独家优惠奖金 100% 高达 1 BTC + 180 免费旋转

Female Solo Travel in India?

The first 48 hours can be the most awkward time in a solo traveler when visiting in a new country and my first 48 hours in India in 2019 was planes, taxi, motorbike, jeep and a camel.

I wrote this piece to offer a in-depth description of what it was like for me during my first 48 hours in India as a solo traveler a few years ago.

So I was at the departure gate and wrote my standard “Where am I going?” post on Facebook. Cheesy I know, but it’s something I have been doing since I started travelling; I usually offer a few hints and get my FB friends to guess the locations that I am heading towards.

This time I was visiting India and with a bucket list adventure that planned that would see me solo for a first week, followed 2 weeks of staying with a dear friend and her family as we explored inland traveling east to west of India and involving a desert, the golden triangle and an Indian wedding in Kalkata. I had a perfectly planned itinerary that would see me visit west and east Indiahaving spent three months researching. I was now leaving.

It didn’t take long for my FB friends to guess where I was going. But the posts soon filled up with “Stay Safe”, and “Stay Blessed”, and one said “Warrior Kat” as clearly he thought I was brave. But, many people were neavous for me and my dad was never usually that bad when I travelled. Normally he would like me to check-in, but this time he was a worry, please take note that was 41 haha!

“You’re not easy,” he said. And I knew he was right. See “You’re not easy” means in this regard “Why couldn’t you have just gone to Spain”, or “gone with your friends”, or “not gone at all”. You’re not easy means “You don’t make my life easy”. And, I understood his fear.

I have been a solo traveller now for ten years and being a female solo traveller can give my family some worries, but I love to travel, need to travel, and I do believe in researching a place beforehand so I am not unprepared and this trip was no different as I had researched for months, I preplanned and booked my routes, booked a private tour for the first three days to ensure I was going to be safe during my transition period in getting to know the feel for India, and I had pre-booked a taxi from the airport, so I was as organised as any traveller could be.

I got on the plane, feeling the anticipation that had sat on my shoulders for the last month was now pumping fast around my heart. I was nervous. I was doubtful, I was scared. But, what I was feeling was all part of the visiting India experience that I believe all solo adventurers feel when it’s time to board but I believe we make a choice to turn the feeling of anxiety into excitement, and with no going back. My trip began and it started with luck as I got a whole three seats to myself for the first 7-hour flight; thanks to a very nice Qatar check-in team at Gatwick Airport.

I arrived in New Delhi, and this should be the part where I tell you all about the hustle and bustle of a city that is home to 25mil or so people, home to the famous Lotus temple and also known for its street food, slum tours and roadblock traffic jams. But I wasn’t stopping. I was travelling from London and don’t fancy being thrown in at the deep end with a faster pace of life that New Delhi has to offer, and I also really didn’t fancy being beeped out of my ear holes with the endless amount of noise each motorized vehicle makes as it overtakes anything moving on the road. So no, I didn’t head for a sensation overload.

I was coming from the UK, and being a travel photographer, the first thing I wanted to see was a still landscape, I wanted the sound of peace in my ears, and I hoped to gain the feeling of tranquillity. So, I simply brought an Indian Internet phone chip from New Delhi airport (which I heard was absolute necessity if you want to have wifi; 800rupees later, and I had 2gb each day for a month!). I went out for some “fresh” Delhi air and walked right back inside to catch the next flight

A few hours later and I stepped outside off the plane at 1pm, located my driver, called my dad to let him know everything was fine and enjoyed my first sight of “The Land of Kings”; but you will find it on the map by Jodhpur in Rajasthan State, western India.

Rajasthan state is known for its Temples, Forts and Palaces that hold some of the most symmetric architecture that allows you to marvel in the mathematical beauty of sacred geometry.

However, I had been traveling for this point some 23 hours and pretty tired so I shamelessly asked my driver to skip the half day tour and just show me the best view of Jodhpur and let’s head out; as I still had another 4 hour drive ahead of me and just wanted to sleep.

