Recommend clothing for North in Nov please

Buck

Hi, I plan on being in Amritsar, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Jaisalmer, Mt Abu etc for about two weeks before heading East then down through Tamil to Kerala, Karnataka, Goa for about 2/3 months. I'm loathe to carry too much warm clothing beacause I won't need it for very long. As I live in the North East of Scotland and temperature is relevant. How cold will it be in the north and how warm should my clothing be?
Thanks
Buck

capt_mahajan

Approximately

Amritsar should be around 7 degrees minimum and 25 max, Celsius
Rajasthan 4/30
Chennai 20/30
Bangalore 15/26
Cochin 23/30
Goa 23/30

wonderwomanusa

Bring clothing you can layer. I usually take a silk t-shirt and "long johns" with me to India; they take up very little in my bag and are almost always necessary for Delhi in January -- they would come in very useful for any chilly nights in Rajasthan as well.

Buck

thanks Capt for your swift reply. I'll have to think about my packing!

Buck

incitatus

You've also got to think about when you come home - I arrived back in Edinburgh last May shivering in what my family thought was delicious 70 degree warmth but I'd just left hot season Delhi with its 100+ degree temps and felt chilled.

I recommend the option to dress in layers -
I take my lightweight GoreTex jacket, lightweight sweater and a mixture of tee-shirts and longsleeved shirts.

Usually the jacket and sweater stays at the bottom of my bag until I go to hill stations like Ooty, Shimla ,Darjeeling, or come home.

Darmabum

During the period you'll be in India (and Prime Time it is!) rain shouldn't be an issue. I agree with wonderwoman - pack to layer. Being a outdoor person in general I have/and bring a lot of synthetics, polypropylene/or the like, in various weights. It layers well, cleans easily, dries quickly, generally low maintenance. November/December in the Ganges Valley can get cold, especially when the fog is sitting on the ground for days or weeks. One winter in Varanasi (and about my lodging, I stay in Rs100 rooms, not much protection from the elements) I bought a wool hat and gloves. While it's not "cold" per se, weeks of damp and that kind of cool goes right to the center of me. Many items needed for warmth can be bought in India, and make great gifts to pass along when you head south. Of all the items I've bought in India for cold, a wool shawl is my lifesaver. My currernt shawl is actually made in Amritsar. Amazingly warm for it's thickness and weight. Makes a good blanket on train rides as well.

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shashank.aggarwal

you will need Light woolens in most of north India, except the hills, where you might need heavy woolens specially during the nights..

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machadinha

See also this thread: http://www.indiamike.com/india/healt...e-chart-t4062/

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Buck

Thanks all. I am VERY experienced in outdoor activities here in Scotland, the Arctic, Canada and more. I was just confused about the type of cold I was going to encounter (there are many types!)
Judging by the replies I think I've got a handle on it and the type of gear I'll need.
Incitatus I was ahead of you - I've already packed a bag in the back of my car with warm cothes for when my Dad picks me up in Aberdeen around Feb (He's garaging my car and my own personal chauffer)!
for the outward trip I have a chance of 11 hours in Moscow. At the beginning of Nov!! I was thinking of visiting an Oxfam shop for gear and putting everything in the first bin I could find in Delhi airport!

So thanks again everyone. Another problem bites the dust!
Let's put this one to bed - see you on another forum with YET ANOTHER question - no doubt!!!

Buck

tacita

i was in sikkim and darjeeling in february and knew to expect cold, so i dressed accordingly--in layers--beginning with long silks (yes, light and packable) and topping out with a down jacket, which was light and easily compressed in my bag. but despite that--and other layers in between--i was cold most of the time in the evening and at night. i slept fully clothed with every available blanket on and even a fleece hat!

i live in new york and we can get bitter cold here, so it's not that i was out of element. rather, what made it seem unbearable most times wasn't the weather itself, but the fact that there was no escape from it. here, we get cold, but then we head inside to a heated home, office, restaurant or, in wilder areas, a camp. there simply wasn't any really warm place to go. the sikkimese are used to it, of course, and lots of people wore only sweaters-and sandals!

the hotel space heaters didn't seem to do much, and even a hot shower eluded numb-skull me: by the time i figured out how to work and coordinate the three different knobs that seemed to operate differently in every hotel bathroom i had, i'd run out of hot water!

so, yes, layers, light but warm. choose fleece and down instead of wool, silk, rather than cotton. remember, too, that the cold will be a damp cold, so moisture-retaining fabrics will be both wet and heavy, impossible to dry.

what a relief it was to get to kolkata and warm up!

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double-dolphin

In India you get these things called "wooly-cots" which are like these vests which are really thick. They're very good for winters if you don't want to carry too much. Put on one of these and you shouldn't need too much else apart from a jacket or a wind-cheater. Best of luck

machadinha

That's funny Janice, just about sums up my experience, but I wrote it down to being at the lower end of the scale. Apparently not.

I was never sure if people are actually used to it so much, or that they just stoically sit out the brief winter like they have for thousands of years. Kind of like the way the monsoon is endured I guess. I guess that fabled fatalism comes into play here, together with a lack of means (and firewood?) then.

skwilliston

I can relate to what Janice had to say about having no escape from the cold. I lived at high altitude in Kenya for several years and was frozen at a steady 15 degrees, C. I dealt with it by (1) taking a hot bath every night, and (2) by using that most important of all accessories: a hottie (aka, for Americans, a hot water bottle)! A British-made hottie, which I'm sure you could get in India, is the best. Hopefully there will be at least a little hot water to put in your hottie, which is then placed at the foot (or wherever) of your bed before you get in for a cozy sleep. Have a great time on your trip. My husband and I head to Rajasthan in early November for three weeks.

capt_mahajan

for a moment there before the clarification, I thought this thread was getting interesting

skwilliston

Hate to admit it, but even when I was younger, there were plenty of nights when the hottie with hot water and the stopper was my hottie of choice.