Feb 13 2009

Don't Forget Your Visa (Part II)

This is all about money, what to take and specifically Visa debit cards.

When I last went to India, shortly after Dinosaurs became extinct, I took lots of Traveller's Cheques, but these days there's no real need to take loads, just take some backup.

Everyone on IndiaMike seems to take their ATM card and use that, but some complain of high charges from their own bank when doing this. They draw out enough money for the next couple of days just like at home.

But what about the hefty bank charges? I checked my providers, Nationwide, and they state that there will be no charge for withdrawals in India, or anywhere else for that matter. Great. The card is a Visa debit card so it will be accepted anywhere.

But what if the machine swallows the card? I guess I'll take a backup card and some Traveller's Cheques. I could always get cash out on my credit card if I was really stuck.

But how many ATMs are there in India? The answer is loads but of course, there's an article on IndiaMike about the location of ATM's in India.

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Feb 12 2009

Don't Forget Your Visa (Part I)

In the fury of planning your holiday some people forget almost the single most important thing: a visa to get into the country. If you don't have it, "you ain't coming in, not tonight son, your name's not down". (Sorry, slipped into remembering my abortive attempts at getting into nightclubs when too young, claiming I was on the guess list.)

Before you start wondering about getting a visa, you have got a passport, haven't you? Also this article only deals with my experience of a UK national getting a tourist visa for India.

Few IndiaMikers can forget the legend of Boston Harry and the Expired Passport, but it just goes to prove that you can get caught up in lesser important stuff like "how many ATMs are there", "how should I carry my money around" etc.

For me the visa situation was plain and simple but it was the one thing that gained a huge sigh of relief when it was completed. You just don't know what reasons may be taken into account and what information do they have? Do they dislike members of Amnesty International or Greenpeace? Will they know that I downloaded a copy of Slumdog Millionaire? Of course, I didn't actually do this, that's illegal isn't it?, but I do belong to both Amnesty and Greenpeace, but I've got my visa so who cares?

Applying Online

A first glance at the form on the VFS Global India Visa web site, leads to confusion with questions like "I don't have the names for any referees in India". But applying couldn't be simpler. The form has many pages but each one has a help page which is well worth reading first. Hey, even I read it and I'm a bloke and an geeky IT person to boot. Of course, if you run into confusion/trouble there's a visa section on IndiaMike all about it with a particularly good Q&A article for people in the UK applying for a visa.

When To Apply

I would have happily applied as soon as I booked my flights but I couldn't apply that early. I only wanted a six month single-entry tourist visa but the visa starts from the time they put it in your passport. Really you need to apply within six months of the date you'll arrive back in your home country, otherwise it will run out before you return. The turnaround time for me was 8 days, including posting both ways, and that's for four passports/visas.

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Feb 12 2009

Preparing The Kids (Part IV) - Food

For years it's been the same old cries of 'Macaroni Cheese please Mum' followed by 'I hate that can I have sausages please'. For those of you that know us, you'll know which kid said which!

As soon as we mentioned about going to India things changed and an interest grew in all things curried. But how do you start introducing such food without wanting to cook a decent meal and then having to hurriedly cook something else (maccy cheese / sausages).

I dreamt up 'International Food Day' where we'd spend all afternoon with the kids preparing a dinner that they would eat. Generally we'd cook a few main courses and buy in a few starters. This approach went very well although International Food Day only made it over to China once before the kids said "can we have curry again". Good news, they're hooked.

Next, on one of their school's teacher training days, I took them to Cafe Tusk in Fareham. A great restaurant with an always on, all you can eat buffet, with a great selection of food. The best bit being the price: lunchtime for adults is only £6.99, for kids under 10 it's only £3.50. This turned out to be a great idea as it allowed them to try a very small bit of many different foods before filling up on the newly discovered preferences: Amy, anything Tikka; Emilia, Korma and Bhuna.

Since then the Winchcombe Sunday Roast has been replaced by Curry Sunday where Emilia and I have prepared loads of new dishes, even down to Puris and Chicken Cafreal. The best bit for me was a couple of weeks ago when whilst chopping chillies I tried to get them to eat a bit of raw chilly. Emilia tried it straight away, Amy more hesitant, Jane even more so. After the dish was cooked and contained large slices of green chillies, Emilia tucked in saying 'they're not that hot'. Good girl!

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Feb 11 2009

Preparing The Kids (Part III) - TV

Luckily, England has a fascination of India and this extends into our television programmes, including documentaries about cities/wildlife/travel/religion/gardens and children's educational programmes.

