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The Egypt Itinerary
Tag Archives: train
Getting around Austria – Travel and Where to Stay
In our experience of travelling, Austria was one of the easiest to plan transits between cities. Everything was online and even while we were there, it was easy to find our way thanks to the readily available maps. We entered Austria from Prague by train and started our trip at Salzburg.
Travel in Austria – Buses
Austria has a really good network of buses. For our travel from Salzburg to St. Gilgen and beyond, we took the local Postbus service. For long distance travel, you can check Flixbus (https://global.flixbus.com/) and GetbyBus (https://getbybus.com/en/) who are aggregators. Do check out the ratings and reviews of the operator to make sure you pick the right bus for your travel. They can charge you for heavy luggage, so keep change handy. But we would recommend the trains which are very efficient and fast.
Travel in Austria – Train
You can get details of the Austrian train service OBB on their website here (https://www.oebb.at/en/). The trains are clean, fast and efficient. Booking tickets is easy and we had a very smooth experience. We booked on OBB for our trip from Bad Ishcl to Hallstatt, Salzburg to Vienna and Vienna to Budapest.
Other Tips
Make sure you keep enough buffer between transfers in your journey so that you don’t miss out on a bus/train. It is always better to reach a place early than deal with the frustration of missing a connection.
We always recommend making your bookings atleast a week or two in advance to ensure that you get a seat (preferably, a reserved seat). Also, advance bookings can get you some good deals! Keep your eye out for these.
Where to Stay
If you have checked out our Croatian blog, you would have come across our Golden Rule – to have our stay close to the main attractions while having access to the transit systems. The access part is kept at higher priority as it is convenient when you’re moving in/out with your luggage. We found it very convenient everywhere in Austria as the cities have been designed with great connectivity.
Salzburg: We stayed at Hotel Turnerwirt which was less than 3km from the city centre. There was a bus stop very close to the hotel and was at walking distance from the Salzburg Gnigl station.
Salzkammergut: We made our base at St. Gilgen as it gave us a nice central location to plan our day trips. There are many lovely homestays in St. Gilgen and we stayed at one called Eislbauerhof which had a really nice view of the lake and the entire valley.
Vienna: There are a lot of places to pick from in Vienna. We stayed at an Airbnb with the only criteria that it was very close to a metro station (mainly because we were staying just for one night). Had we planned for a longer stay, we would have picked something close enough to the palaces and museums.
This should get you going on your tickets and accommodation in Austria.
Read all the Austria blogs here:
- The Austria Itinerary – an adventure awaits
- Salzburg – Mozart, the Sound of Music and a lot more
- Salzkammergut – Nature at its finest
- Hallstatt and Dachstein – salt, ice and everything nice (and the most precise plan ever!)
- A Day in Vienna – exploring the capital city
- Getting around Austria – Travel and Where to Stay
- Austria food guide – coffee, schnitzel and a lot more
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Salzkammergut – Nature at its finest
There are few places in the world which can rival the pristine beauty of Switzerland – Salzkammergut is one of them! Salzkammergut translates to “salt domain” and lies to the east of Salzburg all the way to the Dachstein mountains. The region is also called the Lake District as it is home to over 30 lakes nestled in between scenic hills and mountains. The geography of the region also makes it an ideal place for resorts and skiing during winters. It is also home to the iconic Hallstatt – which I’m sure a lot of you would have seen somewhere on the internet! So let’s get right into our journey!
Getting Around Vietnam – Travel and Where to Stay
Getting to Vietnam
Vietnam is well connected through its international airports at Hanoi (Noi Bai Airport), Ho Chi Minh City (Tan Son Nhat Airport) and Da Nang acting as major hubs. You can explore Vietnam by plane, train or bus. Renting a car is not a recommended option here with a left-hand drive and the not-so-good roads with sign boards in Vietnamese.
Travelling in Vietnam – Plane
Flights are a very good option as it saves you time and if you plan in advance, you can get some really cheap deals – we got Vietjet Air tickets from Hanoi to Da Nang for $30 (INR 2200)! The flight connectivity is superb, and you can easily find a lot of flight options to suit your schedule.
Pro Tip: We always make sure we travel light with 2 small backpacks as cabin luggage and 1 suitcase for check-in. In such cases, we book separate tickets – one at the lowest fare (like the $30 ticket mentioned above which doesn’t include check-in luggage) and the other with the luggage add-on. This helps you save quite a bit if you have flights on multiple legs of your journey.
