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Tips on India Travel

Health

The country of India is usually covered with the same kind of health risks all over. The most important risk of health from the mosquitoes is malaria, encephalitis, and dengue. Cover your arms and legs liberally with a repellent in the problem areas. Avoid traveller’s diarrhoea by not eating green salads, uncooked food, and water that you did not purify by dropping an iodine pill. Carrying a sunscreen with a minimum SPF 20 will help you escape sunburn. Take along some prescription drugs to be safe.

Weights & Measures

India uses the metric system where 100cm=1meter; 1000meters=1km, liquids are measured in litres and solids in kilograms.

Customs & Duties If you are around 17 years you can import these following things without duty:

200 cigarettes or 50 cigars or 250 grams of tobacco, a litre of alcoholic drink, 250 ml perfume, gifts for a value of around 4000 rupees, gifts up to a value of Rupees 6000 and articles of personal use. It is always good to check with the authorities for more specific details. It is considered illegal to carry drugs, gold and silver.

Post & Communications

Postal services in India is quite good. Letters have to be marked "Air Mail" or "Par Avion". It takes around a week to 10 days for the letters to reach UK and the US from major cities in India.

"Cyber cafes" are on the increase in the urban spaces of India. They are these days also available in the smaller towns. The price differs lfrom palce to place but the good part of it is that you can check the mail and surf the net there.

Tipping

It is a kind of a custom to hand a tip of around 10% of the bill in restaurants. The cab people need not be tipped. In places like dhaba’s even loose change is appreciated gratefully. For carrying lugguage around the railway station Coolies need to paid; always make sure to negotiate before they are hired. English Language Media

It is not really difficult to find an English newspaper in India. There are many major newspapers and many of them have multiple editions and one on the net. There are also many news magazines available.

Cable TV is very popular in India. Even the small towns have network with dish antenna’s. You can watch channels like BBC World Service and CNN which have the latest world news. FM has also caught up well in the metros with music of all sorts. English music is also available.