10 Things to Be Ready For When Traveling To India

Full disclosure: India was one of my least favorite trips. This list started out as a list of things I found surprising when traveling in India but a friend of mine pointed out that a lot of the things come across as negative. My intention is not to be hard on India, but these were just some things that I wasn't expecting.

1. I was unaware that "smoke" was a forecast. I'm familiar with cloudy, rainy, sunny, and maybe a few others, but seeing this forecast took me by surprise. But boy, was it accurate!

2. India was much colder than I expected. My packing list included shorts and light shirts but when we checked the forecast days before we left, I started scrambling to figure out what to wear since it was going to be a high of 71 F for most of our trip. 

3. It seemed that wherever we went, people wanted to take photos with us. It was mostly fun (I only turned down a photo op once when we were really short on time), although I preferred when people would ask to take photos with us rather than trying to sneak one. 

4. I've travelled to countries where there are a lot of stray dogs on the streets but I was still surprised to see so many animals on the street, especially cows, goats, pigs, plus loads of dogs and puppies. To my surprise, we did not see very many cats. 

5. I brought some food along with me but I incorrectly assumed we would find a grocery store or bodega to buy snacks at some point. The most we found were little stands selling dusty bags of expired chips, a few candy bars, and soda/water. 

A typical stand with provisions

6. I've been really bad lately with trying to learn the local language before traveling and in preparation for this trip had read that we'd be able to get by with just English in India. However, this is one trip where I wish I had studied the language a bit beforehand. I was surprised at how difficult it was to communicate in English with taxi/tuk tuk drivers, hotel staff, and others we came into contact with.

An example of a tuk tuk that we used several times in India

7. As an American I am very familiar with disposable cups, but I was surprised that the disposable cups in India were handmade out of clay! People would drink chai out of little cups and then smash them on the ground. The lassi place we went to in Varanasi used larger versions of the disposable clay cups. 

8. My brother-in-law was really looking forward to eating a bunch of samosas, but surprisingly we never found them on a menu. We saw a lot of them being made and sold at street vendors but we read beforehand to avoid eating street food. 

One of the fancy, non street food establishments we tried

9. Horn honking is encouraged by other drivers to alert as you pass them. I now see how necessary it is because drivers don't stick to one lane and it sometimes felt like a game of Mario Kart. 

10. Bombay belly is real. I had hoped that I could avoid stomach issues by eating at reputable restaurants, taking probiotics, and drinking a lot of lassi. I discovered how wrong I was as I puked my guts out in our hotel lobby in Mumbai. Amazingly, Mumbai is still my favorite city even after missing half our time there due to illness. Here I am looking pretty rough with the only thing I could keep down for a few days, 7Up.