Travelling in Vietnam – Train
Trains are a good option if time is not a constraint in your itinerary. To give you some context, the train from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City takes almost 40 hours vs a 2.5 hr flight journey! That said, it is the best way to see the countryside and have a leisurely trip. You will most certainly take a train if you are planning to visit Sapa in the north. Make sure you book your tickets in advance especially if you are travelling on weekends. These are a couple of recommended websites for booking train tickets in Vietnam 12Go and Baolau.
Travelling in Vietnam – Bus
Buses can be found connecting all towns and cities. Be warned – the roads are not great and the buses not very comfortable. The journeys are long which means it will definitely add on to your days in the itinerary (Check out our itinerary here) – both in terms of travel time as well as recovery time. You can find bus tickets on the websites mentioned above for the trains.
Travelling within the city
The cities we went to were the 3 most tourist friendly cities and have a good public transport system which you can rely on.
In Hanoi, for airport transfers, we used the city-airport bus line – look for bus number 7 or 17 and you can get from the airport to the city centre for less than 1 USD per person. You can find out the routes and timings here. Once you reach the Old Quarter, most tourist spots are accessible by foot.
Ho Chi Minh City also has buses, but we didn’t use them as the routes were longer and prone to traffic jams. We went for “Grab” taxis – convenient and easy on the pocket.
Grab taxis are available in all the major cities – make sure you have the app downloaded. It comes in really handy – don’t worry if you don’t know Vietnamese – the app has a chat translate feature where you can type in English and the driver gets it in Vietnamese (mind=blown!). They also have food delivery on the same app – so if you are feeling too tired to step out, they can “Grab” you a quick meal!
Where to Stay
Hanoi: As close as possible to Hoan Kiem Lake. This is where you will be spending most of your time – whether it is exploring the town or hopping into eateries. We stayed near Ta Hien street which was close enough to the bus stop where you get buses to the airport.
Hoi An: Close to the Old Town as this is the centre of activity. We stayed in an Airbnb on the island which has the night market. It was an amazing homestay with super nice hosts who helped us out with our transfers from Da Nang.
Ho Chi Minh City: District 1 – this is where all the day-tours start. You can also find a lot of good restaurants in this district.
Airbnb’s are very popular in Vietnam and with the right set of filters and locations, you can find some really good places. We booked all our accommodation through Airbnb.
You can check out our other Vietnam blogs here to plan your perfect trip:
- Vietnam Voyage – Planning a perfect trip to Vietnam (with Itinerary)
- A Weekend in Hanoi – the capital of Vietnam
- Excursion to Ha Long Bay – beautiful and surreal limestone karsts out in the sea
- The Magical Town of Hoi An – a dreamy old town in central Vietnam
- Ho Chi Minh City – financial capital in South Vietnam
- Day Trips from Ho Chi Minh City – visits to the Cu Chi tunnels and Mekong Delta
- Getting around Vietnam – Travel and Where to Stay – tips on how to plan your travel
- Fantastic Vietnamese Food and Where to Find Them – the ultimate food blog!
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Getting Around Croatia – Travel and Where to Stay
Getting to Croatia
We start with how to get to Croatia from the neighbouring countries. The easiest and expensive option is by flight – through Zagreb or Split or Dubrovnik and use flights for the rest of the journey. You can use any booking website to look at available options. In this blog, we will cover how to use trains and buses and make the most of them to get around Croatia.
From Budapest, Hungary: Our itinerary of Eastern Europe led us from Budapest to Zagreb. We had the option of taking a bus which would take about 5 hours (excluding the time for immigration at the border) or the train which was a similar duration but was more comfortable. We chose the train for two reasons: first, to enjoy the countryside and second, the train would stop at the border and we would have to switch to a Croatian train for the rest of the journey to Zagreb – this was something we wanted to experience.
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How to Create an Itinerary
The Plan
The summer of 2017 – Nam and I were planning the itinerary for our first long vacation together. We were looking at 13 days in the first half of June. After working out multiple itineraries, we settled on Eastern Europe. We wanted to experience the best of what each place had to offer. This meant staying with the locals, having the best of the local cuisine, exploring the small lanes by foot and travelling light by public transport across cities – in other words, backpacking!
The way I see it, there are two types of backpackers – ones who go where the roads take them and others who research and plan well ahead. It is difficult to be the first type when you are a working Indian and have less than 15 days of vacation (sigh!).
