How Does a Typical Home Stay at Spiti (Himachal Pradesh, India) Look Like?

This video has the partial answer. How I wish I had moved the camera gently and not with the jerky movements that will probably give you a headache. The video was taken at Langza, our first day at the Spiti trek. The first room where there are a lot of people is typical of a living room/dining area and the second room is where we would sleep. Usually, all the rooms would have a view. I would often be glued to one of the windows with a book in hand.

PS. Not writing about day 2 as could not find time. I wonder what I do with my days!

Accomodation in Lachung (North Sikkim): What Does Basic Mean?

Sunrise at Lachung (North Sikkim)

We visited Sikkim in December 2006. Sikkim is a small state and we managed to see a bit of East, West and North Sikkim. Lachung is in North Sikkim and it is a small and beautiful place. Usually, it is the night halt for going to Yumthang Valley. I remember when we were booking our trip to Yumthang Valley, the lady at the counter said, "Lachung mein utne facilities nahin hain, bahut basic hai" (Lachung accommodations are very basic and lack facilities.) Puzzled, I asked what do you mean by facilities, she said it has no TV, etc. And I was grinning to myself, I anyway don't want TV, feels like my kind of a place.

Now a few days back, I got a query from an Indiamike member, asking about Lachung accommodation and food and was it very basic? That is how I thought of doing this post.

Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the room where I stayed at Lachung. Sure, it was not a fancy room but it was quite clean and without carpet. I prefer budget hotel rooms in India without carpets. The carpets (in budget hotels) are usually quite dirty and contribute to a very gloomy atmosphere within the room. Hot water was only available in a bucket but that is OK with me. And there was no TV.

The food in fact was quite good, more like home cooked meal, always served hot. And the stuff that they cook in Lachung travels with you from Gangtok. So, it is quite common to make room for eggs, vegetables and a few chickens on the roof of the shared jeep!

Pre-booking with Tour Operators in India

Yumthang Valley: Sikkim, We Booked the Tour at Gangtok

I sometimes get email queries for information on Ladakh or Sikkim. The most frequently asked question is: “Can you recommend a good travel agent to book the tour through?”

The problem is we travel almost like backpackers in India (my blog posts are a testimony to it) and this trend is broken only when I absolutely put my foot down (which rarely happens). Sesha just loves rundown hotels.

We do not pre-book almost anything on our trips (apart from the train or air tickets). I must say initially, I would almost go crazy at the idea of not having a hotel booking in advance. I can also assure you our entire family feels quite uneasy when we travel without any bookings but for the past 6 years we have managed to do fine at a variety of places ranging from Almora, Jageshwar, Chail, Ladakh, Sikkim, Joshimath, Bhunter, Manali, Jaipur, Udaipur, Bharatpur, Agra, Renuka Lake, Bharmour, Hadsar, Rajaji National Park, Dalhousie, Kaudiala, Auli, Mussoorie (this is all I have traveled in last six years? What am I doing with my life? Ok, I have left the treks out of this list cause you anyway live in a tent then, if I count the treks Goa, Har-Ki-Doon, Sar Pass and Kuari Pass get added to the list).

Soul-searching questions apart, how do we manage to do it in a crowded country like India? Here is why traveling in India without pre-booking is possible.

• Travel in the Off-season: Not all places can be visited with equal ease in the off-season (Ladakh readily comes to mind) but if you go to places like Sikkim, Auli or Manali in off-season, it is almost the buyers market. I remember going to Auli in August once. It was pouring and there were few people around. So, we could get a place at the GMVN guesthouse without any booking. What if we would have found it full? We would have come back to Joshimath and stayed there, Joshimath is not full even in June. Traveling a few times in the off-season is a must if you wish to escape the crowd. However, not having a booking at Goa in December (peak season) or Agra in season will make life difficult.

• It is Full of Tour Operators: Anyplace that is well known on the tourist map of India is full of hundreds (if not thousands) of tour operators. So, if it is absolutely essential for your peace of mind, pre-book your hotel. Any trips that you desire to take (like Pangong in Ladakh or Yumthang in Sikkim) can be booked after reaching the hub cities like Leh (Ladakh) or Gangtok (Sikkim). The prices charged closer to the destination also tend to be cheaper and you can shop around with tour operators.

