Advice for women travellers (on bras, underwear, sandals, makeup, groping)

Nereid

Hi fellow women travelers!

Thought I'd share my experience on travel in India. Hope it helps you pack and prepare!

1) The bras that work best for me are the basic Hanes sports bras (I got them at Target in the US, $10 for 3). No wires, no metal hooks, no thin straps -- these things dig into you in the heat big-time. I treat them like they are disposable and they work great.

2) Sandals: I brought only one pair of shoes -- Naturalizer Miami sandals (looks like this: http://www.beallsflorida.com/r/Natur...yleid=123384&). I mostly wore Salvar Kameez -- these worked great with those, and they were super comfortable for trekking around Ajanta, Ellora, etc. Plus, I wore them with socks for cold trains. Obviously, if you are heading to the Himalayas or something, you need something more solid but these worked great for me pretty much the whole time.

3) Makeup: If you decide to bring makeup, look into the mineral makeup stuff. Of all the types of makeup, this seems to work best in terms of not melting off your face. Lots of pretty eyeliner and lipstick here, so no need to bring that.

4) Underwear: I tend to bring a few pairs of underwear from home to get started, then fill up locally and dispose used underwear along the way. If you do that too, you can easily find lots of comfy, cheap cotton Indian underwear to fit the purpose. The only trouble I had was in figuring out what sizing system was used for underwear here (UK system, maybe? not sure). Anyway, I was able to just eyeball it and get a good fit.

5) "Eve teasing" (or groping) -- So, I was wandering around a bazaar when I very clearly saw a guy reach out and grope a random woman's chest. She screamed, smacked him and started yelling at him. Almost immediately, he was surrounded by Indian men (and some women) who clearly were pissed of at him. One man I could understand was yelling "This is not the way Indian men behave toward ladies. What do you want ladies to think of us?" or something along those lines. My point: it seems to me that groping ain't any more acceptable to Indian men and women than it is to you so don't put up with it! My Lonely Planet guide seemed to imply that I had to just deal with it, like it was a cultural cost of traveling here -- well, it's not. And for the record, I have never been groped or bothered in any way, including during overnight train travel.

I'll share anything else I can think of! Have fun traveling!

dillichaat

I'm not the proud owner of 2 X-chromosomes so I can't possibly comment on points 1-4. But about the groping I can only say that my wife and other ladies I know tell me that this is a veritable plague here (Delhi). And, contrary to your experience, people rarely interfere.

2 examples I know firsthand:

My wife and I were visiting Jama Masjid and a couple of young guys just walked right behind her and groped (not 'touched') her buttocks. She immediately started screaming/cursing at him and the reaction on the offenders' face was simply a grin. I turned around and hit him, causing him to go down. We had to make a run for it because all the other guys there definitely didn't want to hear our explanation (although most of them knew perfectly well what happened).

One month later, my wife and a female friend go out to visit Humayun's tomb. Couple of young (12-14 y/o) muslim guys hanging around there follow them and another lone female tourist, grab for her buttocks again and grab the other lady's breast. My wife starts hitting (she saw it coming), the other ladies start screaming and finally a guard showed up who chased these young idiots with a broom. That's it, he wasn't interested in taking other action.

These are just the blatant things but whenever she takes the metro or goes shopping, there usually is some indian male who 'accidently' brushes up (or tries to) against her. Don't expect massive support from the environment although this is clearly unacceptable.

You should never shrug off such behavior and yes, you should react. But even more important: be careful and avoid putting yourself in a position where you're isolated and surrounded by a couple of indian guys. Chances are the cavalry won't come when you start screaming.

From what I've heard this type of misbehavior is typical for Delhi/UP and occurs much less in the southern part of the country but still, be careful, India is unfortunately not the innocent and spiritual place most visitors think it is and the reason these punks do it over and over is simply because they know they can get away with it.