My first sight of India was simply breathtaking. The city was full with people and action, but within 30 mins we was on the motorway heading towards the desert. I tried to take as much of it in as possible because the road from Marrakesh to the Sahara Desert is like riding a road that lireally goes back in time the more you drive towards it. So I hoped to enjoy the transition from city to desert city but to be honest. I missed it. I felt asleep.

We stopped for dinner in a tourist trap on route but it looked good so I ordered my first and last meat dish of the month; a mutton curry. It was beautifully made but it was the first and last because I ordered it during a moment that I had forgotten I was not going to eat meat; I had read the best way to avoid bad belly was to not eat meat so that was my plan.

We soon was moving on and driving into the city of Rahanstan during the golden hour. So the brown dirt turned golden, the trees shimmered with golden leaves and the people looked sunkissed. But I think the first thing that caught my eye was how freely the cows and bulls roamed. I mean, they had no owners out minding them, and at one point I was up close and personal with not even inches to spare from bulls horns; as I sit on the back on a moped with the owner of the guest house travelling through narrow alleyways in Jaisalmer fort; thankful I was backpacking and I am use to being a passenger on a bike so I wasn’t out of my comfort zone.

I was done for the day. My first 24 hours in India was pure travel but I had another full day of traveling planed so I retired for the night as soon as I checked in, put a glass on the handle of my door (for safelty, it will smash if anyone comes in), took a cold shower and let my face enjoy the pillow while I listened to the sounds of this city’s life after sunset. Dogs barking, people talking and I blinked and it was morning.

Now, let us not forget that I was hoping to find peace. However, Rajasthan is the biggest state out of the 29 states in India and in a country with 1.3 billion people residing on its land; equaling a population of 416 per square mile. It would be hard to get away from all of the people, and this also includes the desert because the Thar Desert is the most populated desert in the world. While the Sahara has less than 1 person per square mile, The Thar Desert has 83. But with only 44 villages in the Thar section of Rajasthan, and most located near the underground mazes of watering wells. People were still few and far between.

Now I had headed all of this way to visit the desert first because I enjoy exploring new lands and learning about the people from the starting point that the people themselves grew to settled and The Thar desert has a past life that once connected with the Silk Road; which was an ancient trading route that connected India to China, Arabia, Persia, Africa and Europe by land. This connection offered the Brahmin people of the Thar Desert a link to wealth due to the area being rich in gold and precious stones.

But folk law claims a drought, a change of power, a rise in taxes and a request from the minister of the state of Jaisalmer to date (not marry) the daughter of the Kuldhara village chief, led to mass migration in the middle of the night by 84 Brahmin villages, and the land lay abandoned; clearly a people who stand together!

Droughts also caused big problems to this area and after the Brahmin villagers left. Farming dried up, and famine followed; which killed many, and droughts remained a problem for many years to come. However, a young king who remembered the first of the significant droughts and famines as a child made a plan to rid the area of drought using a new watering system. This action changed the course of the future for the communities who remained, and while it didn’t make them rich, it did secure food for themselves and offered the ability to raise livestock to sell at market. That king’s granddaughter still reminds in power today and that part of the Thar desert is still lush green farmland.

Outside of the farming areas. The Thar Desert today is an unkempt landscape of light brown dunes with patterns and curves that stand out most at sunset. Between the dunes, you have flat land that is rich with desert grass, dried bushes and small Khejri trees.

“It’s not like the Sahara” the hotel/tour operator informed me with a disappointed look on his face, when I checked into a hotel in the fort, some 40mins away from the dunes. And I later found he was right, but he shouldn’t have been disappointed as the two deserts cannot compare. The Thar desert is one is the most vegetated deserts in the world, and while it looks dry, the vegetation is enough to bring a wide range of animals that I didn’t see during any of my 8 or so trips to the Sahara, Morocco. Within 14 hours after arriving in the city, and getting into the desert. I had seen a peacock, a steppe eagle and a small female fauna, goats, cattle, sheep and camels.

