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Saturday 15 October 2016

India Trip: Namaste

Taj Mahal is definitely one of the major drives for me to visit India. This has been crossed recently when me and my friends travelled  across the Golden Triangle of India. My knowledge on India is overclouded with their Bollywood scenes. Remembered those days when I was growing up watching Shah Rukh Khan movies, in which they spend a lot of time on singing, one of their movies' signature. Naan, tandoori chicken and tikka masala, just to name a few of Indian cuisine that I get to try locally, in which you will find them everywhere in India.

 Indian Chicken Curry

Visa is required for Malaysian to visit India for tourism purpose for 30 days. This can be done online without the need of going over to the embassy. You won't be able to apply for the visa more than 34 days ahead of your planned day of travel and it costs 49 USD. Remember to have scanned copies of passport and passport photo for the application though you can save the form online and reaccess anytime. From my experience (and so are my friends), it takes only a day for the visa to be granted. The copy of granted visa shall be printed and brought along for immigration verification.

View from Amber Fort, Jaipur

Our visit was during early October 2016 and the weather was rather hot, which is around 35 degree Celcius during day time. I remembered the night we landed at Indira Ghandi International Airport, the heat was immediately felt when we stepped out from the arrival hall. Regardless, it is better to wear decently (long pants, sleeved shirts) as temples will be among the places that you are going to visit. Sanitizers, wet wipes, sun block, mosquitoes repellents, just naming a few of the essentials you ought to bring while travelling around India. Reasons? The cities that we visited are very dusty (oh, this means you might want to bring face mask too) and the conditions there, it would be a good practice to sanitise your hands before any meal. I guess all of us were rather cautious about hygiene issue in the country and it's safe to clean the empty plates and cutlery (with the wet wipes) before placing any food on them. Due to the heat as most of the sites are outdoor, you would want some shield from the sun and you can't risk to be bitten by mosquitoes which go active in the hot climate. Despite of all our efforts to stay eating clean (we completely ignored eating street food), on the last day of our trip, all of us succumbed to our worst nightmare, food poisoning. The trip didn't definitely end the way we wanted. Still, better be safe than sorry.

Entrance to Taj Mahal

The currency used in India is "Rupee" and comes in 1000, 500, 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 2 and 1. It's a culture to tip in India and it's a good tip to keep those small change. Generally a tip of 10 or 20 will suffice. The exchange rate during our time was around 100 Rupee for MYR 6.20. India timezone is 2 hours and a half later than Malaysia's.


Old Street in Delhi, facing Jama Masjid

5 hours flight from Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2, we headed straight to Jaipur on the next day before continuing to Agra and back to Delhi. You can opt for bus or train for the intercity travel. Four of us hired a driver for the entire trip which costs 18,000 Rupee that includes pick up and shuttle to airport, so it sounded like a good bargain (or so we thought). The traffic in India was rather crazy so it takes a lot of courage (for me at least) to drive there or even cross the street. "Tuk tuk" is a common public transport to get you around the city.


Our journey throughout the Golden Triangle shall unfold in the next chapter.

India Trip Journey
Jaipur - Agra - New Delhi

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