DesiTraveller

 Do you need to travel by train suddenly, for a holiday or otherwise, but are daunted by the huge waiting lists that are increasingly common as the holiday and festival winter season draws nearer? Well, keep your bags packed, and be ready to travel as short notice. Not only are there going to be a large number of "festival special" trains, some have already been declared and can also be spotted on the booking websites, but there are often "special trains" declared on some routes at short notice. One way to do this is to keep looking for options on the booking websites, for your preferred routes, with the "Flexible with Date" option ticked. Another option that works very often is the quotas being released 4 hours before the train opted for departs from origin railway station or en-route charting station. Either which way, it is always good to check up on the booking websites about 4 hours before departure, as trains often open up with seats and berths avail...

  People in the trade are already talking about a surge of inbound tourism to India this winter of 2022/2023. The impending fuel shortage in Europe as well as rising inflation makes it not just cold but also unhealthy to hang around there. Likewise, there is the expected rush of ex-pat Indians from abroad, whether NRI, OCI or foreign born confused desis, running away from the recession that is staring them in the face. They too will arrive on Indian shores. Whether long-stay or short, foreigners or OCIs or NRIs, all of them will need some amount of tourism facilities. From fancy expensive hotels in Metro cities to home-stays in rural parts of the country. And for once, we appear to be ready as a country, for this influx. Today, for example, we have international gateway airports in India that provide direct bus services to the interior parts of India, Delhi to Punjab, Bengaluru to everywhere in Karnataka, Hyderabad to different parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are some example...

  It is not unknown for differential pricing to be used as a means of ensuring that resident Citizens are not charged for subsidised benefits used by Foreigners. A huge example is public transport, which globally is subsidised for Citizens as a larger social benefit, but in India especially in context with road transport is often used as a revenue generator. To start with, I simply do not understand why Foreigners pay the same train fare as Indians, in India, on Indian Railways, and why they should not be charged double, or even more -- as is often the case in many parts of Europe when you look at train fares online. Most certainly the British, at the very least, should be made to pay a huge surcharge if they use our train, for all the money they took out of India. Especially if they continue to go on yapping about the misbegotten "glories" of the Raj. We were their slaves, as the movie RRR has shown so well, and it is now time for them to start paying back. All 47 trillion d...

  Want to drive all over India? FasTag will track whatever motor vehicle you are in (unless you are from the VVIP/VIP categories, which is certainly something that needs to be re-considered. Want to travel by train in India? Reserving online and often across the counter requires some form of identification or the other and then once onboard, yes, you do have to prove your identity  Want to fly across India? Most certainly a digital trail, from booking the ticket through to check-in and often even when making an exit, will track you. Need to withdraw cash or make payments? Unless you carry wads of cash, which shall get you stopped at various checkpoints, or exchange gold for cash (again, very risky) you just left tracks as bright as spotlamps. Have to check into any sort of hotel, guest house, paying guest accomodation? Be prepared to enter and provide a copy of some form of digital ID that will be placed in multiple data-bases. Taking fuel at a filling station? Some have start...

  There has been a huge change for the better with tourist guides across India. I say this with confidence because decades of domestic travel which began with avoiding tourist guides in the early years to a total respect for the tourist guides I come across all over India is a personal anecdotal experience, backed by inputs from other travellers, and something which, in my humble opinion, has not been documented or written about. One example out of many - at a particular temple complex in Peninsular India, over 1000 years old, my taxi driver is an elderly man from another religion. I am usually interested in seeing parking lots, especially paid parking lots, to get an idea of the environs. Not much tells you more about a new place than the paid parking lots, if you can spot the gambling, the pushers and the fake "receipts", you have made a start. So after parking the taxi, our driver asked me how much I knew about this particular temple complex, and I told him that, yes, I ha...