I'm spending a Month in India. What should I see and do?

[Krackato]

I'm spending a month in India starting December 14th to January 14th. I'm hoping to really plot an intensely memorable experience.

If you guys have any ideas, let me know, or if there's a website or forum I NEED to check out or a book I MUST pick-up or anything in that vein, let me know. This will most likely be my only trip to India for perhaps a decade so I want to do it right.

edit: Also, while I'm there, is there anyway to learn more about Virtual Assistants, etc.? I haven't gotten a VA yet partially because YMII / GetFriday become flooded after the release of 4HWW, so I don't know what's going on with people hiring VA's these days. Thanks

[travelhead]

I spent about 4 months in Inida. I would suggest you pick up the Lonely Planet India book and take it with you.

Although a month might seem like a lot of time, it's really very short. India is HUGE, and is a lot bigger than it looks on the map to get from one place to the next.

It depends on where you are flying into. You most likey will fly into either Delhi or Mumbai. If you fly to Delhi, I would suggest getting out of Delhi as soon as possible. You might want to go to Agra asap to get that out of the way, then LEAVE. Agra is the most touristy place (Taj Mahal) and you need to go there and leave as fast as you can.

After that, you have a few options. Of course, Varanassi is a must see. So you could head east immediately, and on the way there's a city that has the Kama Sutra temples (I forgot the name of the city off hand)..

What you really want to do is avoid backtracking. For me, I flew into Mumbai then headed south to Goa, Hampi & Kerala (backwaters), then up to Munnar (tea plantation), up through the middle to Bohpal(spelling?) to Agra, then west to Rhajasthan, looped back and headed east to Varanassi & Calcutta . This took me roughly 4+ months.

You definitely want to go to the Rhasthan area. I spent 3 weeks in a very small town called Pushkar. There's a temple where I fed monkey's every day, I played chess, fed the birds.. Relaxed. There's like 100+ temples in that area to check out..

You also should go to the Goa area.. Kerala/Munnar/etc..

And finally as I mentioned above.. Varanassi..

So look at these places on a map and see how you want to go.. Just remember to TAKE YOUR TIME at each place. The worst is to hop from place to place without getting any time to relax!

I took the 2nd class sleeper train , cheap . very good.

Happy travels!

[Krackato]

Thanks for the advice. I'm boarding a plane in 28 hours. Very excited.

If anyone else has any ideas, let me know. I'll upload some pics for you guys during and after my trip.

Canon 30D (http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Digital-28-135mm-3-5-5-6-Standard/dp/B000NP3DJC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1197464450&sr=8-3)

Hope I don't lose it!

[MariaG]

I've not been to India, but Dharmasala is definitely on my list of places to visit before I die! Even if the Dalai Lama is not there it is the best place in the world to see Tibetan Buddhism in practice.