keeping documents safe

minoo

hi, another post from me.

i was wondering if youre a budget traveller staying in paharganj for example, would you trust your valuables/passport/money/credit cards to be left in your room.

or do you people carry your ticket/passport with you. I was thinking of stuffing my passport in my jeans pocket or handbag.

can you trust the staff to keep travel documents in their safe, if hotels in paharganj have this facility??

any advice please

on a side note just bought a travel iron- is this neccesary or can i get my stuff washed and ironed for me from dhobi's in cheap budget hotels

machadinha

I keep my valuables in a money belt at all times. Use zip-lock bags (or a plastic coated one) to keep them somewhat tidy.

Pockets or bags are obviously less safe.

Esp. in budget places leaving them in your room or trusting the staff with it is ill-adviced I'd say. Even cheaper places may offer a safe but you don't know who holds the key and I'd rather be responsible for it myself (not just in India btw). In dodgy or touristed areas, be wary of windows that your stuff may be "hooked" from. There are plenty of fellow budget travellers who have a funny way of making their money stretch. No need to be paranoid about it, but you can stash your gear under your bed or something, keep your valuables even closer by. The same goes for hooking up with people along the way which is pretty much unavoidable and usually good fun, just keep your senses about you.

Laundry you can easily get done, even in the cheapest of hotels, or they can point you to some dhobi wallah or usually have them come over. Even your undies will never have been so sharply creased

Most of all, have fun!

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mercedes10

Ditch the travel iron!!! No-one in their right mind would do their own laundry in India. It's unbelievably cheap to have it done for you, and way less hassle.

As for valuables, I don't know. I know the usual advice is to keep it on you, but personally I hate wearing a money belt and have always left my things in my room (even in the most budget of places). Perhaps I've just been lucky, but I've never had a problem (and that in 5 months in India) and never felt particularly worried to leave things. Trust your instinct. Personally I feel like I'm more likely to lose things if I have them out and about than if I leave them stashed in my rucksack.

minoo

thanks, will ditch the travel iron

will keep credit cards in my front jeans pockets as well as some rupees, the rest in my handbag.

the passport tickets will hide in the midst of my padlocked wheely suitcase. im not keen on a back pack

machadinha

You might want to reconsider the jeans in Delhi in April...

Anyway, happy trails.

steven_ber

An idea I learnt from the early days of indiamike.com is to scan all important documents (passport, visa, airline tickets, travellers cheques, insurance details etc.) and send them in an e-mail to yourself, this way, if things do go wrong you can go to an internet cafe and print out the copies.

Also, think of a place nobody would think of looking, and fold a new £20 note up and hide it there for emergencies, you have to be really imaginative though.

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Nick-H

Always assuming, of course, that you use a web-based e-mail service, like Yahoo or Gmail. If not, you could open such an account just for this purpose.

Steven, I don't think I want to be sufficiently imaginative with that £20 note!

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akt

Such light weight valuable will be safest with you, although not in the jeans pocket. Get a waterproof pouch that you can wear. Keep what you expect to need right away (some cash, one card) in your wallet, and conceal the rest in the pouch.

I tend to make a few xerox copies and put them in different places. Steven_ber's advice of emailing digital scans is probably a better modern substitute.

Leave the iron home. Laundry/ironing is cheap in India, easily found everywhere; ask your hotel desk. Of course, take any personal items you need, like hair curlers. Remeber the different wall plug and voltage.

Clothing tends to be personal taste but many people will be more comfortable in something loose and light rather than jeans. Take both.

steven_ber

I'm pleased to say I can be almost as imaginative as I can be stupid and forgetful.

On my first trip I found a great place for my £20 note, then I forgot where it was, when I got home I went to take the batteries out of my pencil torch and found a £20 note.

The last couple of trips were better, I found a pair of 2nd hand sandals in a charity shop, they were the type that had 2 soles stitched together, so I pulled some of the stitching loose and put a £20 note between the soles, then tightened the stitching, I took the sandals on my trips and just used to leave them in the middle of the floor, nobody ever touched them.

Take it from someone who knows, when you lose everything, £20 is a lot of money in India.


Regarding the laundry, wash any delicate clothes by hand in your sink, an 'Indian wash' is tough, but very effective, in fact, if you have any tough clothes at home that have stains in them, take them to India and hand them to the dhobi wallah.

Remember to remove your washing from the sink when you need to pee.

kristinm

Thanks for that mental image....

akt

You probably did get what has become an inside joke here, but just in case you didn't, the reference was to the following thread:

Is it polite to pee in hotel sinks?
indiamike.com/india/showthread.php?t=1086

At present it is 26 pages.

steven_ber

Did you know you can change the length of the pages?

EG. I'm on page 10 in the 'pee' thread.

click on User CP - then - Edit options.

kristinm

If only I were agile or tall enough to pee in a hotel sink - obviously a thread for men and yoga freaks!

akt

Not that I would recommend studying that thread, but apparently there are women here who attempt this and have bought/researched special facilitating equipment.

akt

Thanks. I guess I did look into the User CP possibilities once but then forgot about it. As I have never set anything, I assume it is at some default.