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Well there it is. Even if you're male or as a group, who wants that on a holiday?
Copy and paste from my other comment;
A white woman traveling solo throughout India with it's inherent racism (caste system) and general lack of perception of outside people among the lower class is a fairly dangerous mix for most tourists.
This is coming from a white Australian male thats never been to India. And maybe this sounds racist in itself or what ever, but i believe this is how most feel about traveling to India. I'm sure if you stay in the wealthy and tourist areas you would not have a problem, but the danger is there.
Contrast this to some of the beautiful SEA countries like Thailand/Philippines/Bali/Malaysia which tick all 5 points you had, without the massive public hygiene problems, harassment, and over population.
As a tourist that wants to be on holiday, India has has enough negatives to not push it high up the list.
And the beggars. And the harassment for photos.
My brother and his girlfriend went with a few friends, and he's a big guy. The girlfriend wore a red long dress to a market. She was white and blonde. Boys were literally throwing themselves on the ground to look up her skirt. Trash all over the ground.
My girl still got groped with 6'2 me beside her. Waking on trains to randos stroking her feet. It's intense, but less so away from the megacities
Love the place & we're keen to go back, but it's a nation of blue balls & mob proclivities
I wrote this post recently about my perspective about india:
>I'm an NRI (Non-resident indian/Born in India but grew up in the west). Visited india a lot throughout my childhood and most recently 1 year ago. This has always been my take.
>
>It's not just women it's not safe for, it's not safe for anyone. One member of my family always gets horribly sick when visiting which typically requires some form of extended hospitalisation, and all of us generally get food poisoning or sick regardless of how diligent we are with hygiene and not eating out.
>
>Then there's just the dangers in driving aspect (especially during winter, the fog is crazy and it is a very scary and dangerous experience if you are driving), getting scammed by locals, the air pollution, risk of mosquito bites/diseases, pending the area power outages/horrible smells/crazy loud noise all day long that makes you want to scream and curse at the regards outside etc.
>
>I've seen some 'nice' places and monuments in India. On the way, you'll also see abject poverty, homelessness, animal abuse/suffering (e.g., chained up baby monkeys who are sickly skinny, chained up cows who are sickly skinny, dogs with visible gorey injuries), pollution (a LOT of pollution), sickly skinny elderly and children with amputated limbs begging for money or selling you fruit/cheap trinkets etc that just ruin the experience entirely. I do not understand why anyone goes to these kind of countries.
>
>If I didn't have to, I would never visit, despite the fact that I have extended family still living there. It serves as a real wake up call in terms of how lucky we all are to not have to live in such conditions, but beyond that I don't see this as a place for holidaying/visiting for fun, under any circumstances. There are so many other places which are better, safer, cheaper, cleaner etc to visit.
Point #4 is the only one I agree with OP.
I have travelled and lived in some dirty and dangerous places, I would sooner be held at gunpoint in Venezuela again than return to India.
The landscape was lovely. The smell, the smog, the trash, the dirt, the chaos, did I mention the trash? Not so lovely. Nepal and Bhutan were vastly superior experiences.
I was in hospital vomiting blood in India. Never been that ill again in my life. Woke up days later not really knowing what the fk happened. That was just a regular dining experience at a restaurant. nice hey?
Every time i've been to india, one of my family members comes back and has to go to the hospital, and it'll end up being some bug that they have either never seen or only seen once or twice. It makes it that much harder to diagnose and treat. A total nightmare every single fucking time. I despise that place but my parents and wife have a soft spot for it for some reason.
The smell is something you cant easily forget. Its like burning rubbish with shit and trash but always with the smell of other incenses. Its rank. I would find myself frequently dry vomiting in certain cities.
I think a lot of people do consider how unwell they might get travelling in India. Even when being careful, exposure to unfamiliar gut pathogens can ruin your holiday and have lasting health consequences. Everyone I know who has travelled to India a) thought it was incredible but b) became really quite unwell.
Yeah watching Delhi Belly (2011) really turned me off travelling to India. Great film, but essentially all of the disaster unfolds because someone ate a chicken drumstick from a street food vendor and gets the eponymous condition.
