointing is not one of them. Even now, I can rattle off a list of places I still want to go here and things I want to do.

So here are just a few of the things that – for us anyway – make a trip to India….such a trip.

Religion: take your pick

When it comes to religion, India’s got it covered. Most of the world’s major religions are well represented in India. Four of them have their roots here: Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

Hindu temples alone number in the hundreds of thousands. It’s not so many considering the vast number of gods (the exact number seems open to interpretation). We went to Hampi, once the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire until it was abandoned in the 16th century and left in ruins by Muslim conquerors. The huge crenellated Virupaksha temple still towers over the small modern settlement, broadcasting a reverberating ‘Om’ at all hours of the day.

And that’s just in town – the remains of dozens of temples lie scattered in the surrounding countryside. We hired bikes for a day and lazily pedaled around, trying to get a grip on the mesmerizing pantheon of Hindu gods.

Bikaner is a dusty Rajasthani town on the edge of the desert. Not too far away is Karni Mata, a Hindu temple devoted to approximately twenty thousand sacred rats. The rats live in the temple (and anywhere else they like) in a never-ending cycle of death and rebirth, alternating between rat and human form in the same caste.

Yes, I know, going barefoot on a marble floor overrun with thousands of rats is arguably a health hazard. But I’ve been to Karni Mata before and came back again voluntarily since Oyv hadn’t seen it yet, plus, I don’t mind rats. A spider temple would be another story. There’s probably one here, somewhere.

After Hindus at about eighty percent of the population, Muslims make up the second largest group at around fourteen percent, so in plenty of places a mosque isn’t far away. We were eating dinner outside in Jodhpur when Call to Prayer echoed over the rooftops. ‘I won’t miss that at five in the morning’ said an Australian at the next table, evidently getting ready to head home. We’d heard nothing but Call to Prayer for months, so we appreciated the diversity. And that we could sit on yet another rooftop with cold beers in Varanasi, while the call rang out at the same time as Hindus thronged the ghats for Ganga Aarti (river worship).

Then there’s the unsurpassed beauty of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. One of Sikhism’s holiest shrines, it’s a stunning sight. The temple seems to float in the centre of the Amrit Sarovar – sacred pool – from which the city takes its name.

There’s also a kitchen which feeds fifty to one hundred thousand visitors – of any faith – every day, for free.

Also no strangers to beautiful holy places: the peaceful Jains whose non-theistic religion combines spirituality and a philosophical system. One of the five holiest Jain shrines in India is Ranakpur temple, a white marble palace that has stood gleaming in the forest near Udaipur since the fifteenth century.

We went to Darjeeling planning to visit the Buddhist monasteries scattered around the hillsides but the weather was so unseasonably appalling that we caved and left without seeing much.

Speaking of caving, we explored a sixth century temple complex much further south (where it was also sunny). The Ellora caves are one of India’s major draws for tourists and pilgrims alike: more than a hundred Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain cave temples and monasteries carved side by side in the rock.

There’s a long-standing ideal of peaceful religious co-existence and equality in India but it’s not always harmonious. In 1528, the first Mughal Emperor Babur built a mosque on land that to Hindus is the Lord Ram’s birthplace. Militant Hindus finally leveled the mosque with sledgehammers in the 1990s and the riots that followed left two thousand people dead. Modi and his Hindu nationalist government have long promised to formally reclaim the site. In January 2024 the country kicked into high gear with festivals and fireworks and Bollywood stars to inaugurate a brand new temple on the disputed spot, sparking debate about just how secular India will continue to be in the future.

Mughal mayhem

For around two centuries starting in the 1500s, the Mughal Empire ruled much of today’s India, not to mention Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The Empire fizzled out with the death of the last Emperor Aurangzeb, and was eventually dissolved by the British Raj. The Mughals were famed for their Indo-Islamic architecture and gardening among other things (like rather tolerant rule, and introducing Turkish baths to the subcontinent). During their rule they went on a building and landscaping frenzy, as witnessed by the elaborate forts, tombs, mosques, and gardens scattered around these four countries today.

Everybody knows the Taj Mahal. But what about Bibi Ka Maqbara – the Mini Taj? The big Taj in Agra is the final resting place for Emperor Shah Jahan’s favourite wife Mumtaz. Their son Aurangzeb’s first wife is entombed in this lesser-known mini-version.

