India

SteveOBHave · 7 Nov 2011 at 16:19

Hand Sanitiser, Immodium and a Camelback.

Did - Delhi, Agra, Jaipur then Flew to Kerala followed by a night in Mumbai. Amazing place.

Oh and take sachets of shampoo, soap etc to give to street kids and the like. Any money you give them will go straight to their handlers. Also look out of little bananas with red blush on their skins. The most amazing bananas I have EVER tasted in my life!!!

THT · 7 Nov 2011 at 16:24

Yeah - we only took a card designed fro travelling (caxton fx)

Had no probs getting cash from ATMs apart from in Agra (Where the Taj Mahal is)
In the end we just went to Thomas Cook and got some (were changed about 3 quid)

Immodium didnt touch the sides on me and had no effect.
My advice is give nothing to the kids as youll just get hassled more.

Haggle on *EVERYTHING* and learn to say no (a lot)!

rz30 · 7 Nov 2011 at 16:28

Be careful of food, wash your hands and remeber that they don't have our values(whatever they are).

Dr House · 7 Nov 2011 at 16:39

200 quid is not enough unless you want to live like a local.

I have travelling much of india its a nice place but it can be really hard work

agnes · 7 Nov 2011 at 16:59

As a keen biker, would it be worth grabbing a cheapo bike? hehe

SteveOBHave · 7 Nov 2011 at 17:09

agnes said:
As a keen biker, would it be worth grabbing a cheapo bike? hehe

I'd suggest before going that you read Shantaram. It's surprising how many parallels I got from my trip and the book.

Some photos from my trip

The Jama Masjid by Steve ten Have, on Flickr

Delhi back streets by Steve ten Have, on Flickr

Taj Mahal by Steve ten Have, on Flickr

Taj Reflection by Steve ten Have, on Flickr

Nanoman · 7 Nov 2011 at 17:35

I'm here at the moment (currently sitting in the Crowne Plaza in Gurgaon). India is nothing like I had imagined. I've only been in Gurgaon, around the outskirts of New Delhi and the city of Agra but from what I've seen the vast majority of it is extremely worn down and extremely dirty. It is easily the dirtiest place I've visited. People just dump litter on the street, the place is covered in rotting rubbish. Most of the buildings aren't maintained. India is big so I assume there are much nicer parts but I took a 5 hour taxi drive from Gurgaon up to the Taj Mahal and saw the same thing all the way, Agra was probably worse than Gurgaon.

It is not cheap either unless you try and live like a local, westerners in the more rural areas are seen as kings so they over charge you on everything, you always need to bargain. The tourist areas are extremely expensive at face value. I.e Agra is riddled with cheating scum bags, always be aware of the GBP value of the Rupee, some of these shops have price tags of 8000INR for a tie for example, this is about 100GBP.

Spamalot · 7 Nov 2011 at 19:49

The trick to getting cheap plane tickets (of the sort you were talking about above) is to book a return, but book the return flight from another airport. This saved me lots of money, London to Mumbai then Kuala Lumpur to London for just £508. Two singles would have cost more then 50% more.

www.kayak.co.uk can search in this fashion.