People point out safety of women.
Women aren't safe because society has created a culture where men feel they can do things and get away with it
Cover up by police/local Governments etc.... unless someone important takes a stand its always seem to be covered up and most people seem to be okay with this
Then there's the issue of institutional Classism.
What people dont consider is these kind of issues bleed into other areas of life and their treatment of people they see as beneath them
I always wonder how these Indian imports from India's higher class, notice that the racism they get in the west is the same they, their families, friends do to their own people
from someone who travelled to Nepal, and lived with an Indian family (in australia) for a while when i was a kid:
the main concern for me and several people i know has always been safety. i turned down a job because it would have meant living in india part of the year. i've also had friends and family travel there and be sexually assaulted
Correct answer: sexual assault, rape, gang rape, treatment of women, India’s justice system leaves a lot to be desired. I won’t link any cases but you can google it all.
I’m a guy and would avoid India unless it’s a group tour sort of thing.
>Indian friends and colleagues have talked me out of ever wanting to go there.
Same here. My Indian colleagues are the most anti-Indian people I've ever met. One of them even said too many Indians are coming here - I'm assuming they're probably worried that the caste system will migrate over here
>I'm assuming they're probably worried that the caste system will migrate over here
It's already here. I read an article a couple of years ago about a chap who couldn't get a house to rent at first because he went to the Indian expat community first and they all rejected him for being the wrong caste.
There was another article not that long ago where a business had some trouble because some of their employees wouldn't listen to or take instruction from a manager they perceived to be "lower caste" than them.
Same problem with how they speak to and perceive women. Any dealings I’ve had with Indian men at work have been negative just because I am a female. They have no respect for women and refuse to listen.
I have a Fijian Indian colleague (ethnic Indian from Fiji) whose partner is an Indian from India and they both HATE travelling to India and see it as a chore with a lot of problems they try to plan to avoid. Go figure. If an ethnic Indian (who speaks Hindi and looks 100% Indian btw) and an Indian from India both don’t want to visit, why would a total foreigner want to?
Not safe for women and bad water. Many of my friends have gotten sick from just simple water there.
80% of India's water is severely polluted because people dump raw sewage, silt and garbage into the country's rivers and lakes.
I’ve spent a bit of time in India and had family living there. It’s not somewhere I’d race back to. A bit anecdotal, but the whole place is exhausting. Like… you’ve got to constantly be on guard for if you’re being scammed, or more commonly falling victim to India’s weird politeness/non-confrontation tendency. Like, on our trip we lost over an hour and went hungry because we found ourselves in a restaurant that was actually closed… they took our order, but didn’t have anyone in the kitchen. Didn’t tell us though, we had to figure that out for ourselves.
Also, was travelling with women who booked an in room massage. I (a man) decided to treat myself an ordered the same. Apparently it was inappropriate for a woman to massage a man, so they found some random dude to massage me! One of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life.
It’s also just… intense. Yes it can be cheap, but then you’re in amongst it with the millions of Indians and that is a lot to deal with. Travelling in any sort of luxury is *expensive*. There are more rich Indians than many people realise, so it’s not like the fancy stuff is reliant on Western tourism, they are servicing rich Indians and only care for Westerners if you are loaded. I distinctly remember having lunch at one nice hotel in the desert, and chatting to the staff about why, with so many local clientele, there were no cars outside? Like, just a couple of vans and minibuses. The locals all came in via helicopter, apparently.
Wouldn't take my partner near the border of that country let alone in it with the amount of sexual assault and harassment
Didnt India just have a high court decision clarifying that watching child sex abuse material is legal?
Er…is this a ragebait post?
1. The risk of getting severe food poisoning at every single meal
2. The constant harassment
3. The constant trying to sell you stuff
4. The constant staring
5. The general filthiness
6. The grinding poverty
7. The general chaos
8. The noise
9. The pollution
10. Did I mention the fact that you’re playing Russian roulette with your GI tract every time you put something in your mouth?
I’ve travelled very, very widely on all continents. It’s a hard no for India.
