6 highlights from 5 regions in india - inspired …...jaipur is one of the three cities on the...

An Insider’s Guide to a few places and experiences that should be on your India itinerary for an extra delightful journey.

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6 Highlights from 5 Regions in India(Not the ones you are expecting!)

THE INSPIRATION AND THE PLANNINGPlanning a trip to India can be daunting. It is a very large country with so many fascinating regions to visit. Where do you even begin?

Even if you have several months vacation time and you want to spend them ALL in Incredible India, you will have to narrow it down and make some decisions. So if you are like most people with two maybe two and a half weeks to spend there, the planning will be even tougher. Of course you want your journey to be spectacular, right? Well, it will be, because it is India; but what will make your trip REALLY special?

That is why you downloaded this free Insider’s Guide. I am going to share with you my personal recommendations. These are insider tips on things to include in your India explorations that will fill your heart and soul with inspiration, it will spark your spirit, and leave you with incredible memories.

If you are only looking to tick India off of your bucket list, then there is no need to read on. That is simple enough to do. Just hop on any Golden Triangle Tour. However, if you want to get beyond the monuments, beyond the typical tourist circuit to dig down a little deeper below the surface, then keep reading.

Are you are just beginning to visualize your India journey? Then the following experiences can help

you to fill in some of the juicy details. Keep them in mind as you map out your itinerary. On the other hand, if you already have your itinerary planned, these recommendations may still be easily added in to your plans.

MINDSET OVER ITINERARYReal quick, before I jump into the highlights, there is THIS. I don’t believe that you travel to check things off your bucket list. Perhaps, the bucket list is a way to kick-off your

planning and I get that. By turning your travels into a check list, however, you risk loosing something in the process. Checking

something off of the bucket list implies that getting to the end of the journey is more important than the juicy experiences along the way.

This note that I received after leading my first two retreats in India relays well how important your mindset is, beyond the

bucket list, even beyond the actual itinerary. (Ravi is the owner one of the companies I partner with in India.)

“Hi Sandy, this is Ravi here - I just wanted to send a quick note to say thank you very much for the survey posted…

I am glad that we were able to make some of the things happen along your trip. Given how things are in India - a lot of this is

purely serendipitous - an important ingredient in all this, being all of “you” - twice over - as the willing participants…”

So as you read on to the suggested highlights, remember that once your journey begins, the most important thing is to be open to the experience. Be the willing participant with a mindset that is unattached to expectations and grateful for each moment of which you are a part.

ITINERARY HIGHLIGHTS TO HELP YOU TRAVEL DEEPER

1. SIS GANJ GURUDWARA, DELHI(Like Washington DC, Delhi is it’s own region/state)

Delhi is an incredible city steeped in history alongside modern-day living. The city has a bad reputation, in part because of the terrible air pollution. On particularly bad pollution days, you can feel it in the air. (Take nasal decongestant/allergy meds with you for your


sinuses, in case.) Even so, there are fascinating monuments to explore and it is incredibly culturally vibrant. Whether you are walking through the markets to pick up spices, strolling the grounds at Humayun’s Tomb, visiting the Red Fort, rickshaw riding through Old Delhi, or sipping masala chai on a rooftop while the locals fly their kites, the city will not cease to amaze you. If you are flying through Delhi, my advice is to plan one full day here at the very least.

The Sikh temple in Old Delhi, Sheeshganj Gurudwara is my favorite place of all in this crazy city. Each time I’ve been there, I’ve wished I had the entire day to spend. The welcoming atmosphere, the friendly people, the live music coming from the Darbar Sahib and the beauty inside the temple combine to raise your vibration and leave you feeling spell-bound. It is no coincidence that Gurudwara means door to the guru. Even if you only spend an hour or two, it will cut through the negative aspects of Delhi and take you straight to her benevolent, pulsing heart.

As you walk around to the side entrance, you pass through an area where you can make a donation. In return you will receive karah prasad (sacred food, religious offering) that will warm your belly with sweetness. In fact, it will be offered to you even if you do not make a donation. The generosity of the Sikh religion and the Sikh people will warm your heart.

