Explore the real-world places that appear in Are You Experienced? by William Sutcliffe. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Heathrow Airport, Paharganj (Main Bazaar), Connaught Place, Red Fort, Anjuna Beach and 6 more.
Hounslow, London — the departure point for the gap-year pilgrimage
The journey begins in London, where Dave, a young Englishman, sets off for India with the rest of the gap-year generation, hoping to find himself. The departure sets up the novel's satire of privileged Western travellers who treat the subcontinent as a self-discovery project. Everything that follows is measured against the expectations they pack here.
Heathrow opened as a civil airport in 1946 and grew into Britain's main international gateway. It has long been the starting point for budget routes to South Asia, including the 1960s hippie trail era and later backpacker flights.
Heathrow is one of the world's busiest international airports, with five terminals and direct flights to Delhi and Mumbai. It is a transport hub rather than a tourist attraction.
Near New Delhi Railway Station — the backpacker ghetto
Dave and the other travellers land in Delhi's budget guesthouse district, where cheap rooms, rooftop cafes and touts surround newly arrived foreigners. The area is the first test of how far a traveller will go native. It is also where the novel's rival ideas of the 'real India' first collide.
Paharganj grew as a market quarter beside New Delhi Railway Station, built in the 1920s and 30s. From the 1970s it became the default base for budget travellers heading overland through India.
Main Bazaar is still a crowded street of hostels, cafes, shops and street stalls. It is lively, noisy and very popular with backpackers.
Visit: Paharganj Main Bazaar (landmark)
Central Delhi — colonial-era circle of shops and cafes
The travellers pass through central Delhi's colonnaded commercial hub for money, tickets and a break from the backpacker district. It is the sanitised, Westernised India that the novel's more purist characters look down on. It gives a contrast with the grittier lanes of Paharganj nearby.
Connaught Place was designed by British architects and built between 1929 and 1933 as a commercial centre for New Delhi. It was named after the Duke of Connaught and officially renamed Rajiv Chowk in 1995, though the old name remains in common use.
It remains a major shopping, dining and business district, with Georgian-style colonnades surrounding a central park. It is easily visited and full of restaurants and bars.
Visit: Connaught Place (landmark)
Old Delhi — Mughal monument on the tourist trail
As typical stops on any first-time Delhi itinerary, Old Delhi's monuments are where the travellers act the part of tourists. Their sightseeing is part of the novel's comedy about foreigners who tick off sights while claiming to be beyond tourism.
The Red Fort was built by Shah Jahan and completed in 1648 as the palace of the Mughal capital Shahjahanabad. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the place where India's prime minister raises the flag on Independence Day.
The fort is a major museum and tourist site, open to visitors with an entry ticket. It also hosts a sound-and-light show in the evenings.
Visit: Red Fort (Lal Qila) (historic site)
North Goa — trance parties and beach shacks
Goa represents the hedonistic side of the Indian backpacker circuit, with beaches, parties, drugs and travellers who compete over who is more authentic. The novel's characters drift here and the tension between them over what counts as the real India sharpens against the party backdrop.
Anjuna became a hippie hangout in the late 1960s and hosted legendary full-moon parties and the rise of Goa trance. Its Wednesday flea market began in the 1970s.
Anjuna is a busy beach town with shacks, clubs and a weekly flea market. The beach itself is public and popular with both Indian and foreign tourists.
Visit: Anjuna Beach (park)
Kullu Valley, Himachal Pradesh — Himalayan hash-and-hiking base
The travellers escape the heat for the Himalayan foothills, where the novel's pursuit of an 'authentic' India continues amid cafes, guesthouses and cannabis-scented hills. The mountains offer a more idealised version of the spiritual quest than Delhi or Goa.
Old Manali is a village across the Manalsu river from the main town, long a centre of Kullu Valley apple orchards. It became a popular stop for hippie travellers from the 1960s onwards.
The village is lined with guesthouses and cafes catering to trekkers and backpackers. Visitors can see the Manu Temple and the surrounding mountain scenery.
Visit: Old Manali (landmark)
Himachal Pradesh — travellers' village on the Parvati River
The valley stands for the deep-travel fantasy of finding a place untouched by tourism, which the novel punctures by showing how many other foreigners are chasing the same dream. It is where the differing ideas of going native among the protagonists are most pointedly satirised.
The Parvati Valley has long been known for its hot springs and pilgrimage sites. It became a favourite among foreign travellers from the 1970s and drew many Israeli visitors later.
Kasol is a small riverside village full of cafes, guesthouses and trekking operators. It is a gateway to treks and hot springs in the valley.
Visit: Kasol (landmark)
Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh — home of the Tibetan exile community
The travellers pass through the hill town associated with the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism, a magnet for Westerners seeking spiritual enlightenment. The novel uses it to skewer travellers who collect meditation courses and Buddhist trappings as badges of experience.
After the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the Dalai Lama settled in McLeod Ganj in 1960, and the Central Tibetan Administration was based here. The town was originally a British hill station named for Lieutenant Governor David McLeod.
McLeod Ganj hosts the Tsuglagkhang Complex, the Tibet Museum and many Buddhist teaching centres. It is a major destination for pilgrims and visitors.
Visit: Tsuglagkhang Complex (historic site)
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh — the Ganges riverfront
Varanasi is the stop in which India's religious intensity, death and ritual are most visible, tempting the travellers to treat them as spiritual spectacle. The ghats test how the protagonists react to real India when it stops being a backdrop and starts being confronting.
Varanasi is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities and a holy site for Hindus. Dashashwamedh is its main ghat, famous for its nightly Ganga aarti ceremony.
The ghat is a busy public riverfront with daily evening aarti ceremonies and boat rides. It is among the most visited places in the city.
Visit: Dashashwamedh Ghat (landmark)
Pushkar, Rajasthan — sacred lake and backpacker haven
Pushkar's sacred lake and its hippie-friendly town illustrate how a holy place can become a tourist trap. Foreign travellers drift through for rooftop cafes and cheap rooms, and the novel gets comic mileage from the mismatch between pilgrims' devotion and visitors' lax approach to sacred space.
Pushkar Lake is considered one of Hinduism's holiest sites, associated with Brahma, and is ringed by 52 bathing ghats. The town also hosts the annual Pushkar Camel Fair.
The lake and its ghats are open to respectful visitors, and the town is full of guesthouses and cafes. The Brahma Temple is one of very few dedicated to the deity.
Visit: Pushkar Lake (landmark)
Uttarakhand — yoga capital on the Ganges
Rishikesh is the yoga-and-ashram circuit stop where travellers pursue enlightenment through classes and gurus. It serves the novel as one more arena in which Westerners perform spirituality, sharpening the satire on those who go native for show.
Rishikesh has been a centre of Hindu asceticism for centuries and became famous worldwide when the Beatles stayed at the Maharishi's ashram in 1968. The iron Lakshman Jhula suspension bridge was built in 1929.
The bridge crosses the Ganges amid temples, ashrams and yoga schools. Rishikesh is a major yoga and rafting destination, though the bridge is now closed to heavy traffic and has been supplemented by a newer one.
Visit: Lakshman Jhula (landmark)
More by William Sutcliffe: All William Sutcliffe books
Other nearby maps: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga locations map · Cry, the Peacock by Anita Desai locations map · Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett locations map · Kim by Rudyard Kipling locations map