Feb 25th
Why do I cry? I am all alone on the wrong train. I need to find the train to Goa. There are no tourists. Anywhere. It is just me and the Indians, yet I cry. This is what I wanted, no? Total unfamiliarity. Escapism. Why do I fear the next 40 hours or so where I will have to suffer my own company sans entertainment. The landscape is bleak – miles and miles of fields with no lights punctuated by the occasional zhodpatti – or slum.

My driver today in Agra, as with so many other Indians I have met kept beginning his sentences “In India…” followed by some little anecdote about this land. Little villages are springing up around the train stations. People staring at me everywhere I go. In Delhi they stared less. But here on the train, everyone from Chai Wallahs to ticket inspectors thinks I’m some sort of alien.

Spending extended amounts of time with yourself can be extremely trying. Especially with the knowledge that those around you do not speak your tongue. Will try to sleep before I get off to change for the right train to Goa.

Feb 26th
It is the dead of the night. I am on the right train. Another 36 hours till Goa. I got off last night in a place called Gwalior – middle of nowheresville. Station full of soldiers. Was a bit nervous. The Indians in my booth cheered my up loads. Dr King, San something and other guy and his lovely old wife who spoke no English. I told him I think I’m falling in my love with his wife. He translated for her and she laughed hard and grabbed my hand. There’s lots of head-wagging here (in the North there is no head-wagging). I am getting the hang of it. I slept fitfully fearing my bags which are under lock and chain, but still. Today, I awoke to shrieks which I learnt were from a woman who had her chain stolen while she was sleeping.

I met some more young Indians – Rahul and Vinod – the hopeless romantic who took countless photos of me with his camera phone. I charged my MP3 and when I took it out the charger it continued to charge! They explained in unexceptional tones: “this happens only in India. There is energy in the air, no need for conventional electricity.” I realised maybe I am to have one good day and one bad day in India. Today was a good day. Met Na’eem Sitarmaker who incidentally, makes sitars. Only in India.

Met Raphael from Chile who has a sister Deborah. He is very cool. Met King Banesh – a 20 year old Indian who claims to be King.  Indian humour is quite dry – actually I really like it. They are very deadpan. Vinod is on his way to Puna to see about a girl. Either he will work it out with her or he will have his parents arrange a marriage for him which will mean meeting the girl at their engagement and for the second time at their wedding. But he wants to confess his undying love to the Puna girl who he has been seeing for a few months behind his parents back but has never touched. Raphael and I told him to go for it. India is kind of haunting at night – especially with all these forest fires, caused by “mischief” as explained by Dr King.

Was not alone at all today. I taught Raff Backgammon and all the Indians crowded around to look. Rubbish lines the railway tracks as do rats the size of cats. Everyone throws everything outside – not very environmentally conscious here. Vinod paid for my drink, “In India we are very hospitable. When I come to your country you will do the same for me surely. India has great heart.” And it does. Vinod says everyone is living a Bollywood film story here in India – some are living the bad parts and some are living the happy endings. The Indians I met couldn’t believe I was travelling – and alone at that. “You surely very bold. In India, we busy marrying off children and busy all the time with family.”

March 1st (I think)
Having strange feelings here in Gokarna on Kudli beach. We all went to a jam where I’d been told that there were really talented musicians. But the jam was fully of smoking stoner hippies who really it seemed to me had no feeling to their jamming. How I missed suddenly the jams in my house where one doesn’t have to be “gone” to bond with others – the music bonds not the Indian Hashish.

So I’ll leave. And on my way “home” I went past the loos (the public hole in the ground I should say) and saw that the restaurant that accompanies the guest house had Indians sleeping in it covering every square inch. Everywhere. So I’ve come instead to the beach where I am now as I write this and the waves are lapping and glistening with plankton – the shiny whale food, and millions of stars above are ablaze, reflecting the plankton. India is a place brimming with contradictions. I want to write more but a stray dog followed by a cow have come to greet me….

That’s all for now, must go catch sleeper to Hampi will be a 16 hour ride. The most terrible thing happened. I lost all my pictures – I filled up the memory card of 4GB (About 1000 pics) and they all got erased from the heat. So I took some off someone else’s camera (mine were way better).

Deborah Danan

Photos by Deborah’s friends. (Hopefully she’ll get her camera fixed soon).

India is all the rage. It’s captivating, it’s chaotic and it’s huge. It’s become a top destination for adventurous travelers of all ages keen to take themselves far from their comfort zone and experience some of the most stupendous natural and spiritual sights in the world.

The good news is that we’ll be getting an insight into what it’s really like to travel around India. Alone.

Deborah Danan is a friend and travel writer who’ll be posting regular blogs as she embarks on her fantastic Indian adventure.

We love her stories, the hilarity and absurdity of the situations she finds herself in, and are sure you will too. To find out more about Deborah, visit our guest blogger page and be sure to follow all her latest installments here at the Tripbase Travel Blog.

