India: Travel back in time to the era of the British Raj in Kolkata

Posted on June 24, 2019 by The Time Lord

**The Victoria Memorial** is a remnant of the British Raj. When the British ruled India, Kolkata was a capital city.

You will experience some form of culture shock when you enter India. We arrived in Kolkata on a red-eye flight from Dubai at about 8 a.m. Our family friend arrived the evening before and told us about the hundreds and hundreds of people she saw sleeping on the pavements of the streets as she was drive to the hotel.

We only saw anecdotal evidence of homeless people as people were putting their homes away and getting ready for the day. One of the toughest things is to be in your hotel room and look down to see children, women, and men asleep beneath your hotel window.

After a short rest, we went on a boat ride on the Hooghly River which was probably the best thing to do in a jet lag stupor when you don’t really want to do too much. A relaxing boat ride provides you a glimpse into the life in Kolkata.

We had just missed the Durga Pooja based on the evidence of statues and floats being broken down along the riverside. Durga is a Hindu festival in Kolkata held in October to honour the goddess Durga. The pooja is a four-day event. The celebrations include pomp and ceremony and parades to the most powerful form of the Mother Goddess.

On our way back to the hotel, we drove by Eden Garden, one of the iconic and largest cricket stadia in the world. It conveys a very tribal atmosphere underpinned by the need to put up a cross link fence between the stands and the cricket pitch.

We made a stop at Mother Teresa’s Mission which sits at the opening of one of India’s largest slums. The nuns continue to provide for the poor partly financed by donations you make at the museum on the mission’s grounds which includes the tomb of Mother Teresa. It is a truly spiritual place as many people come to pay tribute to the humanitarian, some even lie prone in deference.

Our full day in Kolkata the next day included crossing the Howrah bridge which separates Howrah from Kolkata over the Hooghly River. Howrah is a somewhat sleepier place compared to the hustle and bustle of Kolkata.

**The Kalighat is one of the major spiritual sights to see in Kolkata.**

A trip to Kolkata is not complete without a visit to the Kalighat and the Kali temples. Kali is the Goddess of Destruction and has a very large group of worshippers among Hindus. There are many other spiritual journeys to take in Kolkata such as the Fire Temples of the Parsi and the Jain Temples that lie along the Hooghly River.

For food, we had to try Fleury’s which is a Kolkata institution serving tea and pastries since 1927. The other foods that are must-tries in Kolkata are the Bengali fish curry and the Hakka Chinese dishes that are extremely popular in the Greater Toronto Area. Dishes such as chili chicken and Hakka chowmein started in Kolkata and cost a fraction of what they cost in the west. Bengali fish curry is one of the amazing dishes of north-eastern India.

Recommended hotel:

We stayed for two nights with early check in at the Oberoi Grand Hotel. This five-star hotel is in the middle of Kolkata offers a step back to the days when the British Raj used Kolkata as its capital. The old world hotel is well appointed including a swimming pool in the middle of the complex from which you cannot hear the outside world. The hotel is sight of the threesixtythree restaurant with all day dining and a Thai restaurant called Baan Thai. In the offseason, a two-night stay is about £250 while the price is £360 in the high season for two nights.

If you are on a backpacking trip, most of the hostels can be found around Sudder Street. There are still British-era clubs in existence such as the Tollygunge Club, Calcutta Club, and Saturday Club where it is possible to rent a very lavish Raj-era room. However, you can only do so through a member.

Getting in by air

Fights to Kolkata land at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport. The airport is served by all Indian domestic carriers as well as Air Asia, Biman Bangladesh, Bhutan Airlines, Cathay Dragon, China Eastern, Druk Air, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, Singapore Airlines, Sirlankan, and Thai Airways.

By rail:

There are three main stations in Kolkata: Howrah Junction, Sealdah, and Kolkata. While Howrah Junction is technically not in Kolkata as it is in Howrah, it is the largest railway station in India with 26 platforms accommodating 600 trains every day. Most of the long distance trains from the west such as the Delhi trains will stop at Howrah.

Safety

By western standards, Kolkata is a relatively safe city. There are areas such as Sudder Street where drug dealers tend to do business, but they tend to keep to themselves. Bag snatchings are rare but they occur so make sure your belongings are safe.

New Series: Planning for India leads to fewer headaches, bad surprises

Posted on June 23, 2019 by The Time Lord

**The Taj Mahal is the most iconic sight in India. Located in Agra, hundreds of millions of people visit the tomb every day.**

One of the most visited countries in the world is India. It offers mystery, folklore, ancient civilisations, cuisine, and so much more. For my next blog series, I will focus on India as a traveller’s dream.

I will go from the perspective of creating a bespoke holiday because, unless you are a very savvy traveller, you will need help navigating India’s bustling streets, overflowing infrastructure, and the culture shock.

This is based on my Indian journey in 2011 which I took with my parents and a family friend. At the time, I was still living in Canada when I planned this journey.

