Gps

Do travellers in India use GPS receivers. Would it be helpful if people posted co-ordinates of recommended guesthouses etc. to avoid confusion with many having the same name? Also if people could post location of good tourist sites.

Hi Laloo

Yes, I always carry one in case I get get lost in the backstreets of Paharganj and then have to pay somebody to guide me back to my hotel!

I'm not being serious here. Are you?

I have seen some going-to-the-north-pole stories which all include the same scene towards the end : skiers totally ignoring their surroundings , hunched over a 2 inch GPS screen as they slowly nudge their way to the exact right spot. It would be fun to see angrezis moving in the same manner towards the Pahar Ganj waypoint.

But I have been long attracted to the idea of using a GPS myself , being a map junkie ( I write this facing a wall completely covered by maps except for some travel books) I have long dreamt of making or upgrading maps. My first map of my home mountains have long since ceased to being able to survive in the field since I find it impossible to protect the map because this makes it impossible to mark the path of a avalanche , favourite tent sites , a good ford or a nice patch of cloudberries...

Using a GPS would make it easy , for example, to upgrade the online maps of the Himalayas (which are far better than any of the maps that are sold in Ladakh) with the new roads : just click in a new waypoint when the road changes direction. This raises the interesting question of how sensitive this kind of activity is. I would think twice before flashing a GPS unit before border troops in Ladakh or NWFP . So yes , I would also be interested to hear experiences from users.

I had a vague memory that was confirmed by a search : Stan Armington (still trekking...!) have combined maps with GPS data in his latest Nepal Trekking guide.

To be serious, the only traveller I have met with a GPS in the sub-continent was a trekker in Nepal and he didn't seem too happy with the reading he was getting!

I would like to help you with your dream, or should I say, I have one hell of a challenge for you.

On the map link you provided us with, go to map NG 46-14 jpg.

In the following 'boxes' are the towns listed below, I would like to cycle between them in 2004 (feb-march) but need a good map, this map is fantastic, but things have changed since 1955, roads, rivers and hills are the things I would be most interested in.

Kumarghat 323/78
Dharmanagar 324/81
Dullabchara 326/81
Bhairabi 328/78

I would be happy to pay for such a map (printed or cd-rom) and it could be the start of a whole new business for you.

Is this the kind of thing you were thinking of ?

Do you think you could do this by 2004 ?

I took mine but had no clues how to set it there so it was one more wacky gadget for the Fornen son in law..

The map aaah.. i could see why you picked this area. Let`s hope that some of the "dense mixed jungle" is still thriving.
I`ll have a short vacation in my home mountains this year (in three weeks) and hopefully will return to Asia (india or Tibet) next year so I can just add some more (geek) dreams.

Printed or CD ? I could think of a few interesting presentations :

*saving in Photoshop format : use the original map as one layer, add new layers ( road layers for cyclists , richer terrain info for trekkers, seasonal information etc) - let the user decide which layers should be visible when printing out.

* by varying your way up and down your favourite hill (I was thinking of this in McLeod) you establish some contour lines, make a simple model (print out the contour lines, put them on top of polystyrene foam , cut & pile) . Put the pictures of the model thru the paces of a 3D program and you have a twirlable model on the homepage.

* save the map in HTML with links on the map to your pics.

Well , it`s all talk and no workshop for the time being.
Maybe this is something that would work best by pooling information - "open source mapping" ?

Some great ideas, how would you get updated information, I cant see much of Highway 44 (Karimganj - Agartala).

Brilliant, GPS now why did'nt I think of that? I'll almost certainly be able to "find myself" in India now!!!

Global Positioning information about public toilets in the major Indian cities is long overdue. I hear civil GPS is accurate to within 50m now, which is probably close enough.

Don`t forget the transponder - otherwise you are still lost.