Travel Tips for India

Posted by Jackie Hewett on Mon 12th January 2009 at 03:39 AM, Filed in India,  Travel Tips

These tips should help smooth your way if you are back backing within India, or at least an independent traveler.  The tips are based on personal experience of 3 different trips to India.

Essential kit to take / carry during your travels:
• Ear Plugs - especially if you intend to travel by bus at all (see travel below)
• Wet Wipes – including some anti-bacterial ones for your hands before eating
• Loo Roll – if you are caught short and have to use a public facility don’t expect to find any
• Diorite & re-hydration sachets - need I spell it out!
• Bicycle lock and padlock – for your backpack & use it ALL THE TIME!
• Money belt (in preference to a ‘bum bag’ or ‘fanny pack’) – to wear under your clothes & keep your passport & ticket information in it too

• Cereal / energy bars brought from home – better than chocolate as they won’t melt and very handy for emergencies where you really don’t trust the food in your environs
• Mosquito Repellant
• Spare sheet – if you intend to stay in very cheap places
• Mosquito net – again if you indent to stay in very cheap places that may not supply them and in a high malaria risk area / time
• DON’T take expensive jewelry or watches – they will only make you even more of a target

Traveling around in India
Trains:
• If traveling reasonable distances DO travel by train.  Other than internal flights, they are the best way to get around India in terms of reliability and cost. You can travel overnight thus reaching your destination and ‘saving’ on your accommodation costs.
• Don’t eat the food cooked / provided on the trains unless you want to get ill!  Either take food with you or eat at the railway stations (more on food later)
• ONLY travel first class on trains - especially if traveling overnight, unless you like doing an impression of a sardine
• First class sleepers are sometimes individual couchettes and sometimes more ‘dormitory style’ with curtains for privacy – which will be loud.  Indians tend to get their heads down fairly early – you are best advised to try to do the same rather than read into the night as you WILL be woken at 5 or 6 am by the constant chatter (or stick in your ear plugs)
• If you are in a dormitory style sleeper keep everything on your bunk.  Definitely keep your valuables with you / under your pillow and consider chaining your pack to your bunk with a bicycle lock – even shoes have been known to go astray. 
• Once we had a private couchette it was so filthy (mainly dust) that we used wipes to clean all the surfaces before we sat down – be prepared that they will not always be clean
• When I traveled I pre-booked all of my train tickets for overnight journeys.  I was amazed – it absolutely does work.  I booked my tickets some 5 months in advance and on my first train experience I waited on the platform with some trepidation, but when the train came in there was my name in a little holder outside of a carriage.  You pay a little more for this advance service but it will literally save you hours of waiting at train stations with mad ticketing systems.  Definitely worth it if you have limited time in India and don’t want to lose the odd half day.
• Trains do run on our bank holidays – including Christmas Day – although taxi drivers sometimes lurk around train stations posing as railway staff and try to convince foreigners who ‘look lost’ otherwise. and that they need to take a taxi instead.  Make sure you check out the train service with a proper official
• Train station concourses and platforms are amazingly busy places.  You’ll see some cooking on little stoves, many people sprawled about all over the floor and of course people selling stuff – often food, but I wouldn’t advise touching it.  Also, this means that it is very easy to stand out like a sore thumb, get distracted and pick-pocketed – be careful!
Buses

They may look very pretty but the enjoyment starts & ends there!  The people who sell you the ticket WILL lie about music!  They will tell you there will be none – but there will be, and it will be very loud, tinny and distorted.  This is one reason for taking ear plugs.  As a westerner, if you book a ticket you should get a seat, but the bus will get crowded and you may end up with chickens on your lap – all part of the experience!  You may not reach your destination in the same bus you started your journey in – breakdowns and accidents are common
Taxi’s
• Always always agree prices before you get in a taxi – unless you know your taxi driver well, but even then to avoid any embarrassment I would do so.
• Try to ascertain roughly what the price should be for your journey before haggling if you can – taxi drivers will try to rip you off.  State you are Australian rather than American or English as they tend to think you’ll have less money to ‘go for’
• Some taxi drivers have ‘scouts’  (see above under trains) who may try to persuade you that you should or need to take a taxi instead of a train – these are scams!
• Taxis are not regulated or maintained as per the UK or the USA.  They break down frequently so if you have to go a long distance in a taxi try to make sure you use someone with a well maintained vehicle – even give the vehicle a look-over first!
• If you are a woman traveling solo I wouldn’t get in a taxi alone (unless of course you know them) – hook up with other travelers
Tuk, tuks (auto rickshaws)
- do use them 4 short journeys.  Drivers seemed less crazy than in Thailand (I didn’t see any leaning over onto 2 wheels anyway)
- As with taxis – ALWAYS agree prices beforehand

