There are so many ways to get around in India. You can hop in a taxi, get on a train, board a domestic flight or zip through the streets in an autorickshaw.

Each method of transport offers the traveller a unique insight into the amazing, vibrant personality of this incredible country, with a few surprising discoveries thrown in for the open-minded explorer. I’m here to offer you the high points (and some of the challenges) of a few main modes of Indian transport and to hopefully entice you towards your own intrepid Indian adventure. All you need is a bright sense of humour and you’re all set! Hang on to your backpacks!

Cars and Taxis

The first thing to understand is that driving in India is like navigating by sonar. Upon your arrival in India, whether it’s Goa, Mumbai or New Delhi, you will most likely find yourself riding in a taxi from the airport, chatting merrily to the driver,  when you will be interrupted mid-sentence by the blast of the car horn. You will look out the window to see what some offending vehicle has done, but there will be nothing to see. Why did the driver sound the horn? Is the driver seeing things?

Traffic will keep moving, and your driver will keep intermittently beeping the car horn. Before too long you will realise that he isn’t the only driver with an attachment to his car horn. The closer you get to the heart of the city, the more you can hear horns echoing along the roads. Driving almost seems to be done by ear, rather than by sight, in India. Horns are sounded as if to say “Here I am, let me through!”.

It is a disaster waiting to happen, yet to everyone’s amazement, traffic flows smoothly. Cars merge, change “lanes”, and weave in and out without incident. Even pedestrians simply step through the traffic while waving a hand to signal their intentions. At first, it may seem a little frightening to watch, but within a couple of days, you will no longer even notice the beeping of the horns.

Train travel

Travelling by train across the Indian subcontinent is breathtakingly fun. You can book a berth or two, either top bunk or bottom bunk, and stretch out to watch the countryside pass by. There are so many people in India. You can’t look more than a meter without seeing someone.