Weather

Visit between November and March, when the temperatures range from 40-60 F/5-15 C in the north (with Kashmir and Ladakh being cooler) to 65-85 F/19-30 C in the south. March-June is dry and hot (85-110 F/30-44 C), and the monsoons come June-October, washing out the roads tourists are likely to travel. The best times to visit mountain destinations such as Darjeeling are March and April, October and November. The spring and summer are too hot for any outdoor activity, except for the hill stations, where temperatures range from 60-70 F/ 15-21 C. Temperatures are very cold in Kashmir during the winter (30-45 F/0-7 C); Ladakh is one of the coldest inhabited regions on Earth and to be avoided in winter altogether.

Visa, Immigration, Customs

Passport valid for at least 8 months beyond your scheduled length of stay. Tourists must obtain a permit from the Indian government (diplomatic representatives abroad or the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs) to visit the following areas: certain areas of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands. The minimum period of notice required for processing the applications for permits is four weeks. If it is not apparent to a border official that you are only visiting India (by presenting your itinerary and/or return ticket) you might be asked to provide the address of your accommodations and your planned departure date. Regulations change periodically. Please contact the consulate office closest to you.

Single parents or other adults vacationing alone with children should be aware that some countries require documentary evidence of parental responsibility before allowing lone parents to enter the country or, in some cases, before permitting the children to leave the country.

Transportation

Air India , British Airlines and Virgin Atlantic fly to India from the UK, and United Airlines and Delta Airlines from the USA. Air Canada services India from Canada. International airports are at Delhi, Kolkata (Calcutta), Chennai, And Mumbai. Coach, bus and taxis services commute between airport and city; car rentals are available at airports. There are several domestic airlines connecting major cities, including Air India and Indian Air. Druk Air goes between Kolkata and Paro.

Airports in India:There are 333 airports in India.

Travel by Rail:Indian Railways runs the largest rail system in Asia. 12 million passengers are carried daily and the network of rail covers the entire country. Fares are relatively inexpensive. Express trains link the main cities and local services connect the rest of the country. Where the trains don’t go the buses pay off the slack. There are many classes of travel so make sure you check the service you want. An Indrail Pass is available for unrestricted travel around India.
There are also some special trains worth looking into with romantic names such as The Palace on Wheels, The Royal Orient Express, The Rajdhani Express and The Konkan Express. These are all luxury trains that either are super fast modern trains, or are indeed palaces on wheels.

Travel by Water:Ferries go from Mumbai, Kolkata (Calcutta), Kochi, Chennai, Calicut, and Panaji (Goa); passenger service from Rameswaram to Sri Lanka is currently suspended. International shipping companies and several cruise lines also serve these ports; no regular passenger liners go to South-East Asia.

Travel by Road:It is essential to have accurate information about border crossings, visa requirements and the political situation if you are travelling into the country by car. Enter India at Sunauli (for Delhi and northwest India), Birganj (for Kolkata and east India) and Kakarbhitta (for Darjeeling). Go from Amritsar into Lahore (Pakistan). If you're determined to travel by car, hire a good driver (take him for a test-drive) and expect to pay his expenses. Motorcycling and bicycling are popular, but the challenges are many. Local transport includes buses, taxis, auto-rickshaws, cycle-rickshaws and tongas (horse-drawn carriages). Arrange your fare in advance.

Adventure holidays include overland tours and buses to India. A bus service now runs between New Delhi and Lahore (Pakistan) four days a week. Private buses are worth the money for long trips. Your bus trips will be interesting enough that, after you've written the book, you'll be able to sell the movie rights.

What Side of the Road?:Driving is on the left side of the road.

Speed Limits:Town - 20/50 kph; out of town - 60/80

Culture & Food

Languages Spoken:English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language.