Beggars and Street Vendors
Of course you will see beggars.  You need to make up your own mind regarding whether or not you are going to give them anything.  However, here are a couple of tips if you do want to give money:
• Don’t give too much – or you will be mobbed, more and more beggars will mysteriously appear out of no-where
• It is generally better to tip people when you are leaving somewhere rather than when you are arriving, again to avoid getting mobbed
• Unlike traveling in middle-eastern countries Indians invade your personal space less.  In Aswan (Egypt) I have had Arabs block my way and even put their good on my shoulder in efforts to sell something.  Not so in India.  You will get pestered but a very firm no should get them to leave you alone and they do not ‘get in your face’ in quite the same way

Food and Heath
• Wash your hands before eating anything – ideally use some anti-bacterial wipes if you are carrying them
• Avoid empty restaurants – it may be a sign that their food isn’t fresh
• Some travelers to India that I met ate a lot of yoghurt (curd) in the first few days to help their stomachs adjust.  I didn’t do it but some swore by it
• Don’t eat street food – unless you want to spend the next week in a toilet

• Avoid meat – it is easier to get ill from meat than it is vegetables and fish.  Also India suffers from frequent load shedding (power cuts) which has an obvious impact (especially in the heat) on the freshness of any meat.  If you must eat meat only do so in higher quality restaurants and try to find out if there has been much recent load shedding
• I only ate fish near the coast or in places where I could pick / see the fish before it was cooked to be sure it was fresh.  I mainly lived on veggie, cheese and egg curries during my trips
• Don’t eat anything that is washed and not cooked – such as salads.  Ideally go for fruit that has to be peeled or that has a skin that you don’t eat - so bananas, oranges and mangoes are all good.  Make sure you prepare the fruit yourself.
• Water - only drink water from a bottle that has a seal intact.  Indians / some hotels have been known to re-fill water bottles with local water – hummm, nice!
• Brush your teeth only in bottles water – never tap water
• If you do get a bad stomach obviously take your diarrhea tables and re-hydration sachets, but if you don’t have any try eating a few hard boiled eggs – they can help ‘bind you up’ a bit.  If troubles persist and get really bad you must seek out a doctor before you get too weak and try to identify where the nearest hospital is – you may need to be put on a drip.

Guides
Everyone will want to be your guide and will often say it is just to practice their English – but their hand will pop out at the end!  Undoubtedly some (very few) guides can be useful and get you give you into places you may not have heard of or may otherwise not be able to get into, but the majority will be trying to lure you to their ‘uncle’s’ shop where you don’t want to be spending you time, and where they will get a nice back-hander.
At historical sites rip-off merchants may fall in step with you and start telling you some history about the place, and at the end ask for an extortionate amount of rupees.  If you haven’t agreed a price up-front and they are basically trying it on but you want to give them something – 10 to 20 rupees is sufficient.
A lot of the time we used the same tuk tuk driver who would come around with us.  This stopped many guides approaching us, and if they did he would handle it for us and we’d get left alone.

Money & Currency
• Don’t expect to find ATM’s!!
• I was advised to take dollars rather than sterling – but I am not sure that the hit / commission on changing money twice (sterling to dollars and then dollars to rupees) was necessary as most places I traveled to would have changed sterling to rupees
• Changing money or cashing in travelers cheques in a bank can be a lengthy process – you will be sent from one desk to another (I think the average was about 4) so allow an hour to do it, and therefore change a reasonable amount each time!
• Many hotels will change money for you – but often only during certain times of the day

Camera Etiquette
• Try not to photograph people on an obvious way if you haven’t asked their permission – some people really don’t like having their photo taken and think you are trying to steal their soul.  Don’t be offended if this happens just politely move on
• Use telephoto lenses where you haven’t / can’t get permission to take a photo of an individual – obviously!
• Don’t flaunt your camera equipment – it will only make you more of a target for thieves and never leave your equipment un-attended, even for a second and it will get lifted.  I have heard of scams where people raid buses and throw equipment to accomplices waiting outside who speed off on a bike

All of this probably makes India sound like quite an ordeal – but don’t be put off – India is well worth a visit, just take sensible measures – for what its worth I didn’t get ill once there or have anything stolen.  As a female visitor you make get some un-welcome attention and stares but rarely will anything physically happen to you.  Indian men tend to regard all Western women as ‘loose’ – its not personal but dressing modestly can help.

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