Why Driving in India is a Challenge I Like to Take

A few things about India are so delightful that they keep pulling me back. Even though I am an Indian, I feel like a foreigner whenever I travel to some other corner of the country. That is why; every day of the vacation becomes an adventurous one, no matter where I am. However, driving on the Indian roads is something that keeps me on my toes every moment. I cannot afford to blink my eyes even for a second because of the challenges looming forever on the roads. As they say, you must not use a mobile phone while driving as it can be dangerous; it can be fatal in India. If you are not vigilant enough, it will take just a second to lose your life. Thankfully, I have never been involved in any serious injury, but a few minor accidents have taught me the value of keeping a watchful eye each second on the road.

The users of the road

I had always heard that the roads in Singapore speak volumes about cleanliness, and it is true. I have been to Singapore and they have impeccably clean roads. You may invite a huge fine if you break the traffic rules. On the other hand, we have barely any traffic rules; we don’t follow them even if we have. The roads in India are meant for everyone without any specific lanes for heavy and light vehicles.

It is a common sight to find cars, auto-rickshaws, e-rickshaws, manual rickshaws, buses in all sizes, and trucks on just one road. No one is bothered to follow the lanes and hence, we have the great Indian traffic jam. To worsen the situation, we have cattle on the road along with dogs, cats, elephants, and horses. Yes, the generous Indian public never minds the animals on the roads. In fact, we try to save the animals whenever they cross the road even if it means losing a human life. This is not something to be proud of, yet, I cannot help it but manage with the situation.

Driving sense

It is again a sorry fact to admit but Indians have poor traffic sense. It is fun for them to jump the traffic lights, cross the road with oncoming vehicles, cause obstructions by changing lanes without notice, and abuse others if they overtake. In a country where everything can be done with bribe, most people get their licenses made without even giving a driving test. They learn driving just when they come on the road with their car or bike and a family member or a friend to teach them. It implies that people do not prefer to learn from the driving instructors, but from already underqualified drivers. Hence, the outcome is unqualified drivers who would do anything to get their way on the road.

It is a serious task to reach your destination safely, but by the virtue of being an Indian, I have got used to driving in India. In fact, I love the challenge. I like to book Self Driven Car in Mumbai and drive when the roads are relatively empty at night; it is the best time of the day.

Why Traveling Makes You More Appreciative

Travel makes you more indebted to whatever you have got in your life; at least I have experienced it for sure. Until I was in school, I had never thought that I have got a lot of things in life, which are way more than what people have in half of the world. I never knew that just a roof on my head makes me a wealthier person than millions of others. When I started traveling on my own, I discovered what it meant to possess things in this materialistic world.

The home cooked food

No doubt travel is a humbling experience and I love each moment of it. However, there have been times when I have literally craved for the basic homemade meal. I hail from Hyderabad; I start missing my staple food even when I am just a few hundred kilometers away from home. It does not mean that I want to return home as soon as possible, but it makes me realize the importance of a healthy meal. If I try to eat the authentic local foods in foreign countries, I am on the verge of killing my budget. And it becomes too difficult to survive on McDonalds for weeks, even though it is the most economical food available anywhere in the world.

I miss the bed

Over the years, I have made my room such that I can find out everything in dark without even opening my eyes. I know my room inside out, each wall of it, and every single thing that lies on the floor. I love to keep it messy and I even tell my mom to never clean it. I find peace in the things that I own. However, when I am away from home for a few weeks or months, I start hating the hotel beds. Even the hostel dorms do not appeal me anymore, and I just want to go home as soon as possible. And when I reach back into my room, I feel like hugging everything even though I can’t. Nevertheless, I can hug my pillows and have a sound sleep.

I miss my family

I hate to confess this, but I had started neglecting my family after years of staying with them. I should have appreciated their efforts in bringing me up, but I was doing the exact opposite. However, when I started being out of the home for studies in a different city, I learned their value. I would crave to hug my mom and they would obviously miss me too. Then, on their anniversary, I looked for the best Self-Drive Cars in Hyderabad and sent them on a romantic drive.

They still remember that day and praise me for what I did for them, but I refuse to take the credit. After all, it was just a small token of love for everything that they had done for me. Is it wrong to say that staying out of home made me more appreciative of everything I have in life? I don’t think so.

Things I Have to Deal with While Traveling in India

I, being a local Indian traveler, just love this country. I have always believed that India has much more natural and artificial beauty than any other country. I have never thought of traveling abroad just for the sake of it, or just because many other Indians are doing so. Yes, I have been to a couple of exotic countries abroad, but my faith in my country has never been less. Having said all that, there are a few things about local travel that I simply hate. I cannot come to terms with these few aspects of roaming around in India, despite the fact that I have been an independent traveler for more than five years. And the verity that I am a backpacker, these irritable things just amplify.

Filthy toilets

Given that there is already a scarcity of public toilets in India, I have to use any washroom that is available on my journey. If I travel by bus, I barely have a choice. And it is rare that I travel by car because that is very expensive mode of transportation for a single person. When I went to Coorg with family last year, we had taken Innova Car for Self Drive in Bangalore, which proved cheaper and more convenient for six members plus the driver. Coming back to the point of dirty toilets, they stink so badly that I try to hold my breath for as long as I can. I have to cover my mouth with a heavy cloth so as to breathe clean air, just in case I take more than fifteen seconds in there. It is my best attempt to come out of the lavatory in less than 30 seconds.

