States
Every Indian state runs its own hotel chain and the standards are not comparable
Government tourism corporations built accommodation in places private operators never bothered with, which…
· 4 min read
Manish Trivedi
Consumer editor, Traveology
Manish covers states, hills, coast & islands and the questions readers actually send in and reads the small print so you do not have to.
18 articles
States
On the northern plains the river is the obstacle and the bridge is the route
Very flat country crossed by very large seasonal rivers means journeys bend towards the few available…
· 4 min read
Hills
A cold desert punishes you with sunshine and dryness rather than with cold
Ladakh and the high valleys beyond the main range get very little rain and very thin air, which changes…
· 4 min read
Hills
The Western Ghats are a wall, and every road across them is called a ghat for a reason
A long escarpment separating a narrow coast from a high plateau means only a limited number of climbing…
· 4 min read
Trains & Permits
For the same journey, road and rail fail in completely different ways
A train is slow to book and hard to change but arrives roughly when it says; a road journey is available on…
· 4 min read
Festivals
A pilgrimage route is transport infrastructure with a religious purpose
The seasonal Himalayan yatras move very large numbers of people up narrow roads in a short window, and the…
· 4 min read
Festivals
A temple town runs to a daily timetable and visitors are the last to learn it
Sanctums close for hours in the middle of the day, queues are organised into separate streams and dress…
· 3 min read
States
A district town makes a better base than a metro for most of what you came to see
Second-tier Indian towns sit closer to the sites, hold the transport connections that actually serve them…
· 4 min read
Hills
Snow on the ground and snow on the road are two different holidays
Winter hill travel in India divides between places where the snow is the attraction and places where it is…
· 4 min read
Coast & Islands
On several Indian coasts the ferry is public transport, not a boat trip
Harbour and backwater crossings run as ordinary scheduled services carrying commuters, scooters and…
· 4 min read
Coast & Islands
Indian beaches are made of different things and it shows in the sand
Coral, granite, volcanic rock, river silt and mineral deposits all produce shorelines, and what a beach is…
· 4 min read
Trains & Permits
India’s travel calendar is set by school terms and wedding dates
Domestic demand moves in a pattern that has nothing to do with the tourist season, and knowing when the…
· 3 min read
Trains & Permits
India runs on identity documents and the checks come at predictable moments
Hotels, trains, SIM cards and domestic flights all require identification, and knowing which document is…
· 3 min read
Festivals
Assam has three Bihus and only one of them is a celebration
The Assamese year is punctuated by three festivals with the same name marking three different points in the…
· 4 min read
States
A craft town is a supply chain you can walk from one end to the other
Weaving, printing, metalwork and pottery cluster in particular small towns for reasons of water, material…
· 4 min read
States
India’s dry grasslands are recorded as wasteland, and the rarest animals live there
Open scrub and grassland have never had the protected identity that forest has, and that classification…
· 4 min read
Coast & Islands
The backwaters are a drainage system with a tourist fleet on it
Kerala’s inland waterways are a chain of lagoons and canals sitting behind a sandbar, and almost everything…
· 3 min read
Festivals
In theyyam the performer stops representing the deity and becomes it
The ritual performances of north Kerala are not a dance about a god but an occasion on which the god is…
· 3 min read