India: anybody been on holibobs?

[gremlin]

Just mulling over India as a destination for next year. I know somebody who raves about Goa, but is it a case of there being beautiful beaches but not much else?
Worth flying into a city to have a mooch for a couple of days? Mumbai?
Is Kerala worth visiting for the canals and stuff?
Jaipur looks interesting but worth the extra internal flight?

[KungFooBob]

I went to Goa ten years ago, Candolim.

Lots and lots of beach.

Couple of boat trips, mooch around the markets, etc...

The traffic is hilarious, find a bar with a good view of a road and enjoy all the near misses.

[Nordboy]

I haven't been but really quite fancy going for a trip to India, it's probably the highest on my want to go list.

Never really appealed to me years ago, but i find it a far more fascinating place as I get older.

We've been looking at the small tours stuff. Including railway trips and all the touristy places. But they can be quite pricey.

[Mr Moofo]

I have been there for work - and I am contemplating it for next year.
But prepare youself some shocking social disparity, and a caste structure that really doesn's care about the poor unfortunates .

I did Chennai, Kerala and Dehli - Kerala was wonderful - being driven around visiting a load of spice and herb producers.
In Chennai, hotesl within 100m of a main road do not serve beer!

I have a local friend who has lived for 4 months of the year in Goa and loves it ....

Horses for courses

[the_priest]

I was there for work/holiday some 13 years ago. Had an amazing time, did the Golden Triangle, Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. Lots to see, do, buy, eat and experience. Lots of places to visit and enjoy. The food is fantastic, but stick to bottled water/beer. And it is HOT in the summer. And the traffic is manic.

[Docca]

I went in 2000 to Kerala for 6 months. Only meant to stay for 2 weeks

Kerala back then had the highest literacy rates in the country. Lovely part of the world. Beaches good. Food great.

I took the back waters to (Cochin - Goa) and HATED Goa. With a passion. Tacky as hell: think Blackpool crossed with Hastings. Might have changed now, but it was shite for me.

Kerala I’d go back to.

[ajlog]

Not on holiday but a few parts for work.
Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Puducherry.

Mumbai is huge and feels like the population is about 2x bigger than it can accommodate.
Every corner/space is occupied, if there is a space then someone has set up a shop or business.
It has the underlying feel and pace of a global city with a massive dose of Indian interpretation poured over the top.

Chennai has a similar feel just a bit slower, with the vast beaches of the Coromandel Coast, has a great light at sunset as the beaches face east and the sun sets behind you
Pune for me was just another industrial zone, my visit consisted of in and out of various factories so I didn't really experience the city.

Puducherry is quite a bit different, it did not become part of India until the 50's. It was a Portuguese / French colony and as such has a very different feel and architecture to the former British parts of India, felt slower and more laid back than the others.

What I like about India is the total reset of your cultural references, when you arrive, all of your senses are facing new and interesting experiences.
Unlike some other parts of the world I have visited like the Far East, India 'feels' very different at all levels immediately.
Big cities in places like China initially feel familiar, my brain see's what I know from the west, hotels, shops etc and its only when you start to interact with the people I start to feel the difference.
India however its instant, it layers the Indian experience over the top of any of this to let you know it's not the world as you know it, and for me that is wonderful.

[Yorick]

I'll just add it's worth getting a flight to Kathmandu. Amazing place.

[Taipan]

Never been but would love to go. More for the cities than the beach though. I watched some tv program with b-list celebs looking at living out there and both the wife and i were very intrigued by what we saw of the place.

I used to work with guy called Roy Moxham who wrote somebooks on India. Good reads if you're looking to top up the kindle!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Moxham

[Count Steer]

Never been but would love to go. More for the cities than the beach though. I watched some tv program with b-list celebs looking at living out there and both the wife and i were very intrigued by what we saw of the place.

I used to work with guy called Roy Moxham who wrote somebooks on India. Good reads if you're looking to top up the kindle!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Moxham

The Real Marigold Hotel?

B-list is a bit generous looking at this lot.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profil ... elebrities

In other seasons of 'I Thought They Were Dead' - Bobby George, Syd Little, Bill Oddie and Sylvester McCoy.

[gremlin]

I feeling a bit of Mumbai (the Taj Mahal Tower looks like somewhere I could rest my weary head) for a few days then onto Kerala. We're thinking maybe three weeks give or take, so maybe another destination after Kerala...

[IccyV2]

I've travelled India extensively, it's all a bit samey but then you could also quite easily see the differences in it, the obvious main divide is north and south.

I reckon Amritsar is probably my favourite place but I also like Delhi, I went for a wander one evening and ended up having a roadside dinner sitting outside a cafe with a bloke on his way back from playing tennis, he stopped as he was walking past and asked if he could sit and talk, so we sat for 3hrs chatting, then I shook hands and wandered off and found myself in a street that looked like a 1950's version of a New York beatnik movie set, it took me another couple of hours to walk 200yds because I kept stopping to chat to people.
That was a pretty standard night for Delhi, they have a cracking huge street market as well.