Dealing with touts and auto-rickshaw drivers

As soon as I get down a bus, come out of a metro station or an airport, the drivers of auto-rickshaws, manual rickshaws, or taxis jump on me like I am the only passenger left in this world who will pay their bills. Even though I don’t look like I am a foreigner, they attack me so mercilessly. I wonder the plight of poor foreigners who don’t even understand the local language. I cannot blame the drivers or touts entirely for their behavior, but they should understand that this is not the way to approach any tourist. The travelers take back a reputation of any place in their mind when they return, which is determined by the behavior of the locals. They need to learn the civic sense to deal with their neighbors and tourists because the traveler would always spread the bad word about such occurrences, whether it happens in India or abroad.

I love to travel in India, but I cannot ignore the fact that these disturbing these are present in my own country. If I cannot sustain dirty toilets and ill-mannered locals, the foreigners who talk ill about India are not to blame. Indians, please understand the value of tourism and the tourists.

How I Escape Clashes Over Money While Traveling

Yes, there have been a few incidences when I had indulged in stupid fights with friends over money. However, those were the times when we barely had money since we were in college and everyone was quite clingy about the meager cash they had. We could not help but accept the fact that we all were short of cash at all times, so we had to demarcate the lines about how we would split the expenses anyone made in the group. Splitting the costs were the early lessons in life that I was lucky to have in life.

Traveling with friends

There was one road trip to Coorg when I traveled with three other friends. We often had clashes about who would spend for what, the members of the group would look here and there whenever it came to paying the bills, and the fuel for the car was often a bone of contention among us. When we returned, we all had bitter memories to share. The next time, I decided that I would travel with friends who were of one mind about spending money at least; we could deal with other things easily.

We planned for a road trip to Mahableshwar, for which we had to book Self Driven Car in Mumbai, and I had made it clear that I would pay only if everyone will not behave miserly later. When my friends laughed about it, I got the signals that I would not face any problem with budgeting with these guys. I paid for the car rental, someone else paid for the hotel booking, etc. and we all divided the costs later.

Petty cash  

I like to convey it to my friends every time on a road trip that we should contribute a couple of thousands, which one person will handle. And this cashier deals with all the expenses that we have to make. He pays the food bills, toll taxes, and all other small expenses. We all just chill and have fun on the road trips, without thinking about who will pay this bill and that one.

Using mobile apps

Since the day I have been using Splitwise, the finances with my friends have been sorted like never before. This simple mobile application lets me divide the expenses with my roommates, friends, and even family. Whenever I have to go for a weekend getaway, we mention our expenses in the common mobile app, which is Splitwise in our case. When we return from the trip, it shows the net balance that each member has to pay to each other. Sorted!

Just by being clear and careful about money matters, I have organized the finances well with everyone who is in my closed circles. It certainly adds more value to any relationship when you don’t have to worry about something as significant as money, which of course gains more importance when you don’t pay heed to it. After having some of the most amazing road trips, I look forward to many more of them.

How I Manage Traveling With Kids Schedule

I cannot ignore the fact that I am a passionate traveler, who by the fate of time, is a parent as well. I have to keep in mind my kid’s holidays so that I do not disturb their studies for my travel plans. However, I have developed my schedules in a way that my personal ambitions do not poke into my professional life as well.

Maximize the family time

My parents live in Pune, while I live with my family in Mumbai. They keep visiting us almost every month for a weekend or so, and we also go there. However, whenever I have a travel plan coming up, but the kids are busy with school, I call my parents to live at my home. They babysit both my babies and I am off to a new honeymoon with my husband. We cherish the personal time we get with each other, regardless the point that we both miss the kids as well.

On the positive side, the children get time to spend with their grandparents. Thank God, they gel up well with each other. My mom is an energetic person and she takes care of the tot’s tantrums, up to a limit of course. If the children behave too badly, she is the one to teach them a lesson as well. All in all, I am happy that we all are a big Indian family, who live their individual lives along with the family life.

Traveling with kids

Even when the babies get one holiday from their school, or if there is a long weekend, we set off to an offbeat destination. I hate the clichéd cities and hill stations in India because they become immensely crowded during holidays. That is why; I have to prepare the list of places we can visit during such holidays because I cannot waste time in planning whenever there is a holiday looming over.

Last year, we hired Self Drive Car Rental Mumbai to go to Mahableshwar when the kids were not heavily burdened with work at school. They could afford to miss a few classes and I promised their teachers to get them back on track once we returned from vacations. The place was not very crowded, thankfully, and we had a great weekend.

There is one thing that I have noticed when the kids are at home and we are traveling; they are becoming independent individuals. The younger one is only four years old at present, and he knows where to put his laundry. He sits quietly while eating food, and does not need TV to finish off the stuff on his plate. Thanks to my parents who inculcated this positive habit in him, which I could not do.

