Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I remember the Delhi of 1988. I was there for a week and midday heat was unbearable. Due to power cuts the air conditioning did not work in the afternoons.
Yep, I remember we'd know there was a power outage right away because we'd hear the generators come on at some of the bigger hotels nearby.
Very difficult to find random people on the streets or in local areas who spoke English. Used translator app with differing degrees of success - sometimes abysmal, sometimes decent success.
If you are in a non-tourist, working class area of Delhi, good luck finding someone who understands English. Very difficult to "break bread" meaningfully in these places.
We met educated locals, either by chance on the streets (rare) or through organized venues (more likely). Their English is generally pretty good.
We met latino foreigners who have been living in India; we conversed with them in Spanish
hotel staff and its Indian guests tended to speak decent English.
My company has a fairly large office in Delhi (on the outskirts, actually)
In all we had interaction with people from different stratuses of society, different backgrounds.
FYI, regarding food, I was just talking yesterday with a Spaniard who lives in my neighborhood. His wife having just returned from India has been suffering with diarrhea the past two weeks from eating the food there.
Straight question: have you gotten sick from food in India?
Yes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 80skeys
Very difficult to find random people on the streets or in local areas who spoke English.
In your tiny sample set of a few days in one area of this vast country, from which you have decided it is impossible that someone who was there for much longer than you were and ate out at least twice per day could have ever encountered any of the 100+ million English speakers. Do you even hear how silly you sound?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 80skeys
FYI, regarding food, I was just talking yesterday with a Spaniard who lives in my neighborhood. His wife having just returned from India has been suffering with diarrhea the past two weeks from eating the food there.
Everyone has their comfort zone when traveling, if your fears drive you to hide in your hotel for every meal then that's where your comfortable and that's how you should visit India.
Everyone has their comfort zone when traveling, if your fears drive you to hide in your hotel for every meal then that's where your comfortable and that's how you should visit India.
Correct! Isn't common sense a great thing. We avoided getting sick in India, and thus were able to enjoy our entire vacation.
(and we still enjoyed Indian food because our hotel had an Indian restaurant inside it)
Everyone has their comfort zone when traveling, if your fears drive you to hide in your hotel for every meal then that's where your comfortable and that's how you should visit India.
Only partly true. One traveling voluntarily is doing so at least partly for the adventure, which is defined as going outside your comfort zone.
A few comments on some other recent posts.
I have found it surprisingly hard to find a passergy who can speak English in most countries, including India. The worst may be Latin America, Russia, Thailand.
i got amoebic dysentery in Bangladesh, but not aick in
india.
i also (as did my companion) got sick n the highest rated restaurant in one Texas city.
In the third world, never take electricity for granted.
Correct! Isn't common sense a great thing. We avoided getting sick in India, and thus were able to enjoy our entire vacation.
(and we still enjoyed Indian food because our hotel had an Indian restaurant inside it)
No, common sense would tell me that a country with a world famous cuisine is best enjoyed while taking reasonable precautions instead of being a timid traveler holed up in a western hotel.
Again though everyone has their comfort zone, and it's great you found yours.
Just spent a handful of days in Delhi and surrounding area a couple weeks ago. We had a mix of both the "typical" tourist experience as well as off-the-beaten-track experiences, and spent most of the time out and about, so we got a pretty accurate impression of things. Here's my random impressions and thoughts:
Air pollution was out of this world. It makes Shanghai look clean. I had no idea such pollution was conceivable. Never in my life have I ever seen anything like it. It's a thick brown dust as far as you can see that obscures buildings and everything that's more than 1/2km away and blocks out the sun. And it's not limited to Delhi. We took a three-hour car drive to Agra and the pollution was constant the whole way. You can't really see much of the surrounding countryside due to it.
Tons of people on the street and very chaotic. I personally enjoyed this.
Cars, motorcycles and animals everywhere. The rare camel being ridden down the streets of Delhi. Tribes of monkeys moving from rooftop to rooftop with people and cars two stories below.
You can buy a good quality cow for $350USD. Then you can't do anything with it except feed it and collect milk from it.
In tourist areas as a foreigner you will be harrassed and bombarded to no end by vendors.
In non-tourist areas you will not be harrassed at all, so these areas are much more preferable.
Anywhere there's a local market area, ask the locals to lead you to a money lender and you'll get a much better exchange rate for your dollars than what the hotel or anyone else will give you.
