Just got back from a tour of India, AMA

[samarrange]

There's an AMA section of the site, but I thought this was a better place.

We (DP and I, mid-60s) have just had the most fabulous holiday of our lives in India. I'm writing this at the gate at Mumbai airport.

We had 13 nights: 5 in the Delhi/Agra/Jaipur "golden triangle", 4 in Kerala, 3 in Goa, and one (but with nearly two days to visit) in Mumbai. It was a completely custom tour put together by an Indian travel agency. We like to see lots of different things and they obliged. We could have gone slower, done half-day instead of full-day tours, etc.

We stayed in 5-star hotels (porters, swimming pool, concierge, room service, etc — some international brands like Radisson and Grand Mercure, others Indian but every bit as good), except for 2 nights in a lodge-type place in the hills of Kerala which was just as nice, and a night on a houseboat which was not quite 5* but still amazing.

We asked the agency to book us accommodation on a B&B basis as we wanted to be able to go out sometimes to find our own dinners, and also because half/full board would have meant buffets, and we don't eat enough to do them justice. But all of the monumemt entrances, guides, and drivers were included in the price, as were the internal flights that we took (we have some CO2 penance to do).

The price, excluding air tickets to and from India which we booked ourselves, was £1,900 per person for two people. We only had to pay for lunch, dinner, drinks, and tips. Had we chosen 4* hotels (typically smaller, sometimes more like B&B, but we looked at the reviews for a couple of places and they seemed fine) it would have been £1,550 per person. We were actually a bit skeptical when we got the offer because we had expected it to be quite a lot more.

India exceeded our expectations in every way, and the logistics of our trip were simply stunningly well done. I won't mention the name of the company here but I can make it available via DM. Otherwise, if you've always been curious about the idea of going but a little bit reticent (like we were, until a family member went — and spent almost twice what we did, because they used a London-based travel agent), then feel free to ask me anything. 🙏

Some clothes, but it's tricky because the high-end shopping centres have mostly western brands and they are not much cheaper than elsewhere (plus we don't buy those anyway). We found one great department store but it was in the middle of the tour when our baggage weight was limited, and then when we got to Mumbai we couldn't find another branch, but we did get a few items. We're not huge consumers of "stuff" anyway.

The guides take you into one or two manufacturers of carpets, ornaments, etc. We bought a nice tablecloth with napkins. You could spend a fortune (the carpets are great).

Zuri White Sands Resort and Casino. It had the highest percentage of Indian guests (90% or so) of any place we stayed. We ate on the beach for lunch and at a lovely little place next door for dinner.

I suspect that things have changed enormously since then.

Delhi: Radisson Blu Kaushambi, some way out of town. Great breakfast. Rooms were OK but we had a non-non-smoking room as they were very full — it wasn't too smoky. We had a very good pizza from a local place 50m away.

Agra: Grand Mercure. Very swish. Rooftop pool with views of the Taj Mahal. We ate at KFC next door as we didn't want to be arsed with the buffet.

Jaipur: Novotel Jaipur Convention Centre. Very good, but in the middle of nowhere, so we ate a la carte in the hotel both nights, which was OK (about ⅔ of UK prices).

Mumbai: President SeleQtion. Stupid name but very good. 2 for 1 cocktails at happy hour. We walked around the nearby Colaba Causeway evening market and ate at a small Goan (!) place there.

Blimey just the Mumbai hotel is 3.5 times dearer than a similarly ranked hotel on booking.com that we're staying at in Mumbai!

Thanks OP. I have no desire to go to India but am enjoying your thread enormously!

Where do you and DH plan to go next?

DH and I are off to India on Thursday for the first time! Flying to Mumbai for a couple of days, then two jungle lodges to hopefully see tigers, followed by Agra and Delhi. Really looking forward to it but quite nervous about the food and water. Will be taking all the precautions!

Thanks for this.

I'd love to go to India but as a single woman have been warned off (including by some Indian friends of mine)

You're probably more likely to get sick from food in a 5 star hotel if you have choose from a buffet where it's been sitting around than you would from a greasy spoon.

I've been to India a few times and we eat at small family restaurants or hole in the wall places - the very small ones that have 3 walls but are open to the street, have a few plastic tables with plastic stools and people come in to grab a quick bite. The food in those is usually very good and we've never been sick.

I am dying to do this as a family but DSS is anaphylactic to nuts so seems unwise. I am enjoying your thread none the less! Maybe when they've all properly flown the nest.

Street food cooked there and then can be very good as it’s not sitting around and is generally piping hot and fresh.

Be wary of eating precooked street food in the early morning as it might be last nights leftovers. Unrefrigerated 🤮.

Do you have any photos of places/scenes to share?