Absolutely do not miss going into the kitchen where they prepare the langar - a free meal for all who come to eat. Whether you are Sikh or not, they feed everyone a wholesome vegetarian meal. In the kitchen, offer some of your time and sit to help roll out the chapatis (flat Indian bread) which are then cooked on the fire.

Back in the main hall, leave time to sit on the floor with the worshipers and absorb the beautiful music and chanting.

Good things to know: You can bring along a scarf to cover your head, but each time I’ve visited they first take you into a room where you leave your shoes and can borrow one of their scarves. Men and women will both have to cover your head before going inside the temple.


2. JAIPUR(Rajasthan)

Jaipur is one of the three cities on the typical Golden Triangle tour of India. While it’s quite a popular tourist stop, especially for first-time India travelers, the “Pink City,” has a lot to offer. Beyond the spectacular forts, the palace and the observatory, here are two experiences I HIGHLY recommend. Adding these on to your Jaipur itinerary will add serious dimension to your more typical route and allow you to travel deeper.

Le Tour de India Bike tourIf you enjoy mixing a little adrenaline into your day and don’t mind an early

wake up call, schedule a bike tour with Le Tour de India. Seriously, you will be hard pressed to find a better way to spend three hours than getting the locals’ tour of Jaipur. With a lot of forts and monuments to visit in the capital of Rajasthan, cruising through the city streets in the early morning when traffic is light, with experts leading the way is the

best way to explore!

Meet Umesh & Kushal at a designated spot and they will set you up with the right size bike and helmet. Off you’ll go on your exhilarating ride. Here is just a sampling: Participate in a morning chant at the temple. Meander through the wholesale fruit and vegetable market. Sip the creamiest lassi in town at the lassiwalla (since 1944!). Check out the old and the new, then park your bike, climb to a rooftop and relax with some spicy pakora and masala chai. In my humble opinion, this is the BEST way to experience Jaipur.

Good things to know: Follow the leader but still look both ways before crossing the streets! You can also request a tandem bike if you prefer to be co-pilot with one of the guides taking the lead.


Samode Village Camel Cart Ride Samode village is about an hour outside Jaipur into the Aravalli Hills. Meet your camel and camel cart driver on a dirt road on the outskirts of the village. Take some pictures with the majestic, kooky looking beast, then hop in to the open cart. Your camel driver will certainly give you a hand. Begin your relaxing ride through the sweet, unassuming town.

On every visit I’ve ever taken to India, I have moments (multiple moments throughout each stay) where my heart swells with emotion. Feelings of gratitude for being connected to the world spontaneously fill me. Each time my eyes fill with tears from the rush of belonging that comes over me.

You know that moment when time feels like it is standing still? You take a breath in and everything around you looks more vibrant than it ever has. It’s a feeling I most often experience during an Indian religious ritual, like at the Aarti in Varanasi or Haridwar. It swelled up in me as I was sitting in this rickety camel cart, with the driver smiling back at us to be sure we had our umbrellas open to shield us from the midday sun. Rajasthani villagers waved to the camel driver (who clearly was from the town). They smiled and waved at us too.

This same emotion might overtake you, as it did me. The only thing I can name it: gratitude. Gratitude for my travels putting me in the exact place I need to be at the exact time, even if the reason does not make itself known.

Plus, this a perfect way to get a glimpse of village life in Rajasthan. A few of the things we passed along the way included: a bangle stall, a barber shop, a school, a tire shop, women dancing in the streets to music blaring out of a truck (it was festival time!).

We stopped at the bangle stall, where the bangle walla (guy making bangles) focused on his craft. He sat at a small open fire heating his iron tools. Three walls of cubbies containing brightly colored, bedazzled bangle bracelets were stacked all around him as the backdrop.


Good things to know: The camel cart ride will take you right up to Samode Bagh and Palace, a beautiful heritage property owned by a current Maharaja of Jaipur. From the simple village dirt road you will arrive at a spectacular royal garden. Arrangements can be made ahead of time both for the camel cart ride and for a phenomenal garden lunch on the lawn. Afterwards, have them take you to Samode Palace for a tour of the spectacular home-turned-hotel. This all can be booked through Samode Palace.