Things are totally safe for foreign men. Worst that can happen is you might get your bag snatched, but this seems to be rare.
The male population is larger than the female population and this is obvious on the streets, there are many more men. Things are safe for women in the day and also at night in areas where there are lots of men and women on the street, but things can be dicey in other areas so I don't recommend women to travel in such areas unless they're accompanied by a couple foreign men.
Women are fourth-rate citizens in India. Men consider themselves to be superior to women. Women who have professional jobs (doctors, teachers) are respected. Women who work in hotels, restaurants, toll booth operators are viewed as whores.
I suggest you give a couple dollars to local street orphans and destitute people living on the streets rather than give it to vendors. This way you know your money is helping people who need it.
People of India in the poor areas are warm and friendly if you take the time to talk with them, joke with them.
But if you are a foreign woman, don't get too chummy or friendly ... I noticed whenever my wife was friendly, the men would start to focus their attention on her and even a couple of them asked if she was married. It wasn't over-the-top, because obviously she was with me, but I could easily see it becoming over-the-top if you are travelling by yourself or with your girlfriends.
I would have liked to have tried street food, but everyone I've ever met has said they've gotten seriously ill from the food in India, so we limited ourselves to eating in the hotel. (And even then, we had one day of stomach rumblings and mild diarreah).
We did not see any mosquitos and therefore did not use any repellant during our stay.
The typical tourist spots are definitely worth visiting. The old forts and Taj Mahal are impressive and have a lot of history.
We stayed at the Shangri-la hotel and the food and service were excellent. If this is considered an upper-end hotel, then the next time I go to India I'll probably be willing to stay in a mid-range hotel, maybe one notch down, but I wouldn't stay in any class of hotel lower than that due to sanitary conditions.
40% of the Indian population cannot read or write.
40% of the Indian population is below poverty.
A lot of the monuments and tourist places have a fake metal detector they make you walk through. These are nothing more than a couple 2x4s erected to look like a metal detector. Apparently this is sufficient to fool the uneducated population, which I find pretty sad. We need to correct this and start educating them.
Contrary to popular belief, MOST people in India do not speak English, or only speak such poor English that it's impossible to communicate with them. So, have your translator app ready.
Indians enjoy having their picture taken by foreigners. So feel free to do it.
On the road to Agra we passed a bus laden with passengers, including 20-30 people sitting on the rooftop. They were taking photos of us and we were taking photos of them, and everyone had a good time. They were smiling and giving us peace signs and thumbs ups.
I don't recommend exercising while you are in India, as the extra polluted air you respirate will likely lower your life span.
I would have enjoyed India a lot more if it weren't for the air pollution, but it really put a damper on my experience. It got to the point where I didn't feel like going outside.
Will I go back to Delhi? No. The air pollution ruined it for me.
Will I go back to a different part of India. Yes, I'd like to go someday to Rajasthan to see the forts, and probably would like to check out southern India someday.
Thank you so much, 80skeys.
I'm not far from India and I will be travelling there for several months when the time is right.
Well in that case people whom you are working with are not true representation of entire Indian society. Brahmins are mostly vegetarian but they are merely 5 % in India. But they are the community which has been in the forefront for immigration to USA from India. Approximately 1.2 million out of 4 million Indian Americans (close to 30 %) are Brahmins. Chances are that many Indian Americans are vegetarians (not the majority though) but still a sizeable number. India is a complex country and the immigrated people are mostly from few states and few communities - not a true representation of that country. Not every Motel owner is Patel in India- food habits of Mr Patel is not representative of an Indian from Assam or Kerala.
This map shows the percentage of population Vegetarian vs Non-Vegetarian. Out of 29 states, only 5 - Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh & Gujarat are vegetarian majority. Delhi is 60% Meat eater as per this map. There is a website Zomato which gives Menu Cards of Restaurants online. Please look at Delhi Restaurants Menu-you will find a plethora of meat/chicken/fish options. Eating Beef is difficult but Mutton (Goat/Lamb), Chicken, Fish is not any problem.
Many Vegetarian people in India spread some misconceptions about India being a Vegetarian country but facts state otherwise.
Looks the vegetarian/brahmin/bjp connection is imminent here. This map seriously looks like the electoral map of 2016 election
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
