Travel

The Southern Tip of India

Kanyakumari is a little town in the state of Tamil Nadu and it is the southern tip of India. Kanyakumari is a special little touristy town, which has visitors from not only around the world, but also all over India. It is nice, in a way. I was amazed to find people from ALL over India in one tiny town, all the way from the North, to a few from the North East. This is one place to experience cultural diversity, all living together in harmony, in a tiny town like Kanyakumari, BIG TIME.

As a traveller/tourist/backpacker, visit Kanyakumari. For those of you who like the Indian Railways, this is a town you just CANNOT miss.ImageImage

I LOVE the Indian Railways, the berth in the train is like home to me and visiting this place was on my bucketlist for a very long time. As a train buff, I couldn’t help but feel really happy, that I finally made it there, to the tip of India(while staring at the yellow board bearing the train station’s name) and then, it was a mixed feeling of sadness and I don’t know what, when I saw what you see as picture 2, because that’s where the train line actually ended, and the only way to anywhere was going back. A sense of accomplishment, yes. It was and is still a feeling within I cannot describe. I think one has to visit this place to understand the energies there.

Getting to the main city is really easy. Take a rick and get there, it doesn’t cost much.

Accomodation-

This one is a no stress. There are PLENTY of hotels, from fancy ones, to budget ones, to lodges, guesthouses yada yada, all the way to fancy hotels (at a budget ) for a group of 3 people or so. We stayed in a hotel called Gopinivas Grand, took a 3 bed room, and we paid 1200 rupees per night. Since we were 3 people, it was good luxury, at a really low price! I love how hotels are slowly shifting to solar water heaters and don’t depend on electronic water heaters for hot water.

Food-

Restaurant Saravana is good, for simple, delicious vegetarian meals.

If you wish to splurge, Hotel Seashore has an amazing restaurant which does REALLY good North Indian food.

If you like sweets, the sweet shop round the corner from Hotel Gopinivas Grand does really good Kaju Katli( Cashew sweets, in the shape of a diamond), and Mysore Pak [ You just can’t skip this, sweet lover or not, leaving Kanyakumari without tasting this sweet is a crime. These guys do the best version of Mysore Pak in India. Even better than the ones from Mysore themselves].

 

When there,  try to avoid the Tuk Tuks. Walk around wherever possible!

Enjoy the sunset! 😉 ❤

 

Indian Railways

In my opinion, the Indian Railways is one of the most unique railway establishments that the world has there. I don’t write this because I’m Indian or biased, there are many, many travellers around the globe who will agree with this statement I made here. The fact that the Indian Railways(IR) employs a million people, astonishes me. That’s a lot of people. And they are not doing a bad job, because the way I see it, it’s 1 million handling say 1 billion people, assuming that the rest 2% of the people don’t travel across the country by train, which is partly true.

As a preference, keeping comfort in mind, I enjoy travelling in fancy air conditioned compartments, but as many including my favorite author Monisha Rajesh of ‘Around India in 80 trains’ say, India is best experienced travelling in local sleeper compartments. Because that is where you meet real India.

My love for the Indian Railways began in 2012, when I boarded a train from Bombay to Kerala, and the journey lasted 25 hours.

  1. I did not know what to expect.
  2. I did not know what would/would not happen over the 24 hours and how safe it would be.
  3. I had images in my head of me getting lost/losing my stuff.

Nothing happened, and 99% of my journeys across India have been in trains since then. The government does warn you of not to accept food from strangers(because drugs, robbery etc), yada yada, which is not wrong on their part, but hey, if you have expensive gizmos on you, chances are you can probably afford the fancy air conditioned compartments which are relatively safer.

Again, chances are, nothing bad will happen at all, I’ve travelled both in AC compartments, and I usually travel in sleeper compartments like the majority of Indians do, and I’ve met amazing people, who have so much to share! Food, stories, laughter! The berth, in my compartment, is like a home to me now, and every day that I’m not on it, hearing the vendors sing ‘Chai, chai, chai….’ or ‘Pani(water), cold dreeenkssssss’, I miss it, with the bottom of my heart.

My heart jumps with joy every time I’m on a long distance train. I get the urge from deep within to yell out ‘HEYYYYYY NEW PERSON’ everytime I see new faces in a new train journey, but I’m sure if I did that, I’d be hailed a lunatic. I can’t really explain in words all the feelings in my heart, in words, but you get the picture.

Ending this one here, more to come on the Indian Railways.Home <3

What inspired me to do this?

My love for travel inspired me to do this. Hi, I’m Gopish Prasad, and to tell you a bit about my life, I was born and raised in the UAE, till I had to move back to my motherland, India many years ago, and this beautiful country has been my home ever since. After educating myself the way society requires people to (ie: schools, etc), I did my first travel stint in 2012, and I’ve been a travel addict ever since. Life has been different ever since, and I wish to help you discover new places and travel(or even add places to visit/things to do in your bucketlist, if that’s the least I can do, through this blog!!)Rise and shine!