3. KOLKATA(West Bengal) during Durga Puja

(Kali Puja, the eve before Diwali is a great option too)

Kolkata, City of Joy, is an alluring city to visit. Having a more spacious feel to it than Delhi, it is also a younger city. Bengalis are full of pride for their region and their rich cultural heritage. With their own beautiful language, food specialties and literary tradition, they have good reason to be.

If you want to feel the pulse of Kolkata and raise your vibration along with the locals, be there to celebrate Durga Puja. There are few ancient monuments to visit in Kolkata. Most date back to the British Raj and none before that. So the real draw for me of Kolkata is to experience Bengali culture at the height of one of her fantastic festivals. Opulent pandals of their favored deity, Goddess Durga, line the streets, intersections and traffic circles for Durga Puja.

A pandal is a temporary shrine, in this case built to venerate Durga, “the invincible.” The opulence of some of these pandals, glitzy with lights shimmering and as you would expect, often bursting with color, can also have a hint of savageness. Surprising, right? - Not really. Durga Puja honors the battle of Goddess Durga with the


powerful buffalo demon Mahishasura. The Goddess emerges victorious as she slays evil in the form of this demon.

During this holiday, the thing to do is pandal hop. Walk the festive, crowded streets and bounce from one shrine to the next. Enjoy pop-up drummers and roaming bands making music. Soak in the light hearted vibe. People from all economic levels come together, religious or not, to celebrate. Revelers will pandal hop all night long.

In the early evening, the festival officially begins with the chanting of an invocation: incense burning, a smoky stage, priests lead the prayers. This is a chance to experience a quintessential religious Indian ceremony.

Bengalis prepare for Durga Puja months before the festival begins. Do not skip a visit to Kumartuli (Potters Town) where you will see artisans constructing the Durga idols, families picking up their pre-ordered goddess figures and maybe even a procession where they are carting out one of the larger idols. In fact, you can visit here anytime of year because I believe artisans are always making pandals for one upcoming festival or another!

100% transparency: I have been to Kolkata to celebrate Kali Puja (very similar to Durga Puja, on a slightly lesser scale) and have experienced Durga Puja in Delhi as it is widely celebrated in the Bengali neighborhoods. Bengalis both in Kolkata and Delhi have told me all about the size and energy of the festival in Kolkata. I feel confident in saying Durga Puja in Kolkata would be quite a highlight to experience.

Good things to know: Timing-wise, Durga Puja usually falls in October, at the end of Navratri and Dussehra, a month or so before Diwali. If you trip takes you to Kolkata later in the month for Diwali, then experience Kali Puja. It is fantastical in all the same ways in my experience.


4. CHANDERI (Bundelkhand region of Madya Pradesh)

Chanderi is an unassuming town with loads of history and the sweetest people. If your itinerary includes other towns in Madya Pradesh, “the heart of India”, then Chanderi is really worth a special one or two night’s stay. You won’t find Chanderi in the Lonely Planet guide (at least not last time I checked). The town is not on many typical itineraries, most likely because there are no major hotels here. If you google it, articles about the famous Chanderi silk saris pop up. Chanderi is a weaving village where many of the homes have a hand-loom. Since the 14th century, the local people here have been weaving silks and cottons into beautiful colorful designs in their own homes.

A rural village in the heart of India, Chanderi has more than a hundred Hindu and Islamic heritage sites, including a fort on the highest point. Walk through a field and you may come across old ruins of a mausoleum or cave art dating back even further. The architecture of some of the monuments is gorgeous; visit the Koshak Mahal, the Victory Monument. Also, a giant 45 foot Jain profit carved into the rocks about two kilometers south of town is a popular pilgrimage site for the Jains.

There is so much to see and yet the best part of this off-the-tourist-loop place is the friendliness of the people. You will never be fighting crowds and if you choose to visit, you’ll be rewarded with real people-to-people experiences. Just a walk through the streets, no touts trying to sell you something and you will realize you have found real India.

A gentleman who goes by the nickname Kalle Bhai is a resident and scholar of the area and his family goes back generations in Chanderi. Request him as your guide (ahead of time) and this just may be your favorite experience.