We got off the camels and my tour guide Samar tied the camels to trees before started working on our lunch. Samar collected three rocks from the ground, then he moved onto rolling a small amount of dry bush into a ball. “How can I help?” I asked. “You can collect some firewood for me” he replied. So I headed off to find some firewood. But as started looking on the light brown sand ground that held a lot of small dry sticks that had been discarded by the small white trees that looked like they had needles in their branches, I started wondering what type of wood is considered firewood, and if collecting firewood is dangerous.

I felt out of my depth because I’m a city girl and I had never collected wood to cook lunch before. Deciding on not picking up random sticks, I started selected the wood like I would select loose bananas or tomatoes from the supermarket. I also opted to totally avoid big sticks on the sand altogether; in case they had bugs underneath them.

After 5 minutes I returning with a small carrier bags worth of wood in my arms and dropped the pile on the ground. He smiled. “Is that type of wood ok?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, “but that amount will only last 15 minutes” he added. I asked him how long will it take to cook lunch and he told me 45 minutes. “I better get more wood” I laughed as I went to get more. This time I picked up all shapes and sizes and walked back 5 minutes later with a pile 3 times the size of the first. He smiled.

I had been dropped off to my guide that morning by jeep and transported into the nomadic way of life by camel. While there were villages dotted around. We travelled in the direction that eagles were able to fly as there were no roads, our camels created a new path which would curve occasionally to avoid trampling on the desert grass.

Samar had asked me when we were riding if I cooked and I said yes. But, watching him kneeing the dough on a small stainless steel plate, while sitting on his mat that was his camel saddle, with a small open fire that had small stainless steel pot of Masala Chai boiling (spicy tea). I realised I couldn’t cook. I needed too many tools to cook with, a needed few kitchen countertops and I needed to control the heat of my stove. Offering me some tea, I just sat and watched him prepare and cook a vegetarian curry with roti, with one fire, in his open-air kitchen.

He asked me how did I like India I told him I noticed the cows and animals are really free to roam.

“Here, animals and humans, same” He replied

I had only arrived in India some 26 nhours at that time but it was at this point I fully understood more about the mindset of Gandhi when he said “You can tell a country by the way it keeps its animals” because from what I could tell, all souls on this land grew beside each other and were allowed to go and chill in their own social groups, and go home when they want too; I’m talking monkeys, Cows, Bulls, Dogs, Cats and humans all congregating on the high road of this multi-being society called state called Raysishan. And, with the most amount of animals per square mile than the whole of India. The people here had all mastered living together and sharing the land.

Hearing a small bell ringing that was getting louder, I noticed Samar start to look around. Hearing a barr and soon more barrs, we were soon suddenly surrounded by goats and sheep; before a teenage shepherd appeared with a smile. The boy didn’t speak any English but spoke a little, but enough of Samar’s language to be invited to join us for lunch, but he couldn’t relax and every few minutes he would take a look around. Samar then told me there were a lot of foxes and wild dogs in the area so he had to keep watch.

“The animals here are smart, they know when we are resting,” he said, referring to the shepherd’s livestock. But I didn’t know whether to be alarmed or not as we had two nights sleeping under the stars planned.

We sit and ate our lunch in silence as we listened to the sound of the livestock moving around. The food tasted amazing and was so plentiful that I personally could have taken a nap. After lunch, the young shepherd offered to help with the washing up. I offered too but was again out of my depth in the helping department when he started washing the plates with sand.

Throwing a handful of sand into the pot, adding a drop of water to create a thick sand paste, he used the paste to clean the plate, throwing the sand out and repeating the process. The plate was literally shiny silver in seconds. Understanding how to complete the task, I set about helping. Once I had finished I had millions of grains of sand on the pot “How do I get the little pieces of sand off” I asked Samar. “You put them away and we can dust it off when we cook dinner tonight”. How smart I thought, I would have perhaps spent hours trying to get each grain of wet sand from the pot. “How do you know if you’re not using an area that has been used as a toilet” I had to ask. He laughed, I laughed, without words, he answered the question and I reached for my antibacterial gel again but laughed to myself as I already ate from the plate; pleased to report, I didn’t get sick at all during my time in India.