Religions:Hindu 81.3%, Muslim 12%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi 2.5%

People and Culture:Language is not the binding factor for Indians, with some speaking Hindi, some various Dravidian languages, and some English-less than popular nowadays. Religion-which means Hinduism for most of the population, is the fabric from which life is woven here. In rural India, one walks back through time for thousands of years, the traditions are so ingrained. Hinduism is famous in the West for its fascinating gods, its belief in reincarnation, and its concept of karma. Buddhism is also practiced by about 6.6 million Indians, with major pilgrimage sites in northern India-Bodhgaya, Sarnath (near Varanasi) and Kushinagar (near Gorakhpur).The Jain religion has about 4.5 million adherents. Mainly in the west and south-west of India. More than 100 million Muslims make India one of the largest Muslim nations on earth, especially influencing the country's architecture, art and food. In the Punjab, the Sikhs number 18 million with their holiest shrine being the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Indian art is much admired but not much understood by the West; it's useful though not necessary to do a bit of reading about religions and art, including architecture, sculpture, dance and music, before travelling there. A stumbling block to appreciation is an entirely different concept of beauty coupled with a far-from-Western aesthetic. Film, mostly melodramas with all the romance that violence, music and love have to offer, is a lively industry, with Bombay the Hollywood of India.
A resident or national of India is called Indian. The Term used to describe things from here is Indian. For example, Indian food.

Tipping and Bargaining: Tipping is practiced here. Bargaining in bazaars and markets is quite acceptable.

Restaurants:	10% if no service charge
*Porters:	40 -50 Rupees per bag
Taxi:	Round Up

* Try to use local currency. Foreign coins cannot be exchanged and will be useless to the person receiving them. Foreign paper money requires a trip to the bank for exchange. However paper US dollars are accepted almost universally.

Food:In such a vast and disparate land, there is no such thing as one Indian cuisine-not curry, not vegetarian, not rice. At least fifteen different cuisines make up the food of India, with vegetarianism, rice dishes and curry-consumption more common in the south, meat-based meals, breads and the influence of Middle-Eastern spices and Central Asian Mughal cooking more commonly found in the north. Generally speaking, the farther south one goes, the hotter the dishes and the more rice one will be served. Thali (TAR-ley), rice and chapattis served with sauces, vegetables and/or meat, is common throughout the country. The tandoor is a clay oven often used for cooking in the north, which produces succulent chicken and other Kashmiri dishes. Kerala is fish served Kashmiri-style with fruit and nuts. You can't avoid (and you won't want to!) samosas (fried vegetables), pakoras (fritters), dal (a porridge-like lentil soup), and the breads-naans and papadums-delicious! An excellent dessert is kheer, or rice pudding.

If you're not offered cutlery, eat with the fingers of your right hand, and avoid street vendors' food unless you watch it being cooked, and dairy products. An exception to this latter is the yoghurt drink called lassi, which is really refreshing, and the very light yoghurt, curd, often served with meals. If your stomach is sensitive, break yourself in with idli, steamed rice cakes, and glucose biscuits. Or go to a Chinese restaurant. Don't drink the water, not even as ice cubes, or foreign soft drinks. You need a liquor license from a tourist office or visa-granting office if you wish to drink liquor in India.

Money Conversion

India's currency is called the Indian Rupee (INR)

Currency Converter :use the following currency converter tool to help you with your vacation. Currency Convertor Tool

Currency Cheat Sheet: use the following currency cheat sheet as a quick conversion reference on your vacation.Currency Cheat Sheet

Attractions

Destination Cities: The tsunami of Dec 2004 struck the south-eastern coast of the mainland, and the state of Tamil Nadu sustained the greatest amount of damage. In the north are Delhi and Kolkata; in the south, Mumbai, Chennai (Madras) and Bangalore, as well as the beaches of Goa. Each region and state differs in culture, customs and history, each having its own ethnic group. Major cities have western hotels and there is a reasonably well developed tourism infrastructure throughout the country.

Points of Interest: In the nineteenth century, British troops and their families holidayed in the hill stations near the Himalayas, with Simla and Darjeeling two favourite destinations-still both popular for their bazaars, tea plantations, Buddhist monasteries and vistas of the magnificent Himalayas. Simla, known as the "grand dowager of the northern hill towns," is where Lord Kitchener of Khartoum had his residence. Darjeeling, to the east, is famous for its miniature train, by which visitors climb from the plains to the city. Agra is the home of the Taj Mahal, truly a "must-see" in this country of beauties and wonders. Nearby Fatehpur Sikri, once the capital of the Mughal empire, is a well-preserved 16th-century city. Amritsar is the holy city of the Sikhs.