Also, I prefer to be second type – it ensures that you do not miss out on the top experiences. In fact, I enjoy planning trips almost as much as the travelling.
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The prequel – A Tale of Six Islands | Andaman
The previous set of blogs that I wrote of North India, had 6 parts and I decided to shorten the next trip’s account to make it reader friendly. This will be a story of 6 islands which are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands – in three parts. A trilogy is the safest bet, at least in movies – LOTR, Matrix, Bourne, Oceans, Toy Story. The only thing that works for me with more than 3 parts is Federer’s Grand Slam victories. I wouldn’t mind seeing him win a 100 times!
This part is the prequel – the one where the story takes off.
This story starts off in a supermarket where we are holding tubes of sunscreen like monkeys holding an iPhone. SPF 20, 30, 40?!! Having no clue about the technicalities, we made a rational decision like a manager – after trade-offs between the price, brand and SPF level, we picked out a few. Pleased with ourselves, we returned to college. (We later found out that our choice hadn’t really been the best one! :P)
We were a group of 11 – six from our hostel wing and five adopted members. We started our trip with steak burgers at Downtown Café in Calicut. Super Yum! We then headed to the railway station to catch the West Coast Express to Chennai. It felt like a really short trip with time flying as we played bluff and mafia.
We were welcomed the next morning at our very own Mehtaji’s home with delicious grilled sandwiches, bhel puri and sweets. I had taken on my usual role of the money bank with my camera bag acting as the ATM. We booked tickets for the movie Queen, which had recently released. And missing movies in Chennai would be a crime, given the cheap ticket prices.
We checked-in for our flight the next morning to Port Blair, the capital of Andaman, so that we got window seats. All planned and set, we walked to the Marina beach. Right next to Mehtaji’s home was the main office of AIADMK (a prominent political party). The shops near the place had small photos and frames having Amma’s photo – like you get the ones for Gods near temples. Chennai is indeed different!
At the beach, we shot some balloons (with those moong dal bullets), discussed the atrocities of the college admin while sitting at the shore (will never get tired of doing that), ate a sub (chicken ham with loads of mayo) and went in for the night show at the nearby theatre. The movie was delightful and kinda fit in with what we were looking for – a last big escapade to enjoy a long trip without having to worry about deadlines or leaves.
The next morning we took taxis to the airport. We spent some time doing bakar and cracking some very punny jokes – couldn’t help it with so many Mallu’s in the group. Soon, we were on our way to Port Blair, Andaman as the rickety Air India flight took off to cover the 1200 km over sea. So as promised, this prequel is where the story literally takes off. Stay tuned.
Check out the three blogs from the trilogy here:
- Port Blair and Jolly Buoy – Part One of “A Tale of Six Islands”
- Havelock – Part Two of “A Tale of Six Islands”
- Neil, Long and Ross – Part Three of “A Tale of Six Islands”
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Trains and Nostalgia
Travelling on trains always makes me nostalgic. It’s like that reset button. Brings back perspective into life. Today I’m travelling from Chennai to Bangalore. I’ve been to Chennai Central a lot of times. The first time I was here was at the age of 10, travelling from Patna to Alleppey. I think it was Patna to Howrah, Howrah to Chennai and then Chennai to Alleppey. Knowing the delays in trains from the east and north, we’d kept a gap of around 15 hrs between trains as a buffer and still missed our train from Chennai! I remember it was the time of the Sabarimala season and our train was full of black clad, bare footed swamis. I’ve been to Sabarimala twice and it’s an amazing experience.
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A Train Journey
(The rhythmic sound of the train)
Here I was, on yet another train journey, but on a new route this time. I was on my way to Mumbai from Yeshwantpur (Bangalore). The reason for the trip – Mood Indigo at IIT Bombay (Read Mood Indigo). It was a 24 hour journey. So I pick up my Nokia 2700 and start writing. A lot of thoughts rush into my head looking at the landscape rushing by. I decide to pen them down (or in this case, type ‘em down!).
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Ranipuram & Bekal Fort, Kerala
Kerala is a really beautiful place in terms of natural beauty. You get to see pristine beaches, misty mountains, valleys, forests and backwaters – everything in that tiny strip of land along the south Indian coastline! I’m sure you’d have heard of Alappuzha, Fort Kochi and Munnar. But this time, I’m going to take you to two lesser known but beautiful places – Ranipuram and Bekal Fort in the northern district of Kasargod in Kerala.
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