My older son is ten years old, and he already knows how to google anything whenever we make travel plans. He finds out the best places to visit, the hotel deals, and many other things. I am amazed for sure how these kids are growing up so well! Thanks to their traveler parents and cooperative grandparents that they are able to become responsible beings.

How I Improved My Travel Blogs in Just One Year

It sounds incredible even to myself but I managed to have a few hundred followers on my travel blog in just one year but it was not luck; it was because of sheer hard work that I could succeed in establishing my blog. When I look back, it seems unbelievable that I was the same person who never believed in himself or his writing. Whenever someone asked me to introduce myself, I would fumble, forget writing things. However, I was a passionate traveler who desperately wanted to pen down my experiences.

After contemplating writing for more than a year, I came across an offer to create a cheap website. Disinterestedly, I clicked on it and found it attractive. It did not take me more than a few minutes to register the domain name that I clicked my mind without putting much thought into it. It was something related to wanderlust, but let it be for now.

Dedication

Writing requires undying commitment, and I became aware of this fact when I met a fiction writer. The lady from France told me that she lived in China at present. She worked as a translator in a highly demanding job, but she loved writing. She had written four books by that time and the obvious thing that she told me was that she sat at her work station for at least an hour every day, not matter she had ideas in her mind or not. Discipline was what I learned from her.

It was time to introduce self-discipline in my life. I set up my work station in a week, which involved some basic investment. Initially, I thought that I had wasted my money because I was not sure about dedicating myself to a new routine. Nevertheless, the first week of sitting at the desk went off in looking at the family photos from the past few years. It was not a waste of time, I would say because I let my mind wander in the direction of previous vacations with family and friends.

Focus and responsibility

It took me a more than a week to write 500 words about random things in my mind, but it was an important lesson in putting my thoughts onto the screen since I had visited a religious shrine that day. The following month, I went to the hills from my office. And when I returned, I wrote about my experience with Self-Drive Cars in Pune. At that point while writing about car rentals, I realized that I needed to be responsible with my words that I publish online. I could not endorse any product even if no one was paying me for it just for the sake of it.

I was on the way to become a travel writer whom people may look up to as they form their opinions. And if I misguide my readers for even a trivial thing, they may never take my words seriously. Just because I had developed a flair of writing in the next few months, I could not recommend just anything to my readers.

Learning technology

Before I began my blog, I never knew that I had to be technically aware in order to publicize my blog. I had barely heard about SEO and never paid attention to it. However, I had to learn about this dreaded technology, even though I hated it. Nonetheless, it helped a lot to gain wider audience for my blog in just a few months and I cannot be happier about investing my time in the right direction. All in all, it took just one year of dedication, focus, and learning to establish a successful travel blog.

Why India is My First Choice for Solo Travel

Whenever I would hear about India from my friends in London, they would provide me with overwhelming information that confused me like anything. However, there was only one piece of advice that stuck in my mind- someone told me that different people have different experiences in India, which may be good or bad at times. The elderly lady told me that I should go to India to feel it myself.

When I landed in India at the Delhi airport, I did not feel anything that was unsafe. In fact, it was one of the cleanest airports I had ever seen. No doubt that the scenario outside the airport was not as pleasant as it was inside, I was open to what lay ahead that day. No mentioning the places that I visited in India, I would like to mention why I choose this land of Gods over and over again for traveling alone.

The ease of information

Internet has made things much easier than ever before in many countries including India. I researched about the places I intended to visit before leaving home, and found valuable material from the bloggers. Just like the situation is there in London, you cannot trust the commercial websites because they never tell the true information. These websites pay attention to inviting more readers and contain only positive information, and ignore the negative aspects of any place, which are obviously important to know for everyone.

The bloggers provide the right information that people like me need to travel to India, and that too alone. I could also talk to some of the writers and locals in India who would give me the real time account of any place. I once asked a person about the weather, safety standards, and food availability, and got the accurate data about that place. It was never as easy before.

The huge number of places

Each corner of India is a new country in itself. As of now, I have been to the south, north, and north-east India. All of these regions are just so mesmerizing and every state gives a different vibe. I now realize what my friends meant when they said that going to India is an overwhelming experience. When I was in the south, I saw the natural beauty at its best. When I was in the north, I witnessed the vibrancy of colors, joyful people of Delhi, and the most delectable food on earth. When I was in North-East India, I got to participate in the lively traditions and festivals with the locals. Every state in the country gave me unforgettable memories.

The ease of transportation

I never knew that the concept of car rentals existed in India. A friend of minutes found out Self-Drive Cars in Hyderabad, and we had a gala time in the city and its surrounding places. Similarly, I could find the car rentals in other metropolitan cities as well, but I did not dare to drive. Only the local drivers can maneuver the cars on the challenging roads of India.

I could easily book the cabs and auto-rickshaws using the mobile applications, which I did not know I could do in India. Railways and airlines were quite obvious to choose for long distances. The concept of manual rickshaw in Kolkata intrigues me, but I have not been there yet.

I loved India for being so vibrant, which makes it my first choice for solo travel. Not to mention that traveling in India is not too heavy on the pocket. I can go there zillions of times and never get bored.