Trekking to Death in India?

by Abha Malpani on

I was shocked that I wasn’t shocked to read this story about a man trekking in India and getting lost for 32 days. He wandered off from his group trekking trail, hit his head and fainted. When he woke up he couldn’t find his way back, ate grass and drank sewage water to survive. Over a month later was found by a local and taken to the hospital. The man is from Bombay, which is a 4-hour drive away from Pune – the city in the outskirts of which he got lost.

As much as India is truly “incredible”, and the tourism board is trying to get it’s act together; India is dangerously disconnected the minute you head off the standard marketed tourist spots. Comparing savage Indian outskirts with the Australian outback trails wouldn’t be fair, but in say Thailand, I think something like this would never happen.

I remember getting lost when I went on a school trail in the same area as this dude who got lost. We were missing only for a few hours. We didn’t move and all we saw was the odd snake, but it could have been worse; remote India can get wilder than you can imagine.

This is why I think Indian travelers are extremely daring, adventurous and courageous — I have uncles who have planned 60 day hikes in the Himalayas. Avid travelers in India don’t seem to be technologically well-connected (my uncles barely know how to send an email), unless of course you are from Bangalore (India’s Silicon Valley).

When I was in India last, I was thrilled to get in touch with OK TATA BYE BYE. It is the first and probably only website aimed at Indian backpackers – in India! There are dozens wandering off the beaten path in their own country, all the time (the Rupee doesn’t allow for much travel overseas), and the website gives great insight into traveling in India, stuff you won’t find in guidebooks.

Where on Earth? Week 12: Elephanta Island, Mumbai, India

by Justin Glow on

I was so impressed with the guess by Stiv last week of Elephanta Island that I completely forgot to write this post on Friday! Sorry, but awesome job, Stiv! (And a shout-out to Carol B for backing him up!) Here I was trying to make the challenge a little more difficult and the Gadling readers still guessed it in less than three hours. Impressive.

I was in India a few months ago, and on our big Mumbai sightseeing day, we took a boat out to Elephanta Island. The thousand-year-old , hand-carved caves on the island were impressive, but what I remember the most is all the different fees we had to pay just to get there. Granted they were all very cheap by USD standards, but even so, we had to pay for the boat ride to the island, a fee once we got off of the pier and onto the island, another fee to be allowed to walk up the vendor-laced stairs, and then another fee at the top to enter the area with the caves. My friend had a video camera, too, so that was another charge — and then you couldn’t even use it in the caves!

This photograph was snapped just outside of the caves, looking out at an area where families sat down to picnic. Monkeys were everywhere on the island — eating trash, harassing dogs, locals, and tourists alike — but somehow I was still able to take this picture without a single one in frame. Amazing.

Direct from India: Introducing the Helirickshaw

by Justin Glow on

Flickr user calamur was recently in Mumbai, India where he shot this amazing photo of the latest in autorickshaw technology: THE HELIRICKSHAW! Never mind those geeks at MIT and their Transition flying car, this is the future of transportation! No more traffic jams, no more choking exhaust fumes — just raw Italian power lifting you into the clouds.

Alright, so the helicopter blades are probably for show, but this is still the coolest rickshaw I’ve ever seen. And if you’ve ever been to Mumbai — even for only a few hours — you’ve seen about 10 billion of them.

Boeing 737 Stuck on Busy Mumbai Road

by Justin Glow on

Just when you thought Mumbai couldn’t get any more hectic, someone comes along and leaves a Boeing 737 sitting in the middle of a busy road. BBC reports, “The decommissioned aircraft was being driven through the city at the weekend when the driver got lost and then abandoned the plane.”

Is this for real? Seriously, how can you put one person in charge of transporting a 737? Never mind the fact that he didn’t know his way around the city very well. It’s no wonder Road Junky listed Bombay as one of the 10 worst cities to visit (even though I completely disagree, Bombay is great — even with the lost plane). Bizarre, but true.

[Via WorldHum]

World Sound: More Desi Boy Bands

by Adrienne Wilson on

If you were to give me a pop quiz right now on Desi pop culture I’d flunk horribly. I’d like to think my crooning Asha Bhosle’s version of Ina, Mina, Dika would score me some points in the Desi community, but the song is centuries old and the world is need of a fresh new sound from young Desi boy heart-throbs. According to my favorite and really the only Desi culture blog I read, Sepia Mutiny, the planet could use a few more boy bands. Desi boy bands. My initial thoughts were quite opposite and not so much the Desi part, but the boy band part. However, I decided to read further and listen.

JoSH is a Montreal based Desi duo. The one they say resembles Lenny Kravitz (Q) is kind of cute to me and the other (Rup) rocks the turban while delivering the vocals that make the hearts of women melt. Okay, not so much melt, but you know the ladies are feeling it and shaking their tail-feathers, swinging their hair all wild and what have you and so it seems that the world needs more of this Desi boy band business, right? If you’re not familiar with JoSH (long O like Joe, not Joshua) you’ll want to see the videos they’ve included in the blog. The first one sold me, but the second one almost lost me. I’m a sucker for world music though so I’d probably pick it up or download a few tracks.

Seriously, if you’re into tuning your global ear to new things give JoSH a try. They’ll be opening for Nelly Furtado in Bombay on New Year’s Eve if you happen to be around India end of year.