India - In Two Weeks?

So you've always wanted to go to India - but need to ask on here what you should do?? Surely you should know yourself already??

pb21 wrote:

I don't know everything! And how long is 'enough' in Mumbai and Varanasi, but yeah I was a bit spontaneous booking the flights.

What are you doing on the forum if you dont know everything??

Well i'll add the Elephanta Caves to your "to do" list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephanta_Caves

i've been there 20+ times

practicalities...

get your visa sorted out in good time, especially if you will do it by post rather than one of the offices, it's been outsourced to a private company for a while now, but imho all this did was add some extra bureaucracy, delay and cost

do take antimalarials, i know a few people who've been infected, it's not nice - malarone is good, but you need a private prescription, buying online is cheapest, afaik can't get it in india (unlike many other prescription drugs), you can get paludrine and avloclor there, same as in uk, but they're not nearly as convenient as malarone

take strong insect repellent, use it dusk to dawn, aside from malaria there's increasing incidence of dengue which imho is a whole lot worse

october is usually good weather in the west, there can be some lingering cloud and rain from the rainy season sometimes, it's still pleasant though, can be cool in the evenings

overall it's a friendly and safe place, but there're always a few exceptions, standard advice if you're going to travel by train is watch out for offers of food/drink, people have been drugged and robbed

plan ahead and book as much in advance as possible, with only two weeks you could lose a lot of time queuing and arranging

personally i dislike big indian cities, much prefer small and quiet

hotels vary a lot, research carefully and book in advance, there're some excellent small indian hotels, spotless, spacious and friendly, whereas big hotels may still mean poorly located, bad value, and somtimes vermin infested

mumbai, you can see the gateway of india, there's a ferry to elephanta island mentioned about from there, so the two sites give you some colonial grandeur, lots of hustle and bustle, a boat ride, and temples and caves

goa will be less crowded than when the tourist season really gets going, some parts of the north are really spoiled by tourism, i'd avoid calangute and baga in particular, candolim is more relaxed, the south is where to head for less sprawl, and north or south, away from the beaches there're some beautiful areas inland

i've spent an entire three weeks ambling from hotel room to beach, plenty of books, no tv, no internet, pure bliss

try to time your return flight to mumbai to give you 3-4 hours before your flight back to uk, avoids wasting time with extra trips from/to airport

btw if you want to keep in touch by mobile, take a few photocopies of passport details page, visa page, and some extra passport photos, if you want to get a local payg sim card you may need these (it's much cheaper than roaming charges)

When my mate went, he spent two weeks sick with dysentery.

He said theres a lot of thing they don't show you on these holiday programmes on tv.

ben@31 wrote:

When my mate went, he spent two weeks sick with dysentery.

He said theres a lot of thing they don't show you on these holiday programmes on tv.

My parents have been going for the past 15 or so years, my Dad who has a fragile stomach has been ill once through his own doing, de-hydration.
The street food vendors are good, its fried noodles, rice, samosa's so any germs are killed on an instant
The beach shacks have ALOT to lose should their food be dodgy.

Simple careful self hygene will see you through hassle free, Thousands of tourists visit every year, and youll find some of the elder generations go for months at a time, cant be that bad a place then

I went twice to india in 2009 in September & December. Never got ill apart from a stuffy nose, and didnt get any touches of the runs. I loved the place.

Its a complete culture shock and prepare to be stared at and asked random questions from strangers, I'm pretty sure its more out a curiosity rather than rudeness. Though I found the locals very friendly.

I visited Goa, Agra, Jaipur & Udaipur while staying in Delhi. Food wise I didnt eat from any of the street vendors and only in restaurants. If you get sick of Indian food theres plenty of McDonalds, Pizza Hut etc. Though only meat is chicken.

madden2011 wrote:

Food wise I didnt eat from any of the street vendors and only in restaurants. If you get sick of Indian food theres plenty of McDonalds, Pizza Hut etc. Though only meat is chicken.

Oh I don't know. The street vendor I met in Jaipur made some pretty awesome chilli fritters


Street vendor, Jaipur

Dosa, the best breakfast food invented anywhere.