Kerala, Chennai, Hyderabad, etc, is all good, I'd probably say Kerala if you want a beach type holiday but also want to see a bit of real India too, stay out of the toddy cafes and some places aren't very safe for women. The canals are good but watch out for crocs if you go swimming, but you'll probably get cholera first.

If you go to Amritsar then the Golden Temple is a must and then the ceremonial nightly changing of the guard where they open the gates between India and Pakistan and face off against each other and make quite an aggressive show out of it. They both choose the biggest soldiers they can find so it's a stand-off with 6ft 4" blokes and a crowd the size of Wembley cheering them on, the Pakistani stadium stand is smaller, the Indian one can be tens of thousands deep sometimes.

Funnily enough yesterday my Facebook memories popped up and I was in the Punjab 8yrs ago on the Pakistan side, not recommended for a family holiday though.

I love the place but I'm not sure I'd have it at the top of my list for places to go on holiday, it's a great place to experience and say you've been, but these days I'm less adventurous and want a bit of luxury, so I'd be heading to the Maldives or maybe an exclusive Thai resort.
India can be a bit of both and if you've never been then you're unlikely to regret it, but keep your eye on Middle East events, lots of people are still stuck over on that side of the planet because they still can't reorganise their flights back to Europe, unless there is a full and decisive ceasefire then I'd be sticking with Europe or going west for any holidays, South America has everything India has but obviously with a different flavour.

[v8-powered]

Currently sat in The Maldives.

We were planning India or Sri Lanka, but wife had some medical stuff going plus work has been kicking the shit out of me for the last 6 months or so, so we decided on chilled instead of hustle.

[Wscad]

Worked in Hyderabad for a month. On a troubleshooting mission. The uk company I worked for said the Indian company likes you and would like you stay for a year. It’s up to you wscad, India or the Hong Kong company wants you back in China .

Get me back to China was my reply. My experience of Hyderabad was what a shithole. My view from my hotel room was people walking into fields with a bottle of water. Cows everywhere together with cow muck. Factory had monkeys everywhere inside with vast amounts of monkey muck all over the place

Unless you are staying and eating in a 5 star hotel you will get the shits

[Bustaspoke]

India's a big place,I visited Delhi & Agra back in 1999,I was planning on staying for a month but after 10 or so days I got the plane to Kathmandu.
I'd done lots of backpacking & knew what to expect but after a week I'd had enough.I've not been back...

[gremlin]

Currently sat in The Maldives.



Mrs. G wants to go back to the Maldives, but if I'm honest I found it a bit dull (and I scuba dive and snorkel, which I did most days. Without that I'd have gone a bit stir crazy). Hence we (I) started looking at alternatives. I may be swayed by a trip to the Maldives via a few days or so in India, maybe just to get over the galloping gut-rot that sounds inevitable.

Or somewhere completely different. I have no idea.

[Bustaspoke]

maybe just to get over the galloping gut-rot that sounds inevitable.

I've been to various parts of the world with a reputation for poor hygene,but the only place that properly floored me was India.The Doc thought I had dysentry

[Count Steer]

maybe just to get over the galloping gut-rot that sounds inevitable.

I've been to various parts of the world with a reputation for poor hygene,but the only place that properly floored me was India.The Doc thought I had dysentry

Friends daughter got hospitalised with something dysentry adjacent on an India adventure.

My wife worked with a (pretty wealthy so not likely to be eating street food) Indian woman doctor and she said she took stuff like her own cutlery when she visited India!

A colleague of mine borrowed my water filter to make up baby food when he took his firstborn there for a visit.

(Not India but another couple of friends did one of those hols on a traditional boat on the Nile....and went swimming in it.

When I saw him some time after he'd been on antibiotics for something like a chest infection. He said the chest thing was much better but, for the first time in ~2 months since the holiday, he didn't have gippy guts. ).

[gremlin]

Egypt - went scuba diving.

A few days later shitting through the eye of Cleopatra's needle.

A few days after that came the blistered scabs around my face and up my nose, followed by a hacking cough.

Doctor noticed my tan and ask where I'd been and what I'd done. I told him and he diagnosed some kind of infection from the lagoon water where the boats dump the toilets straight into the sea. He gave me some very strong antibiotics and some sage advice: never go to Egypt again.

[v8-powered]

Currently sat in The Maldives.



Mrs. G wants to go back to the Maldives, but if I'm honest I found it a bit dull (and I scuba dive and snorkel, which I did most days. Without that I'd have gone a bit stir crazy). Hence we (I) started looking at alternatives. I may be swayed by a trip to the Maldives via a few days or so in India, maybe just to get over the galloping gut-rot that sounds inevitable.

Or somewhere completely different. I have no idea.

Yeah, same - we are on the reef twice a day currently, luckily the island has a really.nice house reef 20m from our floaty villa thing.
Any more than 7 days would be a nightmare....