Don't underestimate costs in India

  India is not an expensive country, but you must consider what type of lifestyle you are going to want whilst you are there. Yes, it is perfectly true that you can find a room, and eat, for less than five dollars a day in many places, but it will be Indian food and your room will be devoid of hot water, air-conditioning and, as for a TV – no way! Personally, I would feel awkward with less than U$10 a day, but quite happy with U$20. In 2004, for example, I took U$5,000 spending money on a six-month jaunt around South Asia. Admittedly, for most of that time, I staid in ordinary hotels without TV or AC, but I did go out almost every night and took half a dozen domestic flights to boot, at the end of which I only had a little money left over.

  In the coastal areas of Goa, there are none of the cheap and cheerful Indian restaurants you find elsewhere in India, and there are no cheap roadside eateries thereabouts either. I don’t know whether cheap Indian eateries in coastal Goa get threatened by other owners, or whether it’s pure market forces that make them raise the all the prices, but either way, you will not get a meal for fifty cents. On an over-tight budget, you may find yourself like some forlorn beggar: looking longingly at the spendthrift lifestyles of your compatriots. At sundown, whilst they are partying in some hip restaurant, you will be elsewhere, lingering the night away. It is best to have a free-spending good time for two months, rather than travel on a tight budget for three. 

  A good 750-ml. bottle of beer can cost U$1.75; a decent room with amenities will cost you U$10.00 a night in most places, so it is quite easy to blow U$25 a day. This is still very good value when compared to developed countries, but it is not as ridiculously cheap as some people would imagine. You cannot “live like a king” for a few dollars a day – sorry.

  Do not come to India with U$2000.00 for six months, that’s for sure. Some things in India are actually more expensive than in the West, per kilometre Indian flights are very costly, and phone calls are overpriced. It is usually cheaper to phone India, rather than phone from India. Ask the hotel you are staying in if you can receive a phone call there, then SMS or e-mail a time and number to those who wish to call. You might even want to leave some phone cards with your loved ones at home. One scam is for hotels to double or triple the price of your outgoing call to make more profit – which is yet more incentive to receive calls rather than make them. (At the time of writing, the type of call cards where you reveal a code and call a local number via which an international call can be made, do not seem to be available in India.)  

Intruders

  Don't tempt people with unlocked luggage. Never leave an unlocked suitcase in a hotel room. You can buy cable locks, which can be used to lock your luggage together and onto a piece of furniture. Keep in mind that room locks can be picked and hotels always have spares. If you return to find a hotel employee in your room, they will generally have a feeble excuse for being there, for instance, they might say that your room was already open and they were checking to see whether everything was OK. Do not leave items near open barred windows. You would be surprised at the number of petty items that can be swiped from ground floor windowsills: like a half used deodorant stick or a personal notebook full of incoherent musings - anything!

   Even in the better hotels, reception desks are frequently unattended. The room keys are typically kept in an drawer or on hooks. This can lead to opportunistic "borrowing" by strangers.

  Hotel thieves will hesitate to cut open suitcases, as when this happens it can prompt police action, whereas when they pick a lock, theft is harder to prove. Nobody will have the time to pick locks whilst you are travelling on a train or bus, but within the private confides of a hotel room, it’s a different matter. Combination locks are superior and take too long for thieves to fathom the code at random, even if it’s only three digits. Ordinary locks are less convenient than combinations as people are prone to losing the keys! This is probably one of those ‘teaching your granny to suck eggs’ things, but it’s worth mentioning to choose a number of personal significance, such as part of an address, birthday or phone number. This will prevent horrible memory blocks. Never use 1234.

  Some countries, like the U.S., require you to keep airline baggage unlocked or to use simple locks easily opened by security personnel. In this post 9/11 world they will have no qualms about busting open your case if it is sealed with a combination. If you are traveling from such a country, place a removable sticker next to the lock, which clearly states CODE: 3586, (whatever it is) or place duct tape over a combination lock to keep it from accidentally closing and your lock being smashed open by overzealous baggage inspectors.

  Try not to place your luggage on hotel floors. Pipes can break or leak, leaving floors an inch deep in water. During an exceptional monsoon storm, some areas can also get partially flooded or roofs might develop leaks.

  Furthermore, poisonous bugs might crawl into your baggage. Once in a Public Works Dept. room on North Andaman, I lifted a carelessly discarded shirt, and found, to my horror, a huge centipede napping beneath it. It was probably eight or nine inches long but at the time it appeared to be the size of a small snake - like something out of a horror movie. In an instant I threw the shirt back down again.

   A hundred scaly feet then scurried across the wooden floor towards the bathroom door, where it found a small place to lurk in a crack beneath a small doorstep. I chose to ignore it, as it seemed to be quite content to hide itself. I even went and had a shower.