We put the pots, and food back into the stack that also held the camel food. Once it was packed and placed everything back on the camels, we said goodbye to the shepherd and headed off. “We will stop in this village” Samar informed me while pointing into the distance to a village, but I simply couldn’t see anything in the middle ground or background from the rigid desert landscape.

I sat back on my camel, and unable to sleep due to riding, I simply watched the new landscape like a toddler looks at all of the faces of a bus. Enjoying the flow, I started to feel the moment of serenity as I could only hear the sound of nature and earth. It was silent yet felt busy, an emptiness everywhere, yet full of life and a feeling the slight wind in the air was connecting everything together.

We rode for a long while before I spotted 3 people on camels. One happened to be Samar’s friend, who also was a guide, so we stopped to say hello. The other two people were tourists who had travelled from north India to Visit the desert. I asked them if the nights were cold and they said freezing and offered me some brandy that they had brought for the coldness. I kindly thanks them and said no, but they actually wouldn’t take no for an answer and made me take it. I thought it was really sweet of them but I 100% wasn’t going to drink it, but they refused to take it back so I just kept it and thought perhaps I could give it away to the dancers that I had booked to see the next evening. (as these dancers drink alcohol to comminate with the Goddess Kali)

With the sun rays shining, the heat beat down onto my head, I repeatedly reach for my water flask. “Drink water like a camel” Samar stated. But I told him I didn’t understand and he replied “You use water better if you drink a lot at one time when you don’t need more water for a while,” he added. I didn’t realise there was a way to drink water but I hadn’t seen him drink any water during our time on the camels.

It took another hour before we reached the background that he had pointed to earlier. Happy to get off from the camel, I went to have a look around the village.

The villagers here do not have that many guests so the children run out to greet me and asked if I had any chocolate; which I didn’t, but I did have pens and notebooks, but I wish I had brought a few packs of cards too. The children were playing a game with a tin can on a stick, I tried to play with it, but I just couldn’t manage to roll the tin.

I then met a lady going to get some water from the well, with her young daughter. I walked with her and I offered her help with the water but she refused, putting the contents of water on her head. I said my goodbyes and marvelled at the way she was able to walk with two water containers on her head, a baby in her arms and a skirt that was so long that I would potentially trip over if I wore it and tried to walk. Yet she walked with a tall back and took long strides and smiled for me to take her photo; true skill

The village had no road, but each plot of land had a brick wall and most had a mud house and a concrete house on the land. I could see around 50 plots of land in total. I naturally thought the mud huts were for the animals. But when we were invited into a house for Chai, and I realised the mud huts were for humans. Taken off my shoes to go inside received a massive smile. Going inside I sit on a mat, in a room the shape of a circle and heard birds, I looked up and saw a group of birds looking down at me from the witches hut-shaped roof that was made out of wood to form the ceiling. But I was soon distracted from the birds by the sound of mental dropping. I turned to see a goat had come into the room and knocked over the water container as it came inside the hut to steal some water. The lady of the house soon chased it out. We all laughed.

The room was simple, with the earth as the floor, a small fire in the corner, three pots, some plates, and very few things hanging from the side of the wall. The house was so different from a western house that I thought back to when I watched and “Guns, Germs and Steel”; it started with a Jared Diamond, the author, explaining that he got asked a question when he was travelling

“Why do you have so much, and we have so little”.

This question led him on a journey in trying to answer the question of why the west had so much, and other parts of the world had so little. He concluded it was Guns, Germs and Steel that allowed the west to have so many things today. I sit deep in thought for a while.

Being handed a cup of tea from a lady with a smile that oozed openness and warm. Our eyes met and I read from her eyes that she is happy.

