In trip India 360, we didn’t plan to travel by any theme. We simply covered as much of India as we could in one year, seeing each region during its best weather. After completing the trip, we could identify patterns among some of the places we visited. One such pattern is a Mahatma Gandhi trail. On review, we found that we covered a lot of cities important to the life of Gandhiji. A thematic tour around those cities, that we can call the Mahatma Gandhi trail, forms an interesting trip.
Today, we are starting a new series called ‘How we covered it’. In this series, we will see how we at India 360 travelled across the states we covered. India is a huge country and there are more than a million ways to plan your trip. In this series, we hope to give you ideas on how to travel each state. Please feel free to follow the same part of or the entire path as we did or, of course, modify the route as it suits you.
We start with God’s own country, Kerala. Continue reading
India 360 made us travel to some really remote places. So remote that there were no tar roads, day-long electricity or phone connections. Travelling so remote can often lead to home sickness or apprehension. However, some wonderful-natured locals can go the extra mile, making you feel at home, however remote that place is from your own home. One such example was experienced by us at Tuting in Arunachal Pradesh.
Uttarakhand is a large state, despite being carved out of Uttar Pradesh. It required us 50 days to see each of the its important destinations. This is because, the state is mountainous and it requires a lot of time to commute from one place to another. Also, there is something of importance at an average distance of every 40 – 50 km. To plan a trip around the state is mind-boggling. But we used a simple rule to plan our route. By the time we reached Rishikesh from Delhi, we had a solid plan for exploring the home state of Ganga river. While there are hundreds of places to see in the 13 districts of Uttarakhand, at the most elementary level, the state has just two divisions: Garhwal and Kumaon. Planning a trip where you cover one division followed by the other makes the task less overwhelming. Continue reading
Perched high atop the snowy mountains of the north-eastern Himalayas in Arunachal Pradesh is the district of Tawang. The district spans from Sela pass and ends at Bum La pass bordering China. It is one of the few districts in Arunachal Pradesh that practices Buddhism. Tawang is one of the most beautiful regions you will see in India. Continue reading
Long before the start of Indus Valley civilisation and the establishment of the Aryan race in India, the land to the south of the Vindhya mountains, which we we now call peninsular India or colloquially as south India, was inhabited by the Dravidians. The time origin of Dravidian history is unknown, but the Tamil language is one of the oldest continuously used languages in the world. While major ancient languages like Latin and Sanskrit have no confirmed native speakers today, Tamil continues to be used although now it is in modern form. At the centre of Tamil culture and also right in the centre of the state of Tamil Nadu is the city of Madurai.
Situated by the banks of the Vaigai river and with the four gopuras of the Meenakshi Amman temple dominating the skyline, Madurai is one of the oldest continuously habitated and functioning cities in the world. No one really knows for sure how old the city is. Madurai was supposedly the home town of the three ancient Tamil Sangams or a period of generation of scholars who worked on literature. The original works from the first and second Sangams that predates Aryan history have been lost. The stories of the third Sangam are available to us today. The oldest stories about Madurai may actually be lost in history since the technology of documentation was scarce and unreliable. Continue reading
Which city of India has a major financial bank named after it? It is in the west of India and flourishes by the banks of the Vishwamitri river. It is named after the Sanskrit word for a banyan tree. In fact, the emblem of the city is a banyan tree. The British named the city something other than its original name and that English name is more famous. The city is the second most important city in the state of Gujarat. It also has the second most important railway station in the Western Railway behind Mumbai. The name is Vadodara, while the anglicised name is Baroda. The city is the home to the Bank of Baroda. Continue reading
Lord Shiva is a deity with many legends and folk tales. Lord Nataraja symbolises the cosmic dance. The Linga represents the physical structure most suited for storage of energy with little wastage. But the unique form of Shiva at Unakoti in Tripura is that of a tribal lord. Such representation is seen nowhere else. For a moment, Amish Tripathi‘s description of Shiva as a competent tribal warrior in his Shiva trilogy books rings true. The bas relief of Shiva, His family and other deities are carved on the natural contours of the rocks at Unakoti national park near the town of Kailashahar in the state of Tripura, very close to the border with Bangladesh.
The Cauvery river flows to the north of Mysuru. Across the river on the northern bank is Mandya district. Between Mysuru and Mandya, inside the river itself, is the island town of Srirangapattana. The town itself is named after Sri Ranganatha Swamy, the chief deity of the town and a revered place for south India’s Vishnu-worshipping Iyengar sect among Brahmins. The name of the town can be broken into Sri Ranga Pattana, which in Sanskrit and Kannada means, ‘the city of Lord Ranga’. However, the rest of the town has relics and stories from another topic belonging to another religion. The majority of tourists visit Srirangapattana to relive the story of one of India’s fiercest warriors against British colonisation: The Muslim ruler Tipu Sultan. While there are equally impressive stories about the valour of Sultan Hyder Ali, it’s his son Tipu who takes centre stage in the island town.
India is a tropical country, with half of the country lying between the equator and the tropic of Cancer. Summers are harsh, whereas the winters can get cold, but milder than what North America or Europe faces. But then, to the northern end of India are the Himalayas, where it snows heavily. Depending on where you are in India, the winter is as diverse as the country itself. India has places like Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, where winter merely means that the night time temperature may drop to less than 27 degrees celsius with a pleasant breeze. At the other end of the spectrum, there is Dras in Jammu & Kashmir, which ranks as the second coldest inhabited place on earth, averaging -20 degrees celsius in winter, with the record low being -45 degrees celsius. Depending on whether you just want pleasant weather or an adventure in head-popping cold, holiday destinations may vary.