| Submitted by: Hans & Mirjam Damen, Netherlands |
| Submission Date: 18 August 2006 |
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South India with young children
It was absolutely fabulous to be back in India. After having travelled all over Asia since the mid eighties, we paused for a couple of years after our kids were born. The travel bug was no longer content with France though, so Mum and Dad decided to go to South India over Christmas 2005 and Frank (5,5 years old) and Marit (almost 4) agreed wholeheartedly.
For the parents it felt like coming home and the kids loved it. Climbing up Chamundi Hill in Mysore, riding elephants and speedboats in Munnar, Relaxing on the lake in Ooty, performing arts in the park in Pondicherry, staying with a wonderful family in Cochin, running through temples screaming “ayappah…” in Tamil Nadu; everything was great. The friendly attention of the Indians for the kids was a bit much at times, but then there was always the private space of our own Ambassador car and the care of our wonderful driver Gandhi. This report combines our impressions with some practicalities and travel advice.
Forget Disneyland, India is the place to go!
Hans, Mirjam, Frank and Marit Damen
Practicalities
Preparation
Any trip to Asia will be much more fun with some preparation done, but this certainly is the case when taking kids. This was to be our fifth (Hans) and third (Mirjam) trip to India, so we knew a bit what to expect. We started preparing with the Lonely Planet (LP) ’Travel with Children’. As a guidebook we used the 2005 edition of the LP ‘South India’. We got a lot of information from www.lonelyplanet.com , www.roughguides.com , the rec.travel.asia newsgroup and www.indiamike.com. For up to date information we especially recommend the latter site. In general there is not a lot of specific information on travel with small children in India available, but we got some useful contacts and tips via Indiamike.com. We posted scans of our passports and visa to our hotmail address.
Transport
At first we thought we would go backpacking again, but after consultation on the web we decided to do it a bit more luxurious this time. We did a bit of a websearch, sent out some emails and got in contact with Mrs. Faith Pandian from Window to the World. (www.tourism-southindia.com No 4, Annai Avenue, Vasanth Nagar Extn, Kollidakarai, Srirangam Trichy - 620 006, Tamil Nadu (INDIA) Tel No. :+(91)-(431)-2433372/2437183/2435219 email : info@tourism-southindia.com). Faith reacted very promptly to our emails and did not need any payment up-front. She arranged a brand new ambassador car with AC and driver for us. We paid 875 euros for 25 days unlimited mileage (and unlimited service) which is a bit more than you would probably pay if you arrange it in India.
Our driver Gandhi was absolutely brilliant. Being a father himself he took extremely good care of us and especially of the children. Gandhi is very friendly and speaks good English. He was always on time, the car was clean inside and outside whenever he called in for duty in the morning or when we showed during the day. This is quiet a feat if you imagine our children putting their dirty shoes automatically against the back of the front seats. Gandhi was also a very useful source of information on sights, hotels and restaurants, without being pushy about anything. In the end he even managed to sing along to some of the Dutch songs we sang during the longer car rides. We highly recommend him (and Faiths travel agency).
Money and costs
India is a cheap country by any standard, but travelling with the kids certainly made it a bit more costly. For comparison; in 1997 we spent about 35 Euros a day during our seven week honeymoon in India and in 1998 we spent 25 euros a day during a trip to Nepal and Sikkim. Now our daily budget averaged 120 euros. From this amount we spent about half on accommodation, a bit over 25 % on the car plus driver and the remainder on food, drinks, entrance fees, souvenirs, tips etc. . Especially the accommodation cost a lot compared to what we used to spent, but we were with four now, we spent more time in the hotelroom and wanted cleaner and more spacious accommodation. We used our creditcard for paying the car and some hotels. We used our normal banking cards to get cash from ATM’s, that are now abundant. Prices we mention are always including tax. Like almost anywhere in Asia (and the world), tourists are overcharged in India. Two simple rules apply: ask prices before you order anything and bargain for everything. It will make your stay a lot cheaper.
Weather
The monsoon had been very heavy this year, washed away lots of houses and roads in Tamil Nadu and tens of thousands of people were rendered homeless. We arrived during the tail end of the monsoon, so we decided to do our trip anti-clockwise and travel west as soon as possible. After the first three days we had excellent weather with temperatures between 25 and 35 degrees Celsius.
Friendliness, dangers and annoyances
In general we think people in the South are a lot more friendly and relaxed than in the North. This was one of the reasons to choose (again) for the south. The more relaxed you are yourself, the more friendly responses you'll get, in the north as well as in the south. If someone wants to take you to his shop (hotel, sister, wedding, festival, home) and you don't want to join him, be firm in keeping the direction you were going in. Try to talk to them about other things; even touts can be fun to chat to.
Travel with two young blond children attracts a lot of attention. This is in general not meant in an unfriendly way, but at times it would get a bit annoying for the kids. What was really a nuisance is everybody trying to pinch the kids in the cheek. “NO PINCHING” were English words Frank and Marit learned really quickly. Mum and dad would support this by warning of the attacks and by pinching back if necessary. The kids also didn’t like posing for photographs.
This may be annoying; the real danger lies in the traffic. There is no way you can let go of your kids once you are in the streets. Temples are great for some physical exercise and the locals did not seem to mind our kids running around temples shouting Ayappa (we’ll come back to that later). Another annoyance is the air-pollution; a car with air-conditioning is absolutely necessary to keep most of the dirty air out.