Can I ask about insects please? Specifically cockroaches? I’m so phobic and have always assumed India would be a no go.

We saw no cockroaches and hardly any flies. There are a few mosquitos, so we took repellent, an after-bite stock, and a night-time plug-in. Several of the hotels also provided the latter, so we often had two running. The only time we got bitten was on our last hotel night where we forgot to plug ours in and the hotel didn't provide one. Honestly we've had far worse mozzie experiences on a Greek island in July.

I should stress that this was not a "voyage of exploration and adventure". It was a high-end tourism experience with large walk-in showers. We were taken from place to place in modern air-conditioned vehicles (think RAV4/Qashqai, but not those models). The hotel lobbies were generally in marble. In one place our bathroom sink was blocked and someone came to fix it with a plunger within 5 minutes. If a cockroach had shown up, we would have been less appalled than the staff.

Some places are starting to list allergens using the EU 14-group classification, but it will be a while before this becomes standard. They use cashew paste to thicken sauces sometimes, but we didn't see a lot of nuts. One time in Goa I ordered chicken satay and the waiter checked that I knew it had peanuts in the sauce.

While we're on food: It's an easy place to be vegetarian, but not to be vegan because the standard cooking fat is ghee (clarified butter), and you can't ask them to go away and make the same dish with oil. Many people are "pure veg" which is vegetarian with no eggs, but Hindus revere cows precisely because their milk is such an important source of nutrition. I can imagine that this might even conflict a bit with the vegan idea that consuming animal products is exploiting the animal.

We're nearly home and I will be going through the photos soon. Here's one of a chaat stand in Mumbai.

The way not get ill in India is to use hand sanitizer EVERY time you touch money.

My friend who goes to India a lot also swears by not eating meat and has never been ill, however, as we know rice, for example can make you really ill is not stored properly and re heated but it's worked for her.

I would be amazed if you saw a tiger, but we were lucky enough to see a group of 5 elephants including a baby. But as our guide was setting up to take a picture through binoculars they saw us, and we had to get moving a bit sharpish.

Don't worry about the food, really. Just make sure you stick to bottled water. When we stopped for a home-made soft drink by the side of the road (lime or ginger, which are delicious, and much cheaper than Coca-Cola), we always asked for the "soda" version so we could be 100% sure that the water had come from a bottle. But on reflection, a roadside stall isn't going to be plumbed into the water mains anyway. 😃

The food was not as super-spicy as we imagined. Also the kinds of places that your guide will take you will have several "continental" (meaning not spicy) options. But it would be a shame to miss out on authentic Indian food, as opposed to "Indian restaurant food", which is an international phenomenon that has little to do with what you find in India. We had "curry" of some kind for breakfast every day (a puri with a little bit of potato bhaji, or a paratha with poached eggs). One evening we ate biryani with our fingers at a Muslim-run place where people were having their iftar (post-sunset Ramadan meal, first time they'd eaten since dawn).

Most of the meat we saw was chicken, and it was always very thoroughly cooked. Rice has such a high turnover that it always seemed to be fresh. But we did go more for lentils and chickpeas than we would at home.

We didn't think of that explicitly, but we have carried hand sanitiser on trips for 30 years (since DC were born) and so we always give our hands a rub before eating.

No idea. Maybe Malaysia and Thailand. Maybe Costa Rica for the nature. We are not beachgoers, nor are we looking to "discover our true selves" (and we can only take so many palaces and temples) — we just like seeing different places, even if it's just shopping at the local version of British Home Stores.

I'm dying to go but I'm a very beige eater; salt and pepper are spicy enough for me.

Don't mind going hungry on holiday but obviously have to eat something. Are things like croissants and cheese sandwiches and jacket potatoes readily available? What fast food is there? How about Coca-cola?

We did this a few months ago, it's an amazing trip (we only did the golden triangle but an extended version). We paid £1700 pp including flights, b&b in 5 star hotels and all private transportation and private tour guides! 12 nights. Through the coop if anyone is interested.

Everyone I know who got sick in India was from western fast food chains, so I wouldn’t rely on them.

breakfast buffet had the usual stuff, fruit, croissants, pancakes, cereal etc as well as Indian dishes. We ate at a mix of Indian and western restaurants both in hotels and outside. In Delhi we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe one night, and in a bar that did chicken wings and similar pub style food. Coke available everywhere.

We went about seven years ago and visited Delhi, Agra, Ranthambore and Jaipur. In Ranthambore we stayed at the Anuraga Palace. It’s absolutely stunning and the staff were fab. It may have changed but there wasn’t much around any of the hotels in Ranthambore so would opt for half board where ever you go. We also went to the Oberoi for drinks and it was the most beautiful hotel I’ve ever set foot in, but with a price tag to match!