nagpur heatstroke & cheap dosa: a budget student's 48-hour sweatpocalypse
okay so i flew into nagpur thinking it'd be like, mildly warm? no. the second i stepped off that rickety bus from the airport i got hit with a wall of dry heat that felt like someone left a convection oven on 'apocalypse'. i just checked the weather app and it's...33°c with a humidity reading of 15%? that's literally desert conditions. my lips cracked before i even found my hostel. *someone told me to always carry saline nasal spray here - best 50 rupees i spent.
nagpur isn't what i expected. it's all wide roads and dust devils swirling around construction sites. i'm crashing at this hostel near railway station area - 300 rupees a night, shared bathroom that's basically a shower head over a drain, but hey, it's a roof. the street food though? zero complaints. found this little stall behind the bus depot doing misal pav for 40 rupees that could raise the dead. spicy, weirdly sour, soaked in butter. perfect.
overheard gossip at the dhaba: 'don't drink the tap water even if you're dying of thirst, and for god's sake skip the 'fancy' cafes near sitabuldi - they charge 200 for a coffee that tastes like burnt socks.' i heard that from a truck driver who'd been hauling cement for 20 years. also, if you get bored, bhandara or amravati are just a two-hour bus ride away. not that i have energy to move after sweating through three shirts by 10am.
nagpur's humidity (or lack thereof) is no joke. my skin feels like parchment paper. i tried buying a fancy aloe vera gel from a pharmacy but it cost 180 rupees - too rich for my blood. instead, i soaked my scarf in bottled water from a roadside stand (20 rupees) and wrapped it around my neck. worked surprisingly well. pro-tip: always sit in the back of buses where there's a tiny breeze from the open door. also, auto-rickshaw drivers will quote you 200 for a 5km ride unless you haggle like your life depends on it. start at 60 and walk away - they usually call you back at 80.
reviews online? trash. tripadvisor is full of foreigners complaining about the 'chaos' and 'heat'. they don't get it. nagpur isn't about comfort. it's about surviving on chai that costs 10 rupees and vada pav for 25. it's about watching cows sleep in the middle of traffic without a care. i heard that the best pani puri is at a stall near `shaw academy road` - no sign, just a guy with a blue tank. follow the crowd of students.
random tip: those numbers everyone keeps mentioning? 1252946 and 1356634180? apparently they're some kinda local code for 'extreme heat warning' that the municipal corporation supposedly uses. don't quote me on that - i got it from a guy who was definitely high on something. but hey, it makes for a good story while you're waiting for your bus to pench national park (side note: don't go in this heat, the animals are too lazy to move).
last thought: if you come here, bring electrolyte powder. your body will thank you when you're wandering around sitabuldi fort at noon like a dumb tourist. also, youtube has a channel called 'nagpur food walks' that's 1000% more useful than any guidebook. someone told me the guy who runs it got banned from a dhaba for being 'too accurate' about their ghee usage. that's the kind of review* i trust.
[random links you might need]:
- nagpur street food map (unofficial)
- current bus times to amravati (worthless after 5pm)
- local gossip board (basically just crime reports)
- hostel reviews that aren't sponsored - filter by 'newest' and ignore anything with 'premium' in the title.