Health
This was our main concern this time. We thought that the hazards were manageable (otherwise we would not have gone). Everybody was inoculated for Diphtheria, Tetanus, Polio, Typhus, Hepatitis A and B. As malaria prophylaxis we used Proguanil hydrochloride (Paludrine) during our stay. As a general precaution we took multivitamins every day. We trained our kids to wash their hands a lot more than we normally do (yeah we know you should always etc…, but sometimes these things just don’t happen). We even started brushing teeth out of a bottle before the last few weeks for the holiday.
In India we tried to keep a leisurely pace, building in a couple of hours of relaxing in the hotel room at teatime. Although we travelled quite a distance (about 2500 kilometres) we have the feeling that we took it easy. With the exception of Frank who was ill for a day, we were lucky as for the rest we didn't get ill. Some simple tips that worked for us:
• Drink bottled water (available everywhere).
• Use suntan Lotion (factors 30 and 15 (and sometimes 60))
• Keep your hands clean and don’t pick your nose (brings the bacteria straight into your system). Do not pick up stuff from the streets.
• Wash your hands before eating (or use disinfecting wet tissues; also good for cleaning feet after temple-visits).
• Keep nails short.
• Always put on hasty and sunglasses.
• Wear long or three quarter trousers (keeps knees whole)
• Wear long sleeves
• Wear sturdy shoes, no sandals. Check feet on cuts after temple visits and disinfect if necessary.
• Disinfect any cut or scratch as soon as possible
• Never eat anything from a stall / cooked in the streets. Stay away from buffet-style meals. Eat in busy restaurants.
• Donate small amounts of money to a Temple once in while and pray to the gods on a regular basis. Have Imodium ready anytime.
• Use mosquito repellent. For hotel rooms we bought and used the Bayer electrical mosquito coils.
Medical kit
During the day we always had suntan lotion (Vichy SPF 15 and 30; good stuff!!) and a medical kit in our day pack. The First Aid Kit was in a soft pack (‘Care plus’ brand from ‘tropenzorg’) with some additions of our own and contained:
• Hydrophilic bandages 300*8 cm and 400*8 cm
• Burn dressing
• Sterile compresses
• Antiseptic wipes
• Adhesive tape
• Protection gloves
• Emergency bandages
• Tweezers
• Safety pins
• Wound plaster
• Emergency shears
• Shatterproof thermometer
• Emergency blanket
• Support bandage
• Triangular sling
• Tick out tick remover
• Chloorhexidine 0,2 % antibacterial spray
In our luggage we had the following medicines available:
• Paracetamol with caffeine 500 mg (adults); the modern aspirin; helps against all kinds of pains (and hangovers)
• Paracetamol 160 mg (perdolan); chewing tablets for children
• Tripelennamine HCL (Azaron) relieves itches from mosquito bites etc.
• Multivitamins for adults and children
• Proguanil hydrochloride (Paludrine) Malaria prophylaxis
• Amoxicillin ; broad-spectrum antibiotic (Flemoxin : tablets solvable in water)
• Ciprofloxacin 500 mg (another antibiotic especially against heavy diarrhoea)
• Oral Rehydration Solution (adult and children; basically the same stuff, but the child variety has an added taste (still lousy)
• (Miconazoli nitras 2,5 mg zinc oxydium 150 mg pro gram) Anti fungal cream
• Loperamide HCL (Imodium)
• Xylometazolin (nasal spray; 0.1% for adults, 0,05 % for kids; opens up all cavities in your head; good against pressure differences in planes)
• Fluconazol 50 mg (against slime in the airways)
Luggage
We checked 2 soft backpacks weighing 21 kilograms in total. They contained more or less:
Parents (each)
• 2 Zip off pants
• 1 pair of shorts
• 2 shirts (1 safari style; ideal for stuffing tickets, passports etc. on the plane)
• 2 polo shirts
• 2 T-shirts (also for sleeping)
• Sturdy walking boots
• Flip-flops
• 5 Underpants (2 bra’s for mum)
• 4 pairs of socks
• 5 pocketbooks for dad
• Saturday papers and magazines
• Toiletries
• Copies of our passports and some emergency cash
Kids (each)
• 4 pairs of pants (covering the knees)
• 6 shirts / t-shirts
• 6 pair of socks
• 3 singlets
• 6 underpants
• Night nappies (that we did not really need: both our kids decided that India was a good place to be “night toilet trained”)
• 1 pyjama
• Jungle boots (Frank; not available in Marits size, so she had sports hoes with a zipper)
• Teva sandals
In our hand luggage on the flight (two daypacks, one Samsonite carry-on and 1 shoulder bag) we had:
• Raincoats (the foldaway type)
• Sunhats
• Sunglasses
• Travel survival kit South India
• Camera (Canon digital IXUS 750)
• Mobile phone (triple band; it worked almost everywhere in the cities in India)
• Copies of our passports and some emergency cash
• All the medical stuff including contact lens necessities
• Mosquito repellent(with DEET for the parents, without for the kids)
• Suntan lotion and after sun lotion
• A sweater each
• Cuddly toy for the kids
• Colouring books, pencils, soft tip pens, some small cars, Lego, small Playmobil puppets.
• Water, softdrinks, nibbles, cookies (if you’ve ever spent 6 hours on an Egypt Air plane on the tarmac in Hurghada without drinks, you bring your own).
In our moneybelts: Passports, credit cards, ATM cards, some cash (Euros). |
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| Copyright © - "Hans & Mirjam Damen" |
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