Quote Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult View Post
Rubbish, doesn't matter if it's a city on the plains like Delhi, Benares, Jaipur, the mountains like Himachal {Parvati Valley, Dharamsala, Manali}, Indian Tibet {Leddakh, Spiti} or the other side {Darjeeling} or on the coast {Goa, Kerala, Puri/Konark} - the best time to go is at the end of the monsoon around late Sept.

Delhi has only 2 periods a year when it's not boiling hot, freezing cold or pīssing down and that's Sept and March. Then the weather's like a really nice, English summer's day. {You have the Holi festival in late March, too.}

In the mountains like the Parvati Valley, again the temp is like an English summer's day.

And the coastal tropics are nice everywhere all year round.

But if you go to Goa or the mountains in May, say, there's no greenery cos there's been no rain for 8-9 months. It's all grey in the mountains and dusty in Goa. But if you go in September, everywhere's lush and vibrant green.

Deffo the best time of year, and Sept usually has the Ganesh Chaturthi festival. It lasts ten days, the one in Mumbai is huge, with 150k clay statues being immersed in the sea. Some of them are massive. But on my first trip to India in '94, I was in the small, tropical fishing village Puri for it. Along the side of the road there's be a few dozen little, bamboo, open-fronted shacks. Inside there's be a stand at the back with a Ganpati statue, a stereo playing Bollywood music and a mat on the floor where 3-4 people would normally be playing cards - He is the God of good luck and fortune after all.

And at night, everyone would get together with a truck with a genny powering speakers playing Bollywood and colourful lights on pulling a flat-bed with a huge Ganpati statue with everyone dancing behind it like at Carnivals. That week is when Ganpati first came and started taking me.

But if you want sunny, English summer's weather and lush greenery, then the end of monsoon in Sept is the time to go, whether mountains, plains or coasts.

Imo, anyway.
I went to Delhi in September once. It was a ****ing nightmare. About 9,000 degrees every day.