Now India has really been hit! While the Covid-19 pandemic seemed to have India more or less under control until March 2021 and the population suffered more due to the restrictions of the lockdown, the extent of the Corona crisis is hard to grasp at the moment.The viruses – now cross mutants – are spreading […]
Exactly one year ago I said goodbye to the participants of the last Multi-Active Rajasthan trip. It was the last I accompanied for Chalo! Travels before the Corona epidemic. After that we only had one backpacker trip at the end of March, which our tour guide Dikshika handled fabulously, despite all the restricions. Then the […]
Dear supporters, here is the third donation report about the Chalo! Travels-Hope fundraiser in support of disadvantaged people in India during the Corona crisis. First of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in the report. […]
Our bike tour “The Manali-Leh Highway – one of the highest pass roads in the world” is one of our most popular tours and is a true classic! Within nine days we manage the 577 km and five passes – three of them are over 5000 meters high. The tour is of course designed in […]
With this article, I would like to keep you informed about the situation in India during the Corona Epidemic and keep you updated about our fundraiser project. […]
Call for emergency aid for people in India during the Corona crisis Dear family, dear friends, dear Chalo Travels guests and donors. Thank you. I am overwhelmed, a bit emotional and can still not quite comprehend, that within the last nine days, we have received 6817 € (55000 rs) donations for the poor daily labor […]
My guests Sabine and Daniel not only booked the Kerala-Active-Trip in January with me, but also had a very special request. They wanted to visit an aid project in India, which also supports their Indian godchild Geethika. […]
Pretty much exactly 4 years ago I spent a night in Sri Lanka: I flew from Bangalore to Colombo, went through emigration, slept for a few hours at the airport and flew back to Cochin in Kerala the next morning. The so-called visa run was necessary. With my former tourist visa I was not allowed […]
Anyone who knows me, knows that I came to India through volunteering work. Through the one-year working with the Indian NGO ABHAS in a slum region in India, I am still deeply connected to the aspect of social community work in India and volunteering runs like a thread through my life here in India. So […]
During the seven-day yoga trek in the Hamta Valley near Manali in the Indian Himalayas, I had to stop every now and then to look into the mountain landscape, take a deep breath and realize what I was doing here! I was on a seven-day trekking tour. In India. In the Himalayas. In the best […]
In my life here in the Indian part of the Himalayas, singing bowls are ubiquitous. Not only does a large part of the Tibetan refugee community live in the Indian mountain states of Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh, but a large part of the population is themselves Buddhist and singing bowls are part of everyday life. […]
January-February In the last two months, a lot has happened with us at work at the NGO ABHAS. At the beginning of January we had quite big problems, because it got really cold in Delhi and the little ones didn’t really have anything to put on. While I have already felt cold in a sweater, […]
Once again, it’s time for a little review. This report covers the months of December/January, almost exactly 9 years ago. The described trip with my family is by the way the model for my two-week “journey through the heart of India” in Madya Pradeh and is therefore very close to my heart. So, it’s […]
A wonderful report by Elke, who travelled India with the help of Chalo!Travels. She stayed in a Yoga Ashram in Rishikesh and did a Yoga Trek in the Himalayas. This beautiful writing deserves a place on the Chalo! Travels Blog. Dirty, noisy. I cannot stand the sight of this extreme poverty. These are some of […]
The second report about my time as a volunteer in Delhi and our first trip through the desert state of Rajasthan. Nine years have past and when I read this report myself, I immediately feel transported back to that time. I’m a bit proud of what we were able to achieve for the children in […]
My life in India began with a year of volunteering in Delhi. I had participated in the program “Weltwärts” and was supported by the German state for a whole year to work with an Indian organization in a slum in Delhi. Even today I often get questions about my volunteering and my first year on […]
About Arunachal A mountain bike stage race is something special in itself. If it takes place in India, such an event will be quite special. But a seven-day mountain bike race through the far-flung northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh probably tops everything! […]