So armed with a Windows Media Center that will record any programme containing (in it's title or description) the words 'India', 'Rajasthan', 'Tiger' and 'Maha'*, we've ended up with loads to watch over the last nine months or so. Some of this is very good stuff for the kids, others not.

  • Firstly, there's a wealth of regular programmes that have 10 minutes on India. Usually not very informative, they're still worth watching. This include holiday programmes like Holiday Showdown and other holiday shows, one-off wildlife documentaries.
  • Primary Geography is a series of 10-15 minute children's educational programmes all about kids in India. There's an overview programme, one about Kerala, one about Rajasthan and many more. The Rajasthan one included footage of a boy who lived in the area near Sam/Khuri desert and another part featuring the niece of the current Maharaja of Jodphur.
  • Paul Merton In India was quite a good series where Paul saw some of the more unusual/eccentric elements of the country. I thought it was done quite well as at he always promoted the activities with an open eye, daunted at first, respectful at the end.
  • Tiger, Spy In The Jungle was a series following tigers within Pench Tiger Reserve in Maharastra. As with all BBC and Sir David Attenborough the quality and content are superb.
  • India with Sanjeev Bhaskar. For me the jury is out on this one and it's interesting that the first site I found (linked in on the left) felt the same way. I like Sanjeev as a comedian but as a documentary lead I just found him a bit too up himself. Unlike, Merton, he didn't seem to want to get too close to the locals, apart from when he was retracing his ancestry to Pakistan. Still, there's great footage includingn interesting time spotting tigers, in Pench, where it took him two weeks to find a tiger. Funnily enough this series was shown on TV at the same time as Tiger Spy In The Jungle, so perhaps Sanjeev should have followed Sir David around, he may have had better luck.
  • Michael Wood The Story Of India. A bit too old for the kids but we showed them the more interesting parts.

The BBC has a list of India & Pakistan related shows, most of which are finished but are bound to be repeated.

I thoroughly enjoyed most of the TV shows listed above too, but I was on a roll with the title 'Preparing The Kids' so I couldn't rename it halfyway through!!!


* keyword of Maha was included just in case Mahabharata ever turned up again on telly. Having read the book in 1996 it's never been back on TV.

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Feb 08 2009

Preparing The Kids (Part II) - Films

It seemed important that the kids could see glimpses of India before they went as with only Europe as a reference, they'd be in for a quite a shock.

Over the years I've bought a couple of videos - videos eh? remember them? - about India so we decided to go through them.

One's to mention are

  • City Of Joy. I didn't care for this film very much but I rate the book as my favourite read, so much so that I bought it last week from Amazon after lending my original and never getting it back. The film does show some stuff that the kids might be horrified by (violence, scams, muggings, leprosy) but they got through it. A few questions, mainly about leprosy, later they were fine. It was a good introduction for two trusting kids on the art of scamming.
  • Gandhi. I felt it important that they know about Gandhi and this was the best (infact only) introduction to him I could give. I'd forgotten how long this film was - over three hours - so we did it over four days as it is hardly fascinating viewing for an 8 year old. It took four days as we only managed to watch 45 minutes a day, but each 45 minutes actually took 75 minutes, what with numerous pauses/questions.
  • The Darjeeling Limited. A slightly boring film for the kids but it's got lots of train footage in it and the train travel footage is mainly shot around Jodhpur in Rajasthan.
  • Slumdog Millionnaire.. What! It's not yet out of DVD so how did they get into the cinema? Of course, they didn't and there's no other way they could have watched it... is there (Wink) ? All I can say is that if they had have watched it they would have thought that: lovely film; slightly gruesome but not worrying; really makes them want to go to India more; Mumbai looks huge; looking forward to train travel; be careful buying water, check no glue round cap;wish they were Milyunaires.

Tonight, we're going to watch The Fall as it is partially shot in Jodhpur.

UPDATE: 9th Feb...wow, the locations and cinematography are fantastic but....the film?...I'm not so sure. Check out this site about all the locations in the The Fall.

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Feb 06 2009

Preparing The Kids (Part I) - Books

Whilst planning this trip I've found loads for me to read. Be it, my old Lonely Planet India, the new Rough Guide of Rajasthan/Delhi/Agra, the AA Guide to India bought for me by Secret Santa, let along the gerzillion or so articles I've read on IndiaMike. All of this is factual stuff I need for booking hotels, trains, blah blah blah. I've started buying myself some India related novels (City Of Joy, White Tiger, English August, Last Song At Dusk, Above Average) through Amazon as they're so cheap.

But what about the kids?