  Back at Port Blair (South Andaman) my friend Jens and I visited a delightful restaurant called the China Room run by a Burmese couple. I happened to mention the monstrous centipede to the waiter - who doubled as the owner. He told me that if a black one bites your foot or hand, it will swell up to twice its normal size, but if a brown one bites you, you must immediately seek medical attention.

  I thought the creature was black but Jens -who also saw it- swore it was brown. Whatever its race, I realised that I should have forgone my morning ablutions: my bare foot having been but a few feet away from its venomous jaws.

  Aside from giant centipedes, other squatters in your baggage might include an Indian spider closely related to the black widow (Latrodectus hasseltii indicus) which has a neurotoxic poison, or scorpions - someone once compared the sting of a scorpion with the punch of a full-grown man giving it all he had. The smaller scorpions are the most venomous. 

  As an interesting aside, Jens told me that when he was in Borneo, he delved inside his backpack only to be viciously stung and bitten. He retrieved his hand to find a huge beetle-like bug attached to it! Again, this was probably the result of leaving his pack on the floor.

What Not To Take

Meghalaya

  Once in Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh) I decided to shed some of my baggage. For three months, I had been carrying around two ridiculously heavy sports bags and now one of them had to go. I resolved to fill one of the bags with my surplus items and unload the unwanted goods upon some grateful beggar. Strangely enough, on that particular morning I had difficulty finding a beggar, I must have been the only foreigner on the subcontinent wanting to be begged from – yet for hours none were forthcoming. When I actually encountered one, her hand extended in heartfelt supplication, she became strangely annoyed as I handed over my entire bag. I then turned my back and fled.

  My weighty predicament had, in part, been caused by bogus advice from a supposedly authoritative guidebook. It had instructed me to take such things as a spare sheet and a mosquito net – even a sink plug.

  Mosquito nets should have been fazed-out in the early 20^th century, along with wind-up gramophones and Penny Farthing bicycles. In one hundred Indian hotel rooms, from Goa to Guwahati, I rarely found anything to hook the thing on to, and when I did, I found that it obstructed the much-needed cool breeze from the ceiling fan, creating an uncomfortable pocket of warm air. I have visited over a dozen Indian states, and have never encountered mosquitoes in such numbers that they would interrupt my sleep (unlike my experiences in South America) and as for malaria prevention – there are better ways! Mosquito coils however, cost a pittance and are available everywhere. They can sometimes leave dryness in your mouth upon waking, but it is a small price to pay. Do not buy the fancy plug-in electric repellents from home they do not work during power cuts.  

 A small minority of Indian hotels lack sheets and just provide mattress coverings. On the plains and coastal regions during most of the year, it is usually so hot that sheets are unnecessary anyway. Whilst in the hills and mountains, you don’t need sheets – you need blankets or sleeping bags: but warm bedding is invariably provided.

  As for the lesser matter of a one-size-fits-all sink and bath plug - it’s equally pointless. People don’t take baths in a tub in India so, customarily, your hotel room will not be equipped with such a decadent foreign item. As for the sink, if there’s no plug – so what! It’s unlikely you will get a hot water tap (sometimes even if you pay for running hot water, you may not get it), so just let the cold water run. If that’s not good water conservation, blame it on the hotel.

  Aside from the unnecessary weight of these items, you must also consider the cost. In your home country, they could quite easily set you back the equivalent of five thousand rupees: a senseless sacrifice of good beer money.

  Do not take an expensive or treasured lighter to India. They are not allowed on board Indian planes (unless in your suitcase) and Indian customs officials usually confiscate them - and probably do a handy profitable sideline in foreign lighters. If the customs officers don’t get them, a petty thief will, or you will accidentally leave it in a bar or hotel room. One way or another, India will be the last place your good lighter ever goes. Buy local disposable ones instead, but don’t throw cheap Indian lighters around, as they can explode on impact. I found this out in Goa when a Scottish friend in Goa threw one at a house gecko.

  Invest in suncream but do not bring large or even medium sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Indian products are fine and can be purchased in sachets from most Indian kiosks. Good perfumes or colognes are also a waste of space, as you tend to sweat more in the tropics, which means that fragrances do not have a real chance of permeating into the skin.

  An inflatable pillow is an exquisitely useless item. If you travel by train, you will receive pillows in the AC classes. On aeroplanes, you get pillows. If you use one on the beach, you will look like an idiot. In hotels, yes, they have got pillows as well, if they prove too hard, or small, just roll up a towel and use that. If it is an unpleasantly dirty hotel pillow, you should simply wrap it with a clean lungi or dhoti. So, just where are you going to use an inflatable pillow? OK – buses, but it’s unlikely that you will travel far by bus – and if you do, then stop it! It’s more comfortable and safer to go long distances by train or plane. 

  Beach ball – another inflatable piece of garbage. You cannot play soccer with it - one strong gust of wind, and suddenly it’s half a mile away.  Even a slight breeze will skew any lengthy shot or pass. For a bit of fun on the beach take a Frisbee – at least this can double as plastic plate when reversed.