“Do you all sleep in this room?” I asked her, I knew she wouldn’t understand me and Samar would translate. But, I still looked her in her eyes to ask the question. She also looked into my eyes when she replied. Samar translated that they all chose to sleep in the hut as they built a concrete house, but did not like the way the walls regulated the temperature around the room in winter or summer months; so they liked the natural heating system that the huts offered. I then asked if she ever went into the city but she said she didn’t like it as it was too noisy, which I understood because this area was so so quiet.

After the Chai, the children showed me around their land. They had goats, sheep and a cow that all had their own small huts to live in that were dotted around the inside of their walled land. But the animals were free to roam. The children were proud in showing me their concrete house, that was two big rooms and used as a shed, to store their winter blankets and clothes.

We were soon saying goodbye and heading off into the background of the village to reach the place we were to have dinner and bed down for the night.

Once we dismounted and put our beds down; two blankets and a small mattress. I helped to find firewood and Samar prepared the food. I had now been in India for 24 hours and jet lag had started to kick in. But thankfully, I still had enough time to enjoy the first real highlight of my trip; which was sunset in the Thar Desert; which was fantastic!

On returning from having a nice moment with my camera. I noticed there were other tourists and a guide approaching on camels. Happy to see other people as we hadn’t seen anyone for some 2 hours, I said “Hello”. Before you know it, we got talking and they were looking for a place to bed down so I told them we had just set up camp and they opted to bed down at our camp for the night.

The tourists were a couple from Italy. We happily sit around the campfire and share stories of travelling and life, while watching our guides cook dinner for all of us.

As we ate. The night started to get chilling and I thought perhaps the couple would want some brandy and offered the brandy I was given to them, They laughed and asked why everyone was trying to give them brandy today, I told them I was given it by another group of tourists early on in the day. The couple laughed again and said they had spent the night camping with the same two tourists the night before and they had tried to give it to them too, in the morning. Clearly, it was a small world.

As the night moved in, the sky turned from the royal blue of twilight into the darker shades of black, and with the first stars now blinking at me it wasnt long later before I saw the milky way appear in the sky and made a blessing for the Goddess Kali; or Hecate in Greek Mythology, during the new moon, and funny enough, as I said goodnight and got into my bed; which was a roll mattress and two thick blankets. I pulled my hoodie up, rolled over to sleep with my head under the covers and then heard two wild dogs barking overhead. I’m not sure if they were trying to scare me or not. But, as two dogs are a sign of the Goddess Hecate, I felt she blessed me with two protectors that night. So, with the barking dogs overhead, I drifted into a deep sleep.

And, it would have been a really good bit of sleep too. However, I woke up at stupid o’clock and needed to go to the loo. But as I was in a house with no roof or walls, this meant I didn’t have a toilet either, so I had to find a bush, didn’t have time to find my touch, headed for a bush and thought I was about bus my head as I didn’t realise the bush I selected was right by a dune and I dropped down it, then realised everything was ok, I laughed and headed back to bed but couldn’t fall back to sleep, and ended up watching the sunrise.

My first 24 hours in India was all I had planned it for it to be and more. Fear turned into calmness, worry turned into tranquillity, my eyes were filled with new sights and I had managed to meet some new travelling friends so I wasn’t solo after all.

Add a comment

What is your view?

Send

Related posts:

S.E.X.Y specialty open market

In the S.E.X.Y Specialty Open Market, creators can register and sell goods and digital goods they create, and influencers can sell products sold through companies and live commerce affiliated with…

5 Habits of Highly Unsuccessful People

The first sign you might not even notice. It might start as taking a few days off. Days turn into weeks. And then months and years. You compromise with yourself and neglect what you truly want. You…

Ejemplo de storytelling. El exitoso caso de Manuel Bartual

El dibujante y tuitero Manuel Bartual ha mantenido en vilo a miles de personas en Twitter gracias a la narración de una historia de intriga, miedo y sorpresas. A lo largo de siete días ha logrado…