Today I happened across a site which I've found very useful to find a list of books that the kids might actually enjoy: http://www.travelforkids.com/Funtodo/India/india.htm

It's got lists of books recommended for children and thanks to Amazon's used book sellers I've bought a fair few of them, mostly for under £3 each including delivery.

Here's what I've bought:

 

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Feb 01 2009

When is the Right Time to Book Flights?

It's always difficult to know when to book the flights; is it best to book early or leave it until the last minute?

I booked ours in September before the sale ran out on 27th September 2008.

Since then once a month I've been checking the flights and both British Airways and Virgin had 'sales' in September and December/January. At this time the flight prices dropped by 25%. At other times the prices have reverted back but now, with 8 weeks to go, they have dropped a little, but not below the sale price.

Eight weeks to go and it seems I can still book for four of us on almost the dates I wanted, I'd just have to return one day later as the flight out is okay but not the one back. The price is 13% higher than what I paid.

So it seems that booking six months ahead saves you money and you get the availability that suits your needs exactly.

Price Check Information:

  • September (6 months to go), sale on, lots of availability, bought tickets
  • October (5 months to go), 'normal' price, 33% higher that 'sale' price, availability okay
  • November (4 months to go), 'normal' price, availability okay
  • December (3 months to go), sale on, same price as I paid, availability okay
  • January (2 months to go), sale on, same price as I paid, availability getting less
  • February, (1.5 months to go), price seems to be coming down, now 15% lower than the 'normal' price but still 13% higher than the 'sale' price

 

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Jan 31 2009

Jab After Jab After Jab: What A Day!

Today saw the first round of inoculations for us all.

Jane and I hadn't been anywhere far off for some years - have I said that before? - so we needed pretty much everything going. The girls had been jabbed a few times throughout their life so were saved a few inoculations, although typically certain jabs for children can't be combined so they ended up needing exactly the same number of needles.

For those who are thinking about travelling to India here's the recommendations made by our travel clinic. Obviously this advice was specifically for us after they found out our itinerary, destinations, accomodation:

  • Diptheria
  • Tetanus
  • Polio
  • Typhoid
  • Hepatitis A
  • Hepatitis B - this was mainly recommended because we are going for over a couple of weeks and we're going to wildlife parks.
We were not recommended Malaria tablets as our destination was in the 'low to no risk' zone shown in NHS's Fit For Travel Malaria Map For India. They gave me a grilling about what I'd be doing to prevent getting bitten in the first place; good on them for this; I passed the test.
I asked about a rabies jab - as I'd read a few reports about this recently - but it's not free on the NHS, it costs £120 per person, so I decided the risk didn't equate to the £480 I'd need to spend.

A few weeks ago I had an appointment with the local travel NHS clinic and it was decided that the following were needed:

  • Adults: Diptheria/Tetanus/Polio (1 jab), Typoid/Hepatitis A (1 jab), Hepatitis B (course of 3 jabs)
  • Kids: Typoid (1 jab), Hepatitis A (1 jab), Hepatitis B (course of 3 jabs)

In round 1 (today) it was three jabs each. Round 2 (in a week) sees us all have a single Hep B jab. Round 3, the same, a week later. After that we'll go on holiday, come back and a few months later have boosters for (I think but it's all blurring) Hep B and Typoid which will last something like 20 years.

Now for those of though that don't know us, Jane is not good with needles. Fainting is common occurrence where needles or blood are concerned.

So it was no suprise that all day long poor old Emilia was worrying herself to death: she couldn't remember having injections before but was confident it was really going to hurt. All day long we had chats about and I tried to stop her worries but to no avail.

In the clinic we all went in together and I tried to convince Emilia to go first to get it out of the way. She was having none of it.

"No Dad you go first". I did and saw Amy in awe, "wow look at that". I always knew Amy would get through this like water of a duck's back.

Then Emilia, *panic* *panic*, all done in a minute, no pain, no moaning, good girl.

Then nonchalant Amy had her turn. No problem, sat on my lap, got her jabs and then...she went very quiet. Beads of sweat started appearing on her top lip, my hand on her shoulder started getting very warm. A few minutes of head between your legs time and she was feeling much better.

Jane's turn had arrived. "Oh no" I thought here we go again, but luckily she was okay.

Roll on next Friday....arrrgghhh!!!

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Jan 14 2009

Booking Trains

In England you don't really need to book a train, you just turn up, hand over a lung, kidney or your left arm, and you're on the train.

In India you really need to book in advance, up to 91 days in advance, to make sure you can travel on the day you want to and in the class of train you want. This is a great advert for how public transport in England needs to transform: lower the prices, get people booking up early and make sure all your trains are full.

For more information about trains see this earlier blog entry: How Do You Want To Travel Around? 