• Sometimes you Stumble Upon Places: While coming back from Auli (in August, I have been there in June too) our bus stopped about 30 kilometers before Rishikesh, at Kaudiala for evening tea. GMVN has a guesthouse right at the bank of the Ganges here. We asked if there was a vacant room and we got it. Now if we had pre-booked a hotel at Rishikesh or Haridwar, this change of plans would not have been possible.

Still not convinced? Just try it ones for variety, and you may like it so much that it might become a habit.

A Trip to Khurpatal, Nainital and a Stay at Dynasty Resorts in Uttranchal

I went on a short trip to Khurpatal, 10 km ahead of Nainital on a college sponsored trip. We stayed at the Dynasty Resorts which is secluded and next to a small lake but I feel their normal rates are a bit too high.

I visited Nainital again after ages. Last that I can remember is when I was in standard 8th. And of course, places change in so many years. I was pretty apprehensive about the Khurpatal trip. I have traveled a lot as a student for various sports meets but this was my first trip as a member of faculty! And now that I am back in one piece, I can say it is pretty OK to go with 18 year olds! And you get to interact a lot with your colleagues too, not a bad thing at all.

I am sharing a few photographs of the trip. The one below was taken from a walk through a forest near Dynasty Resort. It was a short 30 minutes walk and this view of the valley was one of the best I got in the entire trip.

A View from a Walk through the Jungle near Dynasty Resort at Khrupatal

While we were freezing to death in Nainital

Our entire group made a short trip to Nainital and I clicked this picture while we were waiting for our cabs to take us back to the resort at Khurpatal. I wish I could make the cars vanish from the picture but they are very much the part of all the popular hill stations in India.

It was damn cold and I don't know why I did not take a thick jacket! Actually, I finished the major part of grading by 7 in the evening of our departure date to Khurpatal and then went home to pack. No wonder my packing was stupid. And all this while I was cursing myself and wondering if I was finding Nainital so cold in the beginning of December what made me decide to go to Sikkim at the end of the month? I am sure I am going to freeze to death there.

Khurpatal Lake

By comparison to Nainital, Khurpatal (tal means lake in Hindi) is so peaceful, I was the only person around when I took this picture. But people at home say it looks more like a pond than a lake and I will have to agree. But for me, any day give me peace and quiet by a pond rather than loads of people by a large lake.

In the far distance you can see the Dynasty resort (Khurpatal). By the lake, one could not guess that the resort contained 40 screaming teenagers!

At Naini Lake, Nainital

I have seen so many pictures of boats taken from above that when opportunity came I had to take one myself and I am pleased with the result. These boats were resting at Nani lake.

On our way back the bus got a flat tire. That and a lot of traffic, and we took nearly 14 hours to get back from Khurpatal to Gurgaon. I also realized that if bad music is played on the music system of a bus it messes up the thought process and sets my teeth on edge. But all said and done, it was a much needed break from grading, grading and some more grading.

Some more pictures of the trip are here.

Hadsar (Himanchal Pradesh): The Best Room in the Town

A Picture from Hadsar, Himanchal Pradesh

We visited Bharmour in the December 2005. We had no definite 'to do' plans for the trip and after reaching there and resting for a day, we decided to walk 12/13 kilometers to Hadsar (even though jeeps ply on this road in plentiful) and spend a day or two out there. The good folks at the Rajdhani Hotel recommended us the Shanti Guesthouse at Hadsar.

As I dragged myself for the last couple of kilometers toward Hadsar, the signboard proclaiming the Shanti Guesthouse was such a welcome sight. We were the only guests staying there in the cold December. The off season room rate was Rs. 150 and this was suppose to be the best and most expensive place to stay.

The most apt word to describe the room is damp. We were carrying our own sleeping bags and I would put the quilt provided on top of it to keep the cold away. Sesha managed to convince me that drinking some rum neat is a better way to keep the cold away. I do not like the taste of alcohol but I dislike cold even more. So, I gave it a shot and realized that it really worked. I wish I was brave enough to post my photograph online where I am sipping rum, I make such ugly faces!

But what the room lacked, the peace and quiet all around and the views made up amply for it.

