Indian travel

Hello,

6 days away from my first trip to India, and planning on traveling mainly by train in 3 weeks from Delhi to Katmandu.

Have a couple of questions I was needing answering.

1) Do I need to book train tickets in advance or can I generally turn up at the station and but tickets there. I don’t want to be restricted on how long I can stay in certain places along the way
2) How close to the Nepalese border do the train services run to?

Any other general advice on coping with India will also be welcome.

Cheers

hii

U need to book train tickets well in advance if u want to travel in night trains, but if u intend to travel short during daytime u can very well buy the same at the stations.

Regarding ur trip to Nepal, the major train station close to Nepal border, having links to all parts of India, is Gorakhpur, which is around 50Km from the Nepalese border.

General advise for u:
1. Dont try taking pics of women while ur travelling in villages or rural areas.
2. Be careful of the touts
3. Always take services of a reliable travel agency or a government agency
4. Take care of ur belongings while travelling in trains, buses, etc

Apart from the above use common sense as is required while travelling in any foreign country

Let me know if u need more info

Arif

[ Edit: Edited on Oct 17, 2007, at 2:01 AM by arif_kool ]

For the most part in India between July and Nov, my girlfriend and I never booked a train ticket more than a day or two in advance. Usually, when we decided when and where we would move to next, we would go to the train station and book it for the next day or the next. Only once (leaving Darjeeling) did we find the sleeper class overnight tickets booked, and we had to go with class up. Once in the south in December when things got a bit busier we booked most of our major routes (particularly our last route to Mumbai to fly out), a couple week in advance just to be sure. But in between major journeys we had no problem finding last minute seats on every train or bus we took.

1) Do I need to book train tickets in advance or can I generally turn up at the station and but tickets there. I don’t want to be restricted on how long I can stay in certain places along the way.

a) Some places its better to have the tickets booked, because trains can get over crowded. Well it just sort of planning.

b) If you have no issues in travelling on a unreserved compartment, you can buy the ticket. If you buy the ticket on the spot and attempted to travel in reserved compartment the TTR may ask you to leave, however most TTRs compromise.

Indian Railways allow Online Reservation:

Website: http://www.irctc.co.in/

2) How close to the Nepalese border do the train services run to?
a) Travel to the city of gorakhpur which is near the nepal border. Then take a bus which is a few hours across the nepal border to kathmandu!!!

[ Edit: Edited on Oct 18, 2007, at 6:52 AM by sri_gan ]