Tips to Visit India

You are thinking of visiting India for your next vacation? Here’s all the essentials

Me and cutie pie visited India in the end of March/beginning of April for 2 amazing weeks. We flew to Delhi, and there got a car to travel around Rajasthan. In the end we spent 2 days in Varanasi. Preparing for this trip I read a lot of tips and advices, wich helped a lot!! Still I feel some things are missing from other blogs.

Here’s my view on all you need to know to make your trip a most pleasant one.

Antibac

It will be your best friend there!! I disinfected everything, from toilet seats to forks, spoons and plates. Also use it for your hands, obviously. The truth is India’s hygiene standards aren’t what we are used to in Europe. And independently on how comfortable you are with that (don’t be grossed out, it’s not that bad) your immune system isn’t used to it and will react. So avoid getting sick and antibac your way in Índia. Yes you will get weird looks when you are disinfecting your cutlery in restaurants. But better a weird tourist then Delhi belly.

Medicine

I’ve seen blogs saying you can easily buy medicine there (and compared to Norway it’s way cheaper there) but the truth is, outside Delhi it’s not that easy to find a pharmacy. When we asked for one in our hotel in Udaipur they seemed confused, and after we explained what we needed, they sent us to the Ayurveda store. Yep that’s what happened to us in Pushkar too. Ayurveda shops seem to be more frequent than pharmacies everywhere. They are very good but don’t have that many products. So if you wanna be safe take your own meds or head for a pharmacy as soon as you land in Delhi.

Clothes

Well this is a touchy subject. After reading hundreds of posts I decided to drop my shorts at home and opt for a long skirt. And as soon as I landed, bought a scarf to cover my shoulders when wearing tops. The truth was, yes, it’s frowned upon wearing short skirts and shorts. Out of respect and to avoid men drooling, staring at your legs, I would advise something knee high at least (except if you’re going to Goa). But the shoulder thing seems more like an old tradition. I saw a lot of Indian women with their shoulders showing. And no one complained or even looked at me weird when I did it. People, including older women kept asking me to take photos and never gave me a discriminatory eye. So carry a scarf to enter the temples. But apart from that don’t stress to much.

Google Maps Offline

This was by far the best idea I had. I couldn’t find this tip anywhere and it’s so basic. First I must start to say that I hate spending money on stuff I don’t really need, and internet was one of them. I planned my trip thoroughly so I knew all the places I wanted to visit and even some restaurant suggestions. I also assumed that even if we may find some places like restaurants with wifi, we would be without it almost all day. So I downloaded every maps of all the cities we were visiting. It doesn’t take up much on your phone and its a life saver since the locator works offline. This way you will never get lost walking in a alley city like Varanasi (where our hotel was pretty hard to find by ourselves) or get scammed by a Tuk-tuk/rickshaw trying to get you all over town when the hotel is right next door. Save all the places you wanna visit, all the possible restaurants and when you book hotels in sites like Booking or Agoda, Google even adds them to your maps.

Don’t be a tourist

While Indians are super friendly and they will come to talk to you EVERY chance they have, to the point where you kinda feel like you’re in a group vacation, most of the times they will want something from you. It can be just to take a photo with you or to try to scam you. By scam I don’t mean rob you but try to get you to go somewhere they want (careful in trying to be nice and following someone’s “best way to get somewhere” if it’s leading you to some dark alley, just ignore it and remain in the main street), give you information and trying to get you to pay them for it, trying to sell you something, etc. It’s hard to be rude to such nice people that “just want to help you”. So my best advice, is to play the card “thanks, but I’ve been here before”, “thanks, but I know the town well”, “no, it’s not my first time here, I live here”, etc. They will immediately stop seeing you as a first time tourist that can be scammed and easily leave you alone without you needing to be rude. If it doesn’t work, be assertive and use a rude tone.

Delhi Belly

Face it, chances are you are gonna get some of this. It’s hard to go to India and not get at least some E. coli diarrhea. So you might just start acknowledging it and prepare. To maximum avoid it:

• Eat small portions in the beginning – no matter how much spicy and indian food you are used to back home, still start by eating little when you arrive. Eat more rice and naan than the actual saucy dish. Gradually eat up to a normal size portion.
• Closed water bottles always. I always check if the bottle is sealed. In one hotel we got a bottle that was open, so always check.
• As much as you can, just let it out. The poop i mean. Imodium is great but if something is wrong in your body try the most to let your body self heal before pumping meds. This said, we obviously ended up taking imodium as I didn’t wanna do 5 hours of car travel with a Delhi belly.
• Antibac everything related to your food – cutlery, plates, bowls and your hands, and try to drink from bottles instead of using cups.

Face the fact that you will get soft poopy and just enjoy indian food. It’s amazing everywhere. In the end we even ate street food!!

Get over your fears and just eat as much as you can

Prices

You all know you can bargain everything, making it impossible to exactly know how much something costs. This can be super fun (I’m totally a jew trying to save money always) or very annoying. You may feel deceived in the prices you are paying if you don’t have the patience to argue with the sellers. Here’s some tips to help you feel better:

• Always debate rickshaw/tuk tuk prices before getting in. After some days I started understanding the distance/rate ratio, so I’d just open google maps, find where I wanted to go and decide how much I was willing to spend. Super easy. I would just approach one tuk tuk and say “I wanna go there, I give you 50 rupees”. If he says no, just move to the next. Chances are some of them have already stoped next to you if they see you want a ride and you can just say to the crowd “who will takes us for 50 rupees here”. Trust me, one of them will accept. And you always have google maps to make sure they aren’t leaving you in some dead end to get you to pay more.
• Most packaged items in India have small letters saying MRP (maximum retail price) which is what you need to pay. So if the coke can you’re buying says 50 rupees the vendor can’t charge you 90. Outsmart them.
• I found it super hard to have an accurate idea on how much stuff cost before getting there, so to help you out i’ll make a post with a super accurate budget.

Even though the price was on the box, that i tossed, you can see it announces MRP price on the bottle

No space or quiet

That’s India for you. It’s packed, always, everywhere. No escape. You will find yourself always surrounded by indians and their cars, motorcycles, bikes and rickshaws. I was hoping for some romantic vacation of strolling on the streets by sunset….not in India. You will see yourself having to walk one behind the other, not able to talk even, to avoid being run by a motorcycle. And if you have difficulties sleeping and aren’t staying in a super fancy 5 star hotel, you might as well take some earplugs or headphones cause it’s noisy, always. I was told that for a bit more peace and quiet you must go to the south of India – Kerala or Goa. We totally should’ve.

Power plug travel adapter

If you are European fear not. You will not need to buy an adapter. We couldn’t find one in Norway so thought we’d just buy one there. But then I realized you can use your 2 pins on their plugs.

Trying to see too much

I was so eager to finally go to India that i just wanted to see everything. After 1 week of travelling almost everyday or every other day for around 5h in a car you get psychologically tired. And it takes a toll on how you face the next city. As a couple we met told us, this was a rookie mistake. So my advice is, either take night buses if you don’t mind the people and sleep easily, or just face that you’re on vacation and spend at least 2 to 3 days in each place. If you know that you will need some quiet time, choose a hotel with a pool for example, so you can just spend an afternoon away from the chaos, sunbathing.

All of this said, don’t be afraid, it’s easier than you think, and you’ll enjoy it so much.

…I’m missing it already!!