India in 4 days and already feeling overwhelmed!

zilali

I'm leaving for india on saturday morning and me being an idiot have basically left everything till the last minute. I only got my visa a few days ago, i'm getting my injections the day before I leave and have no itinerary to speak of.

I'm usually used to quite laid back travelling where I turn up at a place, speak to fellow travellers and decide to go from there. But i'm slightly worried I might need to start booking trains and hostels before I go. I don;t want to be tied down by bookings but I also dont want to be stuck in dehli for a week before I can leave.

Is it really that tight on bookings in India or is it just during the busy season?

Khak

assuming that you have at least booked air tickets, what is your airport of entry/exit to start with

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~Khak~

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

zilali

I have three weeks in India and arrive and leave from Dehli? I'm meeting a friend in dehli right at the end of my trip so would prefer not to spend to long waiting around. I fly in a 3am but was vaguely planning on sleeping in the airport until the first train out.

My friend Goo

Don't worry about it. There's always ways

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machadinha

<cross-posting>

A hotel you'll normally always find. May not be precisely what you'd had in mind, of course (whether way too up- or too low-scale.) I found mine, and at a budget but not entirely dump level, usually fine earlier this year really. What I would often do and if I thought of it or could be bothered is give them a ring ahead before going to a given town. Landing there, this may also not be a bad idea. (Although in a place like Delhi for instance, I'd be very certain of finding a bed in Paharganj if I just rocked up there. Notably Mumbai is harder on this; the chance of you sleeping outside would still be very slim if not practically non-existent though. It might arguably eat into your budget, but then Mumbai's expensive to stay anyway.)

You'll be fine just looking for a hotel on arrival in most any place though (well, again, with the exception of Mumbai, ahem; although it certainly can be done even there); of course, it's mostly the carrying around your pack in the heat and not really sure of where you're going, and finding a place or two that are full, etc., that will be a pain. Asking people around you for tips will never hurt either, of course (arguably and possibly easier done for someone like me who's been a few times now; I think I was shier with it before, and perhaps less certain of who to ask, and etc.)

For transport, there'll always be a ride to somewhere at least; you may find yourself on the occasional unreserved train cabin (which can in fact be uncomfortable, if not to say sheer hell. At other times, it will be fine though.) Also, buses are usually fairly easy to get on the spot; it never hurts to make enquiries as soon as you have a rough idea of when you'll want to be leaving a given place, of course. And you may have to adjust your schedule to what's available, yes, of course.

Also, this shouldn't be anything like high season (unless there's some Indian holidays going on; and except for the mountains, maybe), so that should help.

I wouldn't panic so much, and besides, there's not a lot to do about it at this stage anyway. You seem to have planned to take it as it comes; and the pre-departure jitters are perfectly natural; I'd say just go ahead and see what happens

Remember it can be a difficult country to appreciate at first to many of us, certainly in any of those mad metros where you'll naturally land (as many have aptly described the sensation, "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore!" -- after the Wizard of Oz, of course); don't let first impressions put you off, and allow yourself some time to "get going" and on the move (and don't demand too much of yourself those first days in terms of having to love it straightaway, or even to understand much of where the blurdy hell you've ended up this time); while there are some who take the first flight back home, many of us learn to love it as we go along.

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Reading tips, all picked up at IndiaMike : INDAX's A Comprehensive Guide To India / Dinoj Surendran's Desi Humor / ITHVC on Culture Shock & Travel Health / JetLag Travel Guides For the Undiscerning Traveller / India Travel Links

zilali

I guess my main concerns with hotels is finding places where it will be easy to meet fellow back packers, as for the most part I will be traveling by myself.

I have traveled independently before but found in some countries (e.g Syria and Morroco) there is not so much of a hostel culture, so you need to know the right places to go to meet people.

Is it like this in India. i.e. would it be worth buying the latest lonely planet to find these backpacking meeting places and book a few days before?

machadinha

Taking the LP or some such guidebook would be helpful, yes, of course. Just don't make the common mistake of sticking your nose in it for the duration of your stay (or go only where they advise or mention, then). I find Lonely Planet in particular pretty good for background historical and cultural information though, and I'm one of those who tends to like to know what they're looking at.

I guess along the tourist trail those backpacker places will be hard to miss, people will just naturally gyrate towards them. (And asking folks like yourself will be a sure-fire method, yes, of course. Although I find that natural "we're all in this together" backpacker culture somewhat lacking these days, there's a lot of egos running around out there; but there's plenty of nice folks on the road still, sure.) And then as soon as you leave that trail, they'll be very scarce if not non-existent.

I've never noticed much middle grounds inbetween there. Although you may always run into a pleasant surprise, of course, veering to the one or the other end of the spectrum.

(I don't know, on my last trip earlier this year I was very happy to steer clear of most of that scene. So maybe I'm just not the right one to comment at this stage. I'm sure that scene still exists though; and I did run into bits and pieces of it; not even and certainly not always to my displeasure. Like I said, there's always plenty of nice people among them, too, how wouldn't there be. In fact, I might very well and reasonably consider myself one of them; but then that's sadly not always how those "comrades" <cough> make me feel.)

My friend Goo

Definitely. Or at least browse lp's forum in the hotel section