Indian autumn: Sophie Dickinson is just back from her first trip to the world's most populous country
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2025
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Travel Desk Tuesday, and The Independent's Deputy Travel Editor has top tips on travelling around by rail and road. Sophie's highlight: the Golden Temple at Amritsar. And, she adds:"The food was the best thing about the trip."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel broadcast with me Simon Corder. |
| 0:04.0 | It's Tuesday the 18th of November Travel Desk Tuesday of course. |
| 0:09.0 | And today Deputy Travel Editor Sophie Dickinson is just back from India. |
| 0:15.0 | First time there? |
| 0:16.0 | First time there, exactly. |
| 0:18.0 | How was it? |
| 0:19.0 | It was fantastic. It was maybe the best place I've ever been to. Certainly up there. It was a really good trip. We travelled around a lot and made the most of the transport links, which was quite fun. Well, talk us through your itinerary first. We'll do. So we flew into Delhi and then we got a driver to take us to Calca, which is this very small town. From there |
| 0:40.6 | we got a sleeper train into the Himalayas to Shimla, which is a kind of mountain town that |
| 0:44.9 | was used in the colonial era when it was too hot for the Brits. And then from there we went |
| 0:50.0 | to Daramsala, even further into the Himalayas. Got a train, no, got a driver from there to Amritsa, which was maybe my favourite place. |
| 0:58.0 | And then another train from Amritsa to Delhi when I did unfortunately get Deli Belly, but apart from that, all was well. |
| 1:04.7 | Okay, talk us through those transport alternatives, because, well, first of all, how easy was it to arrange the transport, both drivers |
| 1:12.9 | and railway? It was quite easy. I would say that the trains were slightly more difficult. |
| 1:18.8 | We used a third-party website called 12.gov, which do all the trains in Asia. And once you find |
| 1:25.5 | the ticket you like, they have a sort of limited amount of them which |
| 1:28.6 | you can book via them. It's easier than going by the normal Indian Railways website because |
| 1:33.8 | you often can't access that from the UK. That was fine and good. And then you get a P&R, |
| 1:39.9 | which is the number where you've got sort of your cabin details on. That is updated nearer the time, and once you know you've got that, you're fine, you're on the train. |
| 1:48.7 | As for drivers, that was so easy and so cheap. |
| 1:51.4 | We used either people in the hotel who could recommend a driver who took us for very small amounts of money, |
| 1:57.2 | or we used Uber, and that was even cheaper. |
| 2:00.4 | So we got an Uber from Delhi to |
... |
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