Visiting Taj (but not Mahal) and watching Palash but not the Flower

This weekend , on Saturday we went to attend a party at The Taj Palace Hotel. Rest assured it was a free dinner for H and me. I bring you a photopost of the occassion.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Well, it gives me an interesting picture. There was a time when I used to feel attracted to 'five star' hotels. But after a while, I completely have outgrown them. The last time I spend my own money in such an expensive property was in 2002. The next time I may do it, is this year as I have promised an ex-student that if she clears all her papers, I will treat her in a five star hotel. I am eagerly waiting to take her along. She was really having a tough time and I think she needed this encouragement. One of the perks of teaching, a few students still remain in touch long after I leave a job.

Coming to food, my stop was this pani puri stand. The stuff was delicious.

These mushrooms in white sauce were my favortie, it had a Av ue kind of a name.

The dessernt again had an Italian sounding name but it was yummy!

While we were at the dessert, we came to know that the Indian band Euphoria was performing inside the main auditorium. I wanted to go in and take the photographs and H decided to wait outside in the lobby for me.

I was standing quite close to the stage and taking the photographs. There was security and they were moving people back, who got too close to the stage. But not if you had a camera, even if it was a unprofessional looking Nikon Coolpix 3200! Benny, the band member on the key board even posed for me for a while, when they were in between the songs. However, after 15 photos I decided to move on and H and I must have been one of the first few people to leave the party.

Benny at the keyboards from the Indian Band Euphoria!

DJ with the Guitar

Benny again!

Palash Sen, the lean singer of the Euphoria Band

Hotel Times

I love traveling and we try to get out at least twice a year, if not more. We travel within India; foreign tourism is just too expensive for our pockets. Even within India, we are budget travelers. I like my hotel room to cost somewhere around Rupees 500 to 1000 (one dollar is roughly equal to 45 rupees) in more touristy places and less than 500 in less touristy places. It is rare that I shell out more than 1000 rupees for a room but there have been occasions when we have done that too.

In India, what I have found out is that hotel business is run pretty much by individuals and there is an absence of hotel chains or groups in mid-priced or even in lower priced rooms. Some of things that are constant across budget hotel rooms is:

If, there is a carpet the probability is very high that it will stink. This experience has been repeated so many times that I now prefer staying in rooms without carpets. There have been a few exceptions to this rule but then the hotels are usually new and their carpets have just not gathered enough dirt as of now. I remember visiting Auli (those days I did not had a digital camera, so no good quality photos to upload). There are just two accommodations available, a private resort and a government owned facility. We stayed in the government owned facility and all the rooms (highest to lowest priced dormitories) gave out such a stench. So much so, for getting better facilities for a price.

A friend made a comment once, all a traveler needs is a clean bed and some hot water. Let me add, minus the stench of the carpet. My second pet peeve is about hot water. Many a times there will be water but not hot. Some hotels charge extra for giving you a bucket of hot water. But remember I am talking about budget hotels here. My traveling life could become a lot easy if Indian budget hotels understood this basic need. I remember paying Rupees 1000 for a room and getting no water in the toilet for many hours in a day. Repeated complaints brought no improvement and we had to shifted to another hotel within a day.

Toilets and bathrooms are the most neglected areas in Indian budget hotels. The lesser said about them the better.

The attitude also of the owners sometimes can be so unprofessional. They may not think twice about disturbing you in the morning hours just to inquire whether you are leaving that day before the check out time or not. We had a knock at 7.00 a.m. in the morning in Manali and told very bluntly to vacate the room by 12.00 noon. Why the hell at 7.00 a.m.? And what is the need for rudeness?

I wish I took a few photographs of the hotel rooms too in this trip to Ladakh, they would have substantiated my claim.

I also feel that whatever I said above is on an average is true of the more touristy places. In smaller places, the rooms might not be clean and the carpet may still stink but people are not rude.

I have stayed in budget hotels at Modena (Italy), Groningen (The Netherlands) and Athens (Greece) and of course my rooms were small and did not offer me a view but they were spotlessly clean, at least the first two. In Athens, the room was not as good as the other two but in Indian terms, it was superb. Oh! And I visited these places for academic conferences (that means most of the time, sponsorship) but did manage to see a few places too.

What has been your favorite hotel horror story?