October Calendar Sheet No. 10 School education has also been compulsory for Indian children for several years. Prime Minister Modi has been working hard in recent years to ensure that children from rural areas in particular, as well as girls, have a chance for education and finish their 10th grade degree. In order to support […]
Namaste lovely Chalo! Travels friends, I’ve been in India for five weeks now and I can report a lot. I have experienced many things and have gone through ups and downs. In India, holidays are until July and this is particularly noticeable on the roads in the mountains. The beautiful landscape with the relatively cool […]
I had survived my Transalp adventure well. After a few nice (and hot) days with the family, it was time for me for a new “mountain bike experience” in Germany. The North German participants of the Transalp all raved about the highest German low mountain range, the Harz. Since the Harz is also only about […]
For Chalo! Travels it is not only a great opportunity, but above all an honour to work with such an experienced sports tour operator as Frosch Reisen. Since February 2018 we sat together to develop the perfect experience trip for Rajasthan. The result is a multi-active trip with many bike tours and hikes, wildlife safaris, […]
This beautiful Chalo! Travels Newsletter was written this month by Gracy, our new intern, and I thought I’d post it on our blog right away. Have fun reading, Sarah A cheerful hello to the round of India enthusiasts, my name is Gacy, I come from lively Berlin and now live in India for half a […]
In Germany we call small shops which provide alldaily needs ” Aunt Emma shops”. These days they hardly exist anymore next to all these big super markets. But in India you still have them! If you do your daily shopping in India, you go to the so-called “Bazaar”, the Indian market. There are vegetable stalls, […]
My first mountain bike race outside India and then it’s the Bike Transalp! Madness. I still can’t believe that my long-cherished wish will now come true in July 2018 thanks to a raffle on Facebook! Here I actually won a team entry througha lottery of Stageraces.com. […]
– My personal mountain bike training camp and retreat. In India, things can happen that actually normally not just happen. And so it happens, that I have been a guest at an SSB base near the Nepalese border for a week now. […]
I have been living in India for seven years and have been doing mountain biking as a regular hobby, challenging sport and out of deep passion. While a lot has developed in the Indian cycling Industry in the past and there is now a growing mountain bike community, it is unfortunately still the case that […]
No, we are not expecting a baby, but Gracy from Germany. Gracy – fun-loving, travel-loving and interested in culture – will live, travel and work with us in India/Manali for six months from 15 May. Gracy travelled India with Chalo! Travels already and brings a lot of experience in the travel business through her work […]
I myself came to India through a year of volunteering with a non-profit organisation in Delhi. Freshly graduated from high school as a 19-year-old, this year was an incisive experience and a very instructive but also enriching time for me. India is a beautiful country with wonderful people. But despite the emerging country’s increasing progress, […]
When I just came out the bank, I saw a car standing a few 100 meters away on the side of the road. The trunk was wide open and filled with all sorts of food items. From the side of the car hung a sheet written in Hindi. Curiously, I approached the car a little […]
A report about my three-week stay at Arambol beach Among the 50 beaches in Goa there is the right one for each of us : there are the beaches for package tourists in Baga and Calangute with large luxurious hotels. Then there are relatively natural fishermen beaches like Benaulim without big parties but with water […]
“A guest post by Lisa, who started her trip to India with a trek in the Himalayas with Chalo! Travels. Lisa did a yoga teacher training at Shri Jasnath Ashram, a small ashram in Rajasthan where Chalo-Travels offers yoga and Ayurveda retreats and Sarah teaches as a yoga teacher. In addition, Sarah met Lisa again […]
Oooooohhhhmmmmmm, that was a week! On Monday we went directly with “empty stomach” for meditation at 5:20 am and then to the yoga class. For breakfast we had the infamous Kichidi with an extra banana for one last time. This brings the intestinal cleansing cum fasting cure from last weekend to an end. The following […]
A “hell race”, this time on its feet Readers who are not interested in my personal background, but want to read directly via the Skyrun, can simply skip the colorfully colored texts :). I’ve probably made a bit of a go this time… Me and running Anyone who knows me knows that I ran quite […]
