Victor Blaho, known for his YouTube channel Same but Different, has gone viral after documenting his latest venture: a gruelling 46-hour train journey through India.
Under the motto, ‘Every country and every human is different, but ultimately the same’, he seeks out raw, untouristic realities. His previous explorations took him from Cyprus’s ghost town of Varosha to Morocco’s hashish mafia, through Cova Da Moura – Europe’s last existing favela in Portugal – among the many places he visited.
One of his Indian experiences, captured in a now-famous 43-minute video, pushed even the seasoned traveller to his limits. Travelling in the lowest train classes across Mumbai, Varanasi, Agra and New Delhi, Blaho describes feelings of ‘despair and borderline insanity’, confessing that the journey ‘broke’ him. ‘Today I am in a bad mood,’ he admits in one of the videos posted on IG. ‘It is getting to my nerves; the non-stop stress gets to your head. After a few weeks, it is too much.’
His struggles are documented in his video, from being scammed by a street vendor who simply walks away pocketing his change, losing his seat to two women while using a bathroom (with a broken flush), enduring the constant noise (‘They talk so loudly’) and his over-talkative travel voyager who insisted he talked to his girlfriend in Bombay – before confessing he has another one in Delhi. ‘Since this video is now viral, Satyam is going to lose both of his girlfriends,’ joked one YouTube viewer, a comment that seems to have amused Blaho too as he has pinned it.
Since his post went viral, his Instagram following jumped from 4,000 in December 2024 to over 42,000.
But the greatest challenge, Blaho said was the lack of hygiene and severe overcrowding. ‘One thing I can say is, it is very, very dirty. And it smells,’ he can be heard saying, covering his. The fauna accompanying travellers on the journey – in the shape of cockroaches fighting for his seat or rats scurrying through the coach – added to the ordeal.
And if Blaho who did not shy from walking barefoot down a staircase infested with rats says it ‘broke’ him, it must have been hard.
Blaho’s 46-hour train video sparked strong reactions. While some praised him for his honesty others have accused him of denigrating the country with one commenter, cited by The Independent, suggesting he should ‘show the waiting room and the poorest condition of its washroom at the Paris Bercy Seine bus station’. On Indian media sites, some readers were defensive (‘He travelled the cheapest coach what did he expect’) or critical (‘He only showed the bad side’), but many were pragmatic and acknowledged the need for change.
On YouTube, where the video received over 1,100 comments, reactions were overwhelmingly positive. ‘Thank you for showing the reality without mocking or complaining. You stayed kind and calm even in such tough conditions – respect,’ one viewer wrote.
Aware of the mixed reactions his video triggered, Blaho posted a concluding message from India to clarify his position: ‘I’ll 100% be back in India. There’s still so much I haven’t seen or shared yet’.
‘Yes, I had a few tough days,’ he added, ‘but the majority of my experiences and interactions were overwhelmingly positive. India is incredibly unique – chaotic, beautiful, intense, and unlike anywhere else on Earth’.
Blaho had also documented a similar low-budget challenge in February 2025: a 24-hour journey on one of India’s cheapest sleeper buses. That video, too, drew praise for his resilience and good humour in the face of discomfort: ‘What stands out in your videos is that no matter how uncomfortable the situation is, you always manage to somehow find the joy in it and be super nice to people around you which is rare’.