Incidentally, Aurangzeb overthrew his father Shah Jahan, and imprisoned him in his own creation, Agra fort. While he was at it, Aurangzeb commissioned Badshahi mosque in Lahore. It’s a replica but bigger, of his father’s masterpiece Jama Masjid (Friday mosque) in Delhi.

And let’s not forget the mosque that Babur once built on the site of Lord Ram’s birthplace.

There’s plenty to unpack in that family tree.

There’s no time for ‘hanger’

There is nothing like Indian food. Sometimes I literally worry that I won’t get hungry enough to accomplish all my food goals in a given day. Oyv likes it especially, as he never has to worry he’ll fall victim to one of my bouts of hangriness.

North, south, veg, non-veg, quick bites in the street or a lunch-time thali – just put it in front of me.

In a country this big and diverse, the food changes as you travel so you never have to eat the same thing twice. Except if you’re me and obsessed with palak paneer (and collecting photos of it).

Give me an Amritsari kulcha for breakfast.

Or a masala dosa.

To me, a sweet spicy curry is the ultimate comfort food.

I’d order Indian takeaway for my last meal if I was on death row.

And since I’m talking about food: wine. We didn’t realise wineries existed in India, but we should have, because it’s India, so why not? We went to one. It was the least atmospheric winery I’ve ever stepped foot on, and the crowds were fierce. We didn’t learn a thing we don’t already know about wine, in fact we could have taught the rudimentary tasting session ourselves, but it was fun.

Also, huge families with kids running around while their parents sputtered over a glass and mainly posed for photos next to gigantic bottles, was a much healthier approach to alcohol than you tend to see elsewhere India – that is, extremely drunk men lying around in the street.

India Rail and all its intricacies

We’ve heard all the old stories about people falling asleep on a train…and waking up to find their shoes gone, right off their feet. And the famous tales of gropers wandering the carriages looking for female passengers to, well, grope. We’ve never seen (or felt) any of this firsthand, and only met fellow passengers who were friendly, or at worst excessively noisy.

In the years we’ve been traveling in India we’ve seen a lot of changes when it comes to train travel, mainly with the advent of the smart phone. Besides being able to set up IRCTC (India Rail) user accounts and book tickets online instead of standing in lengthy queues in ‘Foreigners Ticketing Offices’ at the stations, there’s also an app which allows you to combine a fondness for trains and food, and so not have to worry about food goals as mentioned above. You can look up the stations your train is going to pass through, peruse menus at a list of food outlets at each station, order a meal, and have it delivered during a stop which can easily range from just a few minutes, to an unexplained hour or more.

It’s often slow and painful and budget airlines abound, but I’d still take a train journey any day.

Backpacker vibes

In general I wouldn’t say this as other backpackers and their vibes are not things we usually look for on our travels. But after the preceding months on the road this time – in more, um, austere places like Afghanistan, or southern Pakistan – we welcomed the change in atmosphere. The old Blue city in Jodhpur, the warren of narrow streets around the lake in Udaipur, most of Rajasthan – hello, Pushkar.

And of course – Goa’s beaches.

Those places – and their atmospheric guesthouses, yoga classes, good cafes, delicious breakfasts and smoothie bowls and avo toast – are part of the India we remembered from our first ever trip to the subcontinent eighteen years ago. (Well, not the avo toast, but you get the idea).

What’s not to love?

Yes, India can be a bit extra sometimes. There are the sad street dogs, I can’t even look. Pushy queue jumpers, insane crowds. Tiresome bureaucracy. Unfathomable inequality. Temple cooks preparing giant pots of dal for rats while human beings pick through piles of rubbish looking for scraps. Gropers – I haven’t encountered any on the trains, but I’ve certainly encountered them in the streets.

India might be a little crazy in places, but there’s a method to the madness and we learn more every time. Returning to India from Bhutan, as we walked to our hotel I thought ‘We’ve only been here for twenty minutes but it just feels good. Of course, any second now something outrageous will happen, but…still. It’s good to be back.’ Back scratching away at the surface.

Read More

For more of our adventures (and misadventures) as we travel from Cameroon to Japan, check out the rest of my stories from the road.

Or have a look at these stories from our previous visits to India.