Best time to go

We decided the best time to go would be in October around the Canadian Thanksgiving. It was not quite high season in India which meant prices would be a bit cheaper than a few weeks later. The high season in India tends to be late October to mid-March when the temperatures begin to rise into the 40s. This is when most people will visit India when it is “pleasant” in the 30s.

Air travel

I had been reading all about how great Emirates Airlines were back in those days. They had made air travel great again (wink, wink). At the time, they were beginning to roll out their superjumbo Airbus A380 on several routes, but they were still flying the Boeing 777 to Toronto. So, we decided to fly with them though Manchester and to include a short visit with my sister and see the babies Jasmine and Oscar.

We decided to fly business class on this flight which, at the time, was very reasonable. This was when Emirates was undercutting the competition by offering fares competitors couldn’t match. Now, they offer high fares and their service suffers greatly. A perk of flying Emirates business class is the chauffeur drive programme where they send a car to pick you up. In the Manchester area, it is a 50-mile radius which meant Sheffield was well within the zone.

Entry into India

For this one, I did a lot of homework at night to try and understand how the optimise our time in India. The vast majority of people who go to India will need a visa. So I started looking into the process which required filling out an online form, printing it, taking it and your passport to an office and getting your passport and visa back in about two weeks. Today, it is much simpler with an e-Visa where you buy the visa online, print the PDF, and carry it with you. It usually takes a few hours to get an e-Visa.

Researching

Based on my research, I knew that India was way too big to see in a three-week trip and that I would have to limit it to a region or two. With life, we have no guarantees which means seeing the most iconic areas on your first trip. That meant including the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur) on this trip. The vast majority of people who visit India will visit this region first. What you do beyond that makes your trip special.

I also felt that we should visit the former colonial capital of Kolkata, as well as the northern Islamic city of Lucknow on our trip. Because my grandfather was a practising Hindu, we felt Varanasi should be put on the trip.

So now with Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, and Varanasi in mind, we had the skeleton of a trip and I started to look at suggested itineraries that people have posted on Lonely Planet, Tripadvisor, and other travel websites. I kept seeing people talk about certain travel companies that specialise in Indian tours that will put together a formal trip with hotels and internal transportation. I chose the British-based company Cox and Kings for advice on the trip. Other companies that are very reputable that would provide similar services include Greaves India, an American and British-based company that we used on our second trip to India; Kuoni, a British agency with offices across the country, and; Wild Frontiers, based in London.

These operators have people who are experts on the areas you are interested in visiting who work exclusively with Indian tour operators, are very familiar with India, and will ensure that your holiday is exactly what you wanted.

Basically, I worked with a dedicated tour agent to fill in the blanks on my skeleton plant. He advised four additional places that would help create a smooth transition especialy because this trip was from the east to central Indian. He added in Khajuraho, Orchha, Ranthambhore National Park, and Ramathra Fort.

Khajuraho is the site of several ancient temples similar to what you would see at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. It is a very small village that is only known for the temples which means an overnight stay is all you need. We flew into Khajuraho from Varanasi and made our way through the rest of the trip by van from Khajuraho.

Orchha is a medieval town in Madhya Pradesh. It is best known for for its fort. We stayed for two nights at the Amar Mahal, a small hotel laid out like an Indian palace with views overlooking the town below.

**The medieval town of Orchha is known for palaces and forts and takes you back in time.**

Ranthambhore National Park is in Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan and a tiger reserve. It is one of the few places in the world where you can view Bengal tigers in the wild — if they are out. They tend to hide away in the foliage. We stayed at the Vivanta by Taj Sawai Madhopur which is a five-star hotel that used to be a hunting lodge. Getting up at 5 a.m. having a snack of biscuits and tea or coffee before climbing on board a jeep and trekking into the forests transports you back to the days of the Raj and gives you an idea of what it might have been like to be in that era.

My favourite was Ramathra Fort. It is a place that, unless you know about it, you probably won’t even know it’s there. Ramathra Fort is in Karauli, Rajasthan, about 200 km south of the Agra to Jaipur highway. The further off the beaten track you get the more rugged the drive until you come to a part where one gravel lane serves two directions of traffic. Imagine a heavy goods truck and a small van trying to get by each other with 20-foot dead drops on their side of the road. But the journey is is worth it when you arrive at the Fort which is a hotel with two suites and eight luxury tents, when you climb up on the rampart wall, look out at the mustard fields and see no one. Other than the sounds of animals around you, it is peace and quiet which is even more amazing when you consider that just north of you is that Golden Triangle with millions and millions of people, bustling traffic, and non-stop activity.

