The Ref Stop

Travelling to Sub Continent

Sheffields Finest

Maybe I'm foolish, maybe I'm blind!
Level 7 Referee
Got a business trip to New Delhi on Monday, anyone been there before and can offer any do's or don't dont's?
Never been so far east so it will be a whole new adventure... Stunning opportunity with a company who have 55% of the Indian car market in a country with 1.3 billion people and over 1000 cities!!!
 
The Ref Stop
If you can extend the trip even a little then getting out to the Taj Mahal is really very special indeed! Have pens / sweets to give to the begging kids instead of cash. And the Carlsberg Elephant is a particularly fine beer :)
 
I'm told that the Taj Mahal is about 4 hours drive away, but its only a 4 day trip!! Hopefully we can sink some cold ones though if its hot and muggy!!!
 
The company I'm meeting are sending a chauffeur driver to the airport to pick two of us up.... Now is that a Limousine or a rickshaw i'm not sure!
 
Don't drink the water!!! All hotel rooms have plenty of bottled water so make sure you use that to clean your teeth. I was in a 5 star hotel, but the first time I turned the cold tap on what came out had a brown tinge and was slightly thicker than I was expecting! Make sure you have plenty of Imodium: I cleaned out my local Asda.

Don't have ice in cold drinks, because it's often made using frozen tap water. The same with salad. When you go out, make sure you put some toilet roll in your pocket in case you get caught short, because not all toilets have it in, especially outside the main parts of the cities. I had business in the south and would definitely have wanted to know that before I went!

The traffic is incredible and there is no highway code as we know it, especially outside of Delhi. I saw a motorcycle pulled over with four people on, and the reason they stopped them was that they weren't all wearing crash helmets! They were ok with the number of people. Outside Delhi they wouldn't have stopped them at all. The chauffeur picking you up will earn his money. The car will go through spaces you don't think are big enough for a bike!

See how many people you can see on a tuk-tuk. The most I saw was 15! ( A tuk-tuk is a tiny Piaggio truck used for carrying people round. They cram incredible numbers of people in them) It's normal to see 12 people in one. I saw 14 on one, but two of these were banging drums and everyone, including the driver, was dancing!

When you are flying over, if you have a window seat try to be awake when you go over the Himalayas. The view is stunning, especially if like me you have the computer screen showing how high you are. We were only over the foothills but they still weren't that far below us at 30,000 feet.

This year isn't as hot as last year - it's struggling to reach 45C at the moment! Definitely don't forget the factor 50.

I don't know who you're going with, so don't take this the wrong way, but public shows of affection are definitely frowned on! I was lucky enough to go to the Taj Mahal, and we stopped at services on the motorway. A couple of tourists were kissing beside their car and my driver was worried that locals would see them and kill them (literally - they lynch people in some areas for this)

Make sure you have extra memory cards for your camera. Enjoy the experience. It is incredible, especially if you have not been anywhere like it before - I found Istanbul amazing, but India is a whole new level!

Don't drink the water!!!!
 
Thanks MarkRef, thats just what i needed! I don't think we are going far out of Delhi and Gurugram, more business than pleasure!
 
Don't drink the water.....this trip sounds better and better.....hope you have the company credit card.......
 
Don't drink the water.....this trip sounds better and better.....hope you have the company credit card.......
Well Minty, you are from Hull. We all know what colour the Humber is, and it is not clear. The water cannot be any worse than that great river! :poop::drown::wtf:
 
Kingston upon Hull sits on the River Hull, although Minty has been known to take a dip the Royal toe into the blessed watter!!!
 
I've been travelling a couple of times a year to India for the last 15 years. If you can, stick to eating local food, and in my experience even street food is fine. The worst thing you could choose to eat is a club sandwich (which is a fairly common emergency fallback for food when travelling). Whether its the mayonnaise or the salad, something will get you. In my early days I would guarantee a bad stomach whilst out there (the worst being when a member of cabin crew in Club came up to me and asked me whether I needed any tummy tablets, as they had seen I had spent most of my time in the toilet...). Since those days, I've adjusted my travel diet and haven't had an upset stomach travelling for about five years. I still always carry Imodium and a pack of Aloe toilet paper and wet wipes though. Don't be put off by the very "raw" conditions that some people live in, as you are driven around the city. Keep the windows up in the car - both for air quality and security. It's an amazing place, your senses will be overloaded - but try and keep and eye out for instances of jugaad (do a Google image search...). Enjoy it, have a great time, and remember the feeling that you will experience as you get on the return flight and take your seat to come home!
 
Visa $75 - check, Visa Photo £7 - Check, Imodium - Check, Sunscreen - check, Wetwipes - check, Indian Socket - check, Bank notified - check, Thanks for all the advice chaps!
 
WOW, what a contrast between the new part of S W Dehli called Gurugram Cyber City and the absolute desolation and poverty of the industrial sector areas not 2 miles away. The people were lovely and hospitable but the driving techniques and road craft were a sight to behold. You got used to the traffic but i'm really not surprised that 100,000 are killed on their roads every year, should be many many more. We did see 16 on many Tut Tuts but seeing elderly women riding side saddle as a pillion passenger on a motorbike using no hands was a shock too. Lots of work happening there but they are 50 years behind at least in many areas. 35C and the humidity was bearable but i definitely wouldn't go there for a holiday!!! I never thought id ever see modern day slavery but I did and it wasn't nice. Hard for us to lecture though to them though... Lets see if this leads to more business, you've got to be in it to win it as they say!!! (Thanks for all advice, no Dehli belly or getting caught short) :(
 
I went to an exhibition at Gurugram, so I travelled there each day from my hotel and the poverty on the road side is incredible, but it's not just people without work who live in these places. We were driving down the motorway and there was a block of flats - four storeys and ten flats across each storey - with a complete wall missing facing the motorway. Some of the flats had curtains across, while many didn't and you could see inside the flat to see who was living there. Whole families were living in a single room, some of them shielded by the curtain but most open to the elements, even four storeys up. I was about to mention to my colleague that I couldn't comprehend how people could live like that when he told me that he had lived in there until three weeks before! He took me home to meet his family and show me where he now lives and it is a "normal" (for the west) flat in a compound. He is a senior manager for a multi-national company, running our Delhi office. He said that they had bought their new flat several years before and had been waiting for it to be completed so that they could move in. (All the new builds have gated compounds and security for anyone trying to get in, especially in the North.)

I think they are getting there but it will take decades because there are so many people who all want homes and they can't build them fast enough. The population is growing faster than their ability to look after it.

As an aside, my friend who does a lot of travelling round Asia told me that Bangladesh is a lot less advanced than India, and the roads are really dangerous!!!....
 
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