Climbing fun for everyone!! Whether beginner or advanced: In Manali every climbing enthusiast finds his or her rock, whether for just one day or during a climbing course lasting several days!!! Here are some impressions of our climbing trip in Alleo yesterday, with perfect weather! In Manali we also offer 3 days Rock Climbing Courses. […]
This morning I broke my mirror! An Indian-hand-made mirror, that I’ve been with for a few years. Now the glass is broken and I not only can no longer see myself, but now I have seven years of bad luck, right? Maybe I have to put some effort now and find some four-leaf clover or […]
In the Spiti Valley everything is high. The lowest point is at 3000 meters, everything else is higher: villages, passes, mountains, monasteries… […]
Nature, adventure, effort, suffering, physical performance, community, tranquility…. all this and much more is an expedition in the Himalayas. Here is a report on the Guideboard blog about our three-day trip in alpine style up to the 5298 m high summit of the Friendship. […]
An insight into the Rajasthani village life India is noisy, polluted, overcrowded with lots of traffic, unbearable poor and too many men are around. If you travel from an Indian city to another Indian city, India can make a bad impression. But India’s charms lie much less in India’s overcrowded cities than in its rural […]
I am always very happy about a trip to the green state of Kerala, which is located at the southernmost tip of India. Here, in the so-called “land of coconuts” and christened by the Indians as “God’s own land”, one not only travels in a relaxed way, but there is also an incredible amount to […]
March Calendar Sheet No. 3 We sit comfortably in our chairs on the “balcony” of our small floating home for the next 24 hours and enjoy the fresh coconut water while we ship peacefully through the small channels of the backwaters. […]
Some impressions and thoughts about The Yoga World 2017 in Munich Barbara Noh, Patrick Broome, Dr.Ronald Steiner, Christine May. They all accompany me as a yoga teacher through online yoga classes or newspaper articles on my own yoga path for several years. Now I was especially looking forward to meeting these yoga teachers at the […]
A love that defies the unwritten laws of the caste system Rekha and Rishi seem to be a normal Indian couple, in a normal Indian home in Jodhpur. When we are picked up by Rishi by his motor- rickshaw from our hotel to take part in a cooking class with his wife Rekha, we meet […]
The year 2016 has been marked by interesting journeys, wonderful encounters and many highlights. This year took us on trips across India- from the southernmost state of Kerala, via Karnataka and Mumbai through Rajasthan to Rishikesh and to the far north to the plateau of Ladakh. Whether on foot, by bike or on the mat […]
A Rajasthan round trip with your own driver It’s August. Despite the monsoon season, it is hot. Here in the middle of nowhere in the Tharr desert between Jaisalmer and Jodhpur in Rajasthan. But we don’t notice anything from the 35°C in our Innova Toyota. We sit in the vehicle, let the desert landscape pass […]
Post from 2016 It is now 2 weeks, since the old 500 and 1000 rupee notes in India have lost their value and the new 500 and 2000 rupee notes have been introduced. Only yesterday I returned to Delhi from my ten-day Malaysia trip and I had hoped a little, that during this time the […]
Leaving the Kullu valley and turning into the narrower and wilder Parvati valley, one reaches Barsheni, the last village of the valley that can still be reached by car. Barsheni itself is not particularly beautiful. For some years now, a construction site has been here due to a planned hydroelectric power plant and it is […]
Start the day with meditation It’s pitch black when I sneak out of my room at 5:20 am and walk into the yoga hall on the higher floor. The hall is already well filled. But there is only silence. I find an empty space in the back corner and roll out my yoga mat on […]
The father of a good friend of mine runs the most famous candy shop in the Kullu Valley. Anyone who has ever tasted Indian sweets, knows that they are very sweet, but also very tasty. The shop was opened by Aju’s (my friend’s name) grandfather in Kullu in 1945. At that time he and his […]
After Darcha, the last village on the Manali-Leh Highway, there are no settlements for about 300 km to Rumtse. Apart from mountains, dust and glaciers, there is not much more. Despite this, or precisely because of this, this highway in the northernmost part of India is so special.Nevertheless, there are at regular intervals smaller temporary […]
When children cheer with joy, women start washing the laundry and the men start soaping up on the street – then it is monsoon time in Rajasthan! Of course, the monsoon rain after 6 years of India is nothing new to me, but its intensity and surprices me again and again! […]