Tips for planning India

India is one of the places I would recommend you do not cut costs;
Five-star hotels in India are not that expensive. You can find great hotels in the five-star range from less than £100 per night.
Northern India is very different from Southern India which I will get to in the next post. Where the south is more laid back, you will be inundated by beggars and touts in the north and they are relentless. In fact, when they approach you, you shouldn’t even look at them much less say anything. “No or no thank you” does not work with them.
A combination of transport types will allow you to experience India in dfferent ways. We did flights, train, and road travel.
Always remember to drink bottled water. You should use it to brush your teeth as well. Caution is a good thing.
Remember to consult a travel clinic before you leave to make sure you have your inoculations.
Go vegetarian for the first few days of your trip to ease the Delhi belly.
Avoid street food as much as you can. See previous point.
Accept that your tour operator in India, tour guide, tour manager, driver, etc., make a fixed small wage and top up their pay with commissions. This means you will be taken to clothing shops, souvenir shops, perfumeries, etc. to buy things. Every purchase you make means a commission for them.
Tipping can be almost as expensive as your journey when you consider that you will have to tip your tour manager, tour guide, driver, and driver’s assistant. Rule of thumb is that the tour manager gets about £10 to £20, your tour guide gets about £8 per day per adult on the tour, £10 per adult per day goes to your driver, and £2 per adult per day to your driver’s assistant.

In Part 2, I will outline the planning for the second journey to India which I did in 2013. Subsequent parts of the series will outline various places I visited and which are highly recommended.

Delays, unreliable service shouldn’t sour your train travel experiences

Posted on June 21, 2019 by The Time Lord

**Train travel is a cheap option that allows you to immerse yourself in a new culture.**

One of the appeals of living in Europe is the extensive transportation infrastructure that criss-crosses the continent. In theory, it is possible to get from the smallest villages in England to Moscow by rail.

Train travel is the best way of seeing and experiencing a new culture.

It immerses you in the culture because you are travelling with locals. If you rent a car you are focussed on driving and not on the scenery. Even if you hire a car and driver, you are enclosed in your vehicle and not really experiencing the culture.

We travel to learn about other people. Travellers tend to be more open-minded and have a different perspective of reality than those who choose to stay at home and rely on accounts of other cultures by people who have hidden agenda.

This post looks at the pros and cons of train travel. While some systems are extremely efficient, others can be chaotic and unreliable.

British rail or should I say British fail

Lots of literature has been written presenting rail travel as a romantic notion aboard trains with fine dining and well appointed state cars.

But contemporary rail travel, especially in the UK, has become very unreliable to the point that I prefer to pay three times more for long distance taxis than rely on the trains to get me to the airport.

In fact, the only time I use British Rail if I am flying is if my flight is the next day from London.

2018 was one of the worst years on record for British train companies with unprecedented levels of strikes and cancellations on networks in the southeast and north of England.

Studies showed that more than 70 percent of commuters in the Greater Manchester Area drove to work instead of relied on trains because of the unreliability of the system.

The BBC reported that in July 2018 almost 33 percent of Northern Rail trains were cancelled.

In April and May I took two train journeys on which trains were delayed enough to have a knock-on effect that led to missed connections.

Dutch, German train systems are epitome of efficiency

In mainland Europe, trains to tend to run to schedule are more reliable than British trains.

One of the advantages of trains in the Netherlands is that all tickets are flexible, meaning you can use them on any train. In the UK, flexible tickets are the most expensive while the cheapest prices are on specific trains on a specific day.

Germany’s Deutsche Bahn is a fast and efficient service but is more expensive that flying around the country. Thanks to post-9/11 security measures, it may be cheaper to fly from Munich to Berlin, but you won’t save any time over taking the train.

Asian services grounded in punctuality, hospitality

By comparison, the Japanese Rail system is one you can navigate by time. They are on time about 99 percent of the time. In fact, if the train is one minute late, passengers receive an apology. Japan Rail delays is due to unforeseen circumstances, such as a natural disaster or wildlife collision.

By contrast, British rail companies’ delays and cancellations tend to be due to not enough staff to run the train and poor scheduling decisions.

Train travel in India is a challenge. In 2011, I took two trains in India: one between Lucknow and Varanasi and the other between Jhansi and Agra. Both were decent, clean experiences, but for some odd reason the Lucknow to Varanasi pulled up about 100 metres from the station and stayed there for 45 minutes for no apparent reason.

The Jhansi to Agra train was part of the Shatabdi Express between Bhopal and Delhi. Shatabdi trains are express trains between major cities and are among the fastest trains.

On the Varanasi-bound train, we sat in AC Chair Class and first class on the Shatabdi train.

One of the great things about travelling by train in India is interacting with locals. People are very friendly and willing to share their food with you. It’s as close to an authentic Indian experience as you are most likely to get.

The first class service is like a cross between a nice restaurant and a good airline. You have comfortable seats with deep recline. Between each stop, train staff serves dinner in courses with each course delivered between stations.

If you are planning to do a train journey, I highly recommend consulting The Man in Seat Sixty-One. This is a comprehensive website with guides and instructions on how to use railway services all over the planet.

Travel delays are out of our hands because we rely on other people. Don’t let bad services lead you to reject train travel as a viable means of seeing a country. It is usually fast, cheap, and the best way to experience culture as you will be seated in the middle of carriages filled with people from the country you are visiting.