Good things to know: Chanderi is a short drive (one hour) from the Lalitpur train station. From Chanderi, it’s about a five hour drive to Khajuraho, where


amazing temple complexes were built in the first century A.D. As there are no commercial hotels here, there are a couple of guest houses, including Amraee and the Tana Bana, government run place. Both are very simple and quiet. If you can let down your western standard of accommodations, you will really enjoy either. Amraee comes more highly recommended. Yet on my last visit to Chanderi, Amraee was having electricity issues that forced them to temporarily close. Staying at the Tana Bana, my group of 9 travelers plus me ended up having an exceptional night on the rooftop, eating Indian snacks made in the Tana Bana kitchen and drinking Kingfisher beer that the hotel staff happily went into town to buy for us.

5. HARIDWAR (Uttarakhand)

Rishikesh, also in Uttarakhand, is well known as a yoga town and spiritual site. In reality, it is not one of the more important holy cities for Indians. I won’t deny that aside from

having a bit of a yogic-Disneyland feel to it, it is a fun city in India to experience. The fact that it is so walkable, that the

Ganges River flows naturally and clear as it emerges from the mountains here and that it thrives with a strong

spiritual vibe, makes it a great town to explore yogic customs and rituals. Additionally, there are cafes everywhere, it has a bit of an international feel as a backpacker’s hangout and you can even go river rafting. No doubt it is a fun stop along a vacation

route.

A skip and a jump from Rishikesh is Haridwar. Haridwar is more geared towards Indians, specifically Hindus on a holy

pilgrimage because it is one of the Sapta Puri, meaning seven holy Hindu cities. According to Hindu mythology, in each of the seven cities, Hindu gods have incarnated giving these places very special significance.

There is an extraordinary ceremony of light held each night on the Ganga in Haridwar, called an aarti. You may have heard about the aarti ceremony in Varanasi; and there is one in Rishikesh as well.


The aarti in Haridwar is participatory and stunningly powerful. Priests wave their fires to the music with extended arms and chant. Devotees along both sides of the Ganga chant along. Participants can also receive blessings from priests who have set up little tables spaced out among the crowds along the river. Aarti is a nightly ritual for spiritual cleansing. It is not put on for tourists. What better way to participate in a true Indian experience than raising your vibration to a new level with locals and Hindu spiritual seekers during a ceremony ritual of light along the Ganges River? Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, you will be moved.

I mentioned above in the section about the camel cart ride in Jaipur, time feeling like it was standing still; feeling in awe of the experience at hand; taking in a breath as everything around you glows more vibrant than it ever has. As you ease into the scene around the Ganga in this holy city, this feeling of awe and vibrance and inner peace will overtake everything else and you will be so glad you came to Haridwar.

Good things to know: My recommendation is to visit Haridwar on a day trip from Rishikesh. Take some time to visit one of the important temples here. There is also a living ashram community nearby that is an interesting, quiet place to visit before the chaos and crowds gather along the Ganga for the aarti ceremony in the early evening.

Time your day trip so that you arrive at the river site for the ceremony with time to wander a bit and then find a place to sit and take it all in. Some of the priests will allow you to sit on their stands for a donation, giving you the best view of the ritual, the crowd and you will still be 100% a part of the whole event.

As holy sites, both Haridwar and Rishikesh are vegetarian cities: meat, eggs and alcohol are hard to come by. Just so you know.

WRAPPING IT UP!There you have it. Six incredible, yet not out of reach, highlights from five different regions in India. These are just a few of my “secret weapons” for an all out fantastical journey.

I hope this has been helpful and inspirational. If you incorporate some of them into your itinerary, do let me know how they go. As always, I would love to hear from you.

One last thing. I want to acknowledge that all of these suggestions are in the northern


half of India. I have nothing agains South India. The truth is, I will soon be traveling there for my first time and can’t wait! Have no doubt that I will be sharing highlights with you from South India as soon as I have first-hand, hands-on experience for you.

Finally, if you have any questions at all about these highlights, about planning your trip or anything related to travel in India and the Indian Sub-Continent, feel free to reach out to me through my website (www.inspiredexplorationtravel.com) live chat or my email, [email protected]

Namaste. - Sandy


6 highlights from 5 regions in india - inspired …...jaipur is one of the three cities on the...

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