The web site for booking India trains direct is www.irctc.co.in and it's fairly straightforward to use, albeit a little quirky. TOP TIP: when trying to pay by credit card select the AXIS bank as it accepts international credit cards.

IRCTC is no good for trying to find the train you wish to book. To do this use a combination of www.erail.in and http://indiarailinfo.com as they're much more user friendly. The site www.erail.in is my favourite for layout but indiarailinfo.com tells you the average delay times. TOP TIP: the shorter the journey a train has before your station of departure the more likely it'll be on time, especially if it starts at that station.

I'll focus now on www.erail.in as I used it the most.

Enter the start and stop stations and get a list of trains:



Select the train that suits your day of travel - in this example I chose the 2966. The information about the train, the stations, the cost per person in the different classes appears. Note that children under 12 (I think) only pay half the fare shown. So it costs one adult about £4 in sleeper class or £20 in luxurious first class sleeper, for 435 kilometres. If you're a family of four, like us, you'll pay about £50 to travel overnight on this route a first class cabin of your own, with a lock on it!


 

You can even see the whole route the train takes:



Now you need to decide which class of travel you're interested in by clicking the AV hyperlink in the relevant class column, e.g 1A, 2A, 3A, SL. The availability for that class and the class below it appear for the date you have selected for and a few days afterward. (For this picture I've picked a different train, one that's pretty well booked up.)

Looks fairly complicated but it's not really. Here's a rough explanation but to find out more have a good read of the brilliant article by Indiamike's steven_ber called Indian Railways RAC and Waitlists concepts explained.

  • AVAILABLE-0004 and AVAILABLE-0006 means that there are currently 4 seats (in class 2A) and 6 seats (in class 3A) available on the train for 24/2/2009. If you book now you'll get confirmed seat numbers and a (pretty much) definite place on the train.
  • NOTE: at this point I'm happy to say that I booked up all my tickets three months in advance and all the ones I wanted were available. So I've never had to go through what is explained below. I hope I've got the explaination right!
  • RAC2/RAC2 means that you will be buying a ticket which is 'reserved against cancellation'. This means that you will get on the train but may not get a berth, you may just get a seat, unless there's a cancellation.
  • WL8/WL6 and WL19/WL11 means that there is a waiting list on the train on 21/2/2009, beyond the RAC status tickets. The first set of numbers (WL8 and WL19) indicate the number of wait list tickets sold. It's not as important as the second set of numbers which indicate where you are in the queue.
  • Wait Lists - think of it like this: you join a queue for Wimbledon tickets for the match in a month's time, there's 100 tickets available and 110 people in front of you, you want 2 tickets. The confirmed tickets go to the first 100 people. You buy two wait list tickets WL111 and WL112 and wait. A few days later two people who bought WL104 and WL105 realise they can't go and pull out, even though they haven't actually got a ticket anyway. Your tickets become WL111/WL109 and WL112/WL110; you've moved up two places in the queue. With a week to go a block booking pulls out and suddenly there's after 15 tickets to be allocated to the next 15 in the wait list queue, that'll be you then; your tickets become WL111/CNF and WL112/CNF but you don't know where you're going to sit. On the match day the seating charts are prepared an hour or so before the game and you find out where you're sitting. Simple.

 

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Dec 06 2008

Booking A Car + Driver

The idea of booking a taxi (car and a driver) for a few days or weeks seem quite strange to someone in England. Once when I missed the last bus home from the local town it cost 20 pounds to travel the six miles, so how much would hiring a driver for a couple of weeks cost?

With the help of Indiamike.com I gathered together a list of reputable companies and eventually decided which ones to contact.

Aided by information provided by Namaste India Tours, I'd done my homework first, knew my exact route, when/where I'd arrive, what sort of hotels I preferred and what sort of vehicle was most suitable.

So a couple of emails to a few companies and I had quotes for the cost of the travel. All of the operators offer a travel+hotels option where you say which class of hotel you prefer and they come up with a list of suggestions. Some of them don't define the actual hotel you'll be in and that was fine with us, after all we've got a driver to take us wherever we want, so as long as the hotel is okay, we'll be fine.

The best thing about this service (from any of the operators we got quotes from) is that you pay absolutely nothing up-front, you just have to pay before the trip actually commences. Some don't even worry about this, you pay part way through your tour.

For those cynics out there, the cost of the trip includes wages, food and accomodation for the driver, he doesn't sleep in the car!

And the cost of all this:

  • 10 nights hotel, 10 days touring around including petrol/parking/taxes/driver: about £800
  • That's for all of us, not one of us. The hotels all have air-con, some have pools, some don't.

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