States
Gujarat is three separate landscapes and they do not share a calendar
A salt flat that floods, a coastline that does not, and a hot interior between them mean the state has no…
· 4 min read
Sofia Almeida
Deputy editor, Traveology
Sofia writes the explanatory pieces on states, hills, coast & islands and reads the small print so you do not have to.
16 articles
Festivals
Holi and Diwali are the hardest weeks of the year to move around India
Two festivals that send a large part of the country home at once absorb the trains, empty the shops and…
· 4 min read
States
The script on the signboard changes several times across one Indian journey
State boundaries were drawn along language lines, so crossing one changes the alphabet on a platform board…
· 4 min read
Hills
India’s mountain railways are slow because slowness was the engineering solution
Narrow gauge, tight curves, loops and zigzags were all ways of getting a train up a steep hillside without…
· 4 min read
Hills
The eastern and western Himalaya are two different mountains to travel in
The same range is far wetter, steeper and more forested at its eastern end, which changes the season that…
· 4 min read
Coast & Islands
The west coast railway was hard to build because every river reaches the sea there
A narrow strip between the escarpment and the Arabian Sea is crossed by dozens of short, steep rivers and…
· 3 min read
Festivals
Some Indian festivals move through the seasons because their calendar ignores the sun
A purely lunar year runs about eleven days short of a solar one, so Islamic observances shift steadily…
· 4 min read
States
In dry western India the water building came before the palace
Stepwells, tanks and reservoirs were the expensive infrastructure of an arid region, which is why they are…
· 4 min read
States
A sacred grove is protected by a village, not by a forest department
Patches of old forest kept intact by local prohibition survive across several Indian states, and the rules…
· 4 min read
Coast & Islands
The sea breeze is why a coastal afternoon is bearable and an inland one is not
Land heats faster than water, and the circulation that difference creates arrives on the shore in the…
· 3 min read
Trains & Permits
A highway number in India tells you who maintains the road, not how good it is
National and state designations describe administrative responsibility rather than quality, and the things…
· 3 min read
Hills
A hill fort is best read from its gateways upwards
The defensive thinking in an Indian hill fort is concentrated in the few metres where a road has to pass…
· 4 min read
Trains & Permits
Below the booking-app line, an Indian town books over the phone
Most rooms in most small towns are not listed anywhere online, which means the way to find and judge them…
· 3 min read
Festivals
A masked dance at a Himalayan monastery is liturgy, not a show
The cham performances held at Buddhist monasteries across the Indian Himalaya are ritual acts with a…
· 3 min read
Festivals
The same nine nights are danced in Gujarat and watched in Bengal
Navratri and the autumn Durga festival occupy the same dates in the calendar, and one of them is built…
· 3 min read
Festivals
A snake boat race is a village institution that happens to be a sport
The long rowing boats of the Kerala backwaters are owned and crewed by communities rather than by clubs…
· 3 min read