You know the feeling – you’ve been traveling for an eternity, you’re completely whacked, all you want is to drift off into a blissful snooze before catching your next flight.

But those airport chairs are hard, so very hard and the arm-rest keeps digging into your head.

The latest trend of “pod” or “capsule” hotels might be just the solution to this perennial traveling dilemma.

Take, for example, Yotel’s London and Amsterdam hotels. Situated in airport terminals they offer futuristic pod rooms for stays as short as four hours – perfect for “nappers in transit”.

Capsule living
With cabin-like rooms measuring just seven square meters, it won’t take you long to grasp the space-saving capsule concept.

But Yotel promises that there’s as much in this tiny space as you’ll find in most four star hotels. And with talk of organic cotton sheets, flat screen TVs and 24 hour cabin service, they might just be right.

The micro hotel trend certainly seems to be catching on. Originating in Japan, catering for inebriated businessmen too scared to face their wives, teeny tiny hotels have now spread throughout Europe and the US.

Broom cupboard benefits
Cost and convenience are the main reasons why travelers are opting to risk a bout of claustrophobia to stay in these ultra-modern hotel joints, as well as the draw of something genuinely fresh and different.

And with many of the hotels located in pricey city and airport destinations, their rates are certainly in tune with today’s economic climate.

Where to find your pod
If you’re thinking of joining the capsule revolution, check out Yotel’s airport chain, The Pod or The Jane (New York), citizenM (Amsterdam) or StayOrange.com (Kuala Lumpur). For an authentic Japanese pod experience, check out the deals on flights to Tokyo, and head to the Capsule Inn Akihabara.

Travel fad or fresh innovation, it looks like capsule hotels are here to stay, for the time being at least. So take a break from arm-rest-itis and give them a whirl, just be sure to leave your cat at home.

Photos from Flickr. Photo credits (in order of placement): Yotel by donutshead, Tokyo Caspule Hotel by Matteo Mazzoni.

Hey everybody,

Just a short blog to say that Tripbase will be at the upcoming ITB in Berlin. If you fancy joining us at the world’s largest travel trade show, check out our deals on flights to Berlin and join the show! We’re pretty excited to be here and looking forward to hearing a lot about the travel industry and meeting with some innovators in the space. We’re also going to be at the PhocusWright@ITB Conference.

If you’re at ITB and you’d like to say hello, drop us a line.

In the meantime, we’ll let you know soon all the cool things we find out. We’re expecting good things.

“I always fly safely, knowing  that I will arrive at the scene of the accident a micro-second before you!”

Flying is statistically one of the safest ways to travel.  (In a future blog, we’ll discuss safety and the geography of commercial air travel.) Because of intentional redundancy in commercial aviation, what we call “defense in depth”, it is very rare for one person’s actions to lead to an accident.  System design is “fault tolerant and fail safe”, resistant to catastrophic breakdowns because it is created to ‘fail’ to an operationally safe condition.

Some years ago, Dr. James Reason proposed a “Swiss Cheese” accident model.  Picture a wedge of Swiss cheese, riddled with holes.  Shoot a bullet at the cheese.  Only a perfect shot can pass through all the holes cleanly.  If the wedge of cheese represents the aviation system and the bullet a breakdown or error, it would require a very rare set of circumstances for the bullet to pass through the cheese unobstructed, leading to an accident.

US Air Flight #1549, which ditched in the Hudson River in New York City on the 15th of January this year, and Continental Flight #3407, which crashed near Buffalo New York on the 12th of February, represent two such events.  (More about both of these accidents in a future blog)  In the “miracle on the Hudson”, a reverse perfect storm led to 100% survival; with the Continental crash, just the opposite was true and everyone perished.  Prior to these accidents, it had been almost 2 ½ years since the last US commercial accident. During that time, US airlines operated in excess of 16 million flights and transported over 2 billion passengers without a single accident or fatality!

Safety never occurs by accident, pardon the pun!  Rather, it results from many years of intentional design, continuous improvement, and thorough and rigorous standards and training.  Today’s safety system is built upon the knowledge gained from yesterday’s accidents.  Each accident teaches us invaluable lessons which are then applied to future operations.  Perfection is never possible.  It is, however, a constant goal.

It will be my pleasure in coming blogs to highlight different aspects of the commercial aviation system, and discuss current events such as the US Air, Continental, and Turkish Air accidents.  Your feedback will be essential so we’ll include a “because you asked” section to highlight issues and questions of importance to you.

During my many years as a captain, I made it a practice to greet my passengers during boarding.  Occasionally, they told me to “fly safe.”  My response was always the same – I always fly safely, knowing  that I will arrive at the scene of the accident a micro-second before you!
Stow your loose items, take your seats, and buckle up as we prepare for take-off on our flight into aviation history.  It will be my pleasure to be your captain on this and future flights.  Thanks for being with us today and welcome aboard.

Captain Alan W. Price