Having obtained the E-Visa for India, I was not allowed to arrive to the country by land border from Nepal but had to fly in. A Travel agent in Lumbini had told me that there is apparently an E-Visa that also allows you to make your first arrival by land but I am not sure about this information and for me there was no way to get extra permits so I had to head back to Kathmandu and take a plane to Delhi where I would reunite with my Partner.
Since we had a few things, we needed to get done in a bigger city we ended up staying for around five days and doing fun things like dentist appointments and phone repairs. We stayed in a hostel in the Paharganj area right in the middle of everything, there was no escape from noise and people.
Soon the hustling got very overwhelming, everyone is trying to sell you something, firecracker and traffic are to be heard at any time of day and night and in the night the overlaying smog becomes very visible hazing the view from the rooftop. To reduce decision and disappointment in terms of food we quickly found a local kitchen at Krishna café, where we ended up eating once or twice a day and even took a lunch away form there for our train trip out. Though, we had not managed to do everything on our agenda we had to leave after a few days because it was just too much and also opted out of getting on the tourist route and paying ridiculous entrance fees for the Taj Mahal which is only a few hours from Delhi. In Krishna café we had met a well-travelled Indian who had spent over a decade exploring his own country and gave us a bunch of beautiful stops around the country. The ocean was calling and so we decided to head south as direct as possible leaving out recommendations like Raan Ustav, Dawki River in the far east and even the Hostel of a dear brother up in the Himalayas because he was still enjoying Nepal and we needed to get moving.
Ultimately, we wanted to go to Goa where a few of princesses would be awaiting us and we were hoping for loving community again but from Delhi that is a far travel, so we had a few stops planed on the way. First, we booked an 18-hour train ride from New Delhi to Aurangabad to get a good nights sleep we thought we will treat us to a sleeper, this was way more comfortable than what I heard from the standard wagons since we at least, had enough space for ourselves and managed to squeeze our luggage under some beds. But being stuck on a hard upper bed with no space to sit up, for what ended up being a 23-hour journey was still a stretch to the word comfort. People were super friendly, and it was safe for our stuff, parts of the drive we were sitting in the open doors between wagons, smoking and watching the landscape wis by, but my, was I happy wen we rolled into Aurangabad. Here we found a decent room for the night and explored a little bit of the city. The reason most people travel here and likewise our plan, was to visit the Ellora Caves. A complex of 34 caves that used to be home and place of worship to Buddhist, Hinduist and Janis monks dating back to 600 BCE. The caves have been built into a huge hill and are quite impressive with their big chambers and statues. Funny on this tour was the information on the leaflet given out at the entrance describing one cave as “nothing special, can be skipped”.
From Aurangabad there are Buses leaving from the local bus station to Ellora but by luck there was a strike on the day we were there, so we had to get into tough negotiations with the tuk-tuk drivers trying to exploit the situation and asking for three times the normal price. I think it was worth it making a stop here and doing the trip to Ellora Caves since it is an old, historical place and a nice area to walk around for a few hours and have a smoke overlooking the huge main temple. Here we also got our first full load to the picture taking ambitions of the Indians. As soon as we stepped through the entrance a family handed us their kids and wanted to take pictures, slightly amused and surprised we went along with it, when we were done there was basically a line of people waiting to do the same and from there it barely stopped, with many dirty and disbelieving looks being thrown at us for rejecting the intentions.
Not being too keen to get into another train after our experience on the way here, we decided to rather catch the bus to Pune to go to the Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary from there. Until we got to Pune, the drive was fine, traveling during the day we were able to take in the Landscape and were happy to see something along the way. Once we got to the city though, our anyways tense mood caught up with us and the overload of the place broke our last nerves. Supposedly there was a bus from the station we arrived at to Mahabaleshwar near the Sanctuary but when we got there, tuk-tuk drivers violently demanded us to get into their cabs, since we would have to go to a different station, much effort was needed to even find out whether this was true or not. Some ticket counters told us to go to the next hut, there we would be able to find a ticket, tuk-tuk drivers were hiding in lines of local travellers giving us pretend nice advice, finally there seemed to be no busses leaving from here. Arriving at the other bus station there would have been a bus in a couple of hours, but I had an important call scheduled about the car that had been stolen from me in Italy earlier this year so I couldn’t really wait and be on a bus in the middle of nowhere at that time. Things got over our head as my partner got assaulted by the boss of a person that blessed me without asking and demanding money for it. I could not here myself think in this crazy place and only wanted to have a good night’s rest somewhere and head to the beach the next day. This as well brough much frustration as local hotels in the area refused to give us a room, one I called up and had confirmed that there were free rooms available but when we got there, they looked at us and straight up refused to rent us one, directing us to a fancy, unaffordable hotel next door. We were crushed, tired, and overwhelmed with these difficulties. Finally, we found a place we could book online outside the city, which we could only check into after discussing the price they had decided to raise when we arrived at the property, spending around an hour on the phone to booking.com (this apparently is a common practise by OYO-group hotels all over the country, the online price does not match the fee demanded upon arrival).
We had enough, only wanted to get to Arambol, rent a place for a couple of weeks and stop the hustling of travelling through this country. I have never experienced anything like it, and I was sick of it. I was barely able to enjoy the trip and needed to see the ocean to calm my nerves. The following day then, we booked ourselves onto a sleeper bus, which is probably the most comfortable way to travel around India and left all our plans behind to restore our sanity.