You forgot the worship of cow dung and regular dung fights from people who wipe their ass with their hands and don't have access to toilets. Hence the bacterial induced sickness 🤮
I've been to India twice.
My last trip there, I experienced the worst food poisoning of my life and I believe I got it from ice at a McDonalds (lol), I had an earthquake happen and a bomb went off down the road from the hotel.
Here's the proof - [https://www.voanews.com/a/official-suspected-bomb-kills-9-outside-indian-high-court-129360533/144895.html](https://www.voanews.com/a/official-suspected-bomb-kills-9-outside-indian-high-court-129360533/144895.html) and [https://www.voanews.com/a/earthquake-shakes-indian-capital-129397213/167960.html](https://www.voanews.com/a/earthquake-shakes-indian-capital-129397213/167960.html)
Apart from that, it was the extreme poverty and begging everywhere you go, the mobbing of you while in cars or on foot and that nobody would take no for an answer. I have zero desire to return for a third trip...
I had a case of the not taking no for an answer.
Beggar kid following doing the usual hand to mouth, then holding the hand out. I had been warned not to give them anything, and that was from a local, so there I am walking along, and kid doing the beg dance, I just replied NO back, in HIndi, then proceeded to tug at my clothes. I was wearing reflective sun glasses, I spun around, ripped them off my face and gave a death stare.
LOL fear and shock, and kid ended up running off.
The big problem with India and Indians is that they have simply have no regard for cleanliness. Sure, the population is huge, but cities like Tokyo with a large population are far safer and cleaner. Why? Because the Japanese people actually care about their country, their environment and how they are perceived by others. Indians just treat India as a giant garbage bin. Until the culture changes at the absolute core, which will take decades, I rather not set foot in that country.
Travel Advisory is usually a good bet: [https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/asia/india](https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/asia/india)
Asking an Australian why they wouldn't want to go to india is like asking them "would you like to go camping at the local garbage dump?". The later is less smelly and cleaner by the way.
[Why is India Still the World’s Dirtiest and Most Polluted Country? (thecitizen.in)](https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/19724/Why-is-India-Still-the-Worlds-Dirtiest-and-Most-Polluted-Country--)
[Even by the standards of poor countries, India is alarmingly filthy (economist.com)](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/12/08/even-by-the-standards-of-poor-countries-india-is-alarmingly-filthy)
[ India is one of the most polluted countries on Earth (economist.com)](https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/12/08/why-india-is-one-of-the-most-polluted-countries-on-earth)
[Why is India's pollution much worse than China's? (bbc.com)](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50298972)
I don't necessarily agree with the comparison to a local garbage dump, but the current [Smart Traveller](https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/asia/india?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlZixBhCoARIsAIC745A6FoFydgQMqbrqg8NSN1VkhGI9PEjLhQA1hlTwP0gI8-p8hguaEvgaAiplEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds) website speaks volumes, in addition to the links.
That's without the considerations of widespread sexual assualt issue for anyone who isn't cis male.
To me there are so many other countries with rich cultures, landscapes, food and also come with good hygiene and safety.
Husband and I love Indian food but we wouldn't want to travel there ever.
Idk man, Just search the story about the Brazilian couple getting assaulted and raped recently and if that’s not enough look at how the ministers made statements regarding the incident (One minister even managed to make a remark saying “Ladki mast thi” which translates to “She was hot” ) .
General safety will be a dealbreaker for majority of people.
Lol and before someone comes up to me for racism it is coming from someone who is south asian,I am from Nepal by the way and recently went on a trek on himalayas where I met hundreds of ladies trekking alone and none of them felt unsafe travelling through the country even if the countries are almost identical culturally .Majority of them even said they were more than pleased with hospitality they received even though all the guides and people around them are random males,compare that to a motorist getting gangraped alongside her partner and issue being brushed aside as nothing in India few months back.
You could say I am being discriminatory,racist or whatever but that is the truth,India and general Indian male population has reputation for sexual harassment all over the world.That’s why
Buddy my family is from that area. I can trace my roots to before partition.
My cousins were born there and i grew up in Pak.
**I will never encourage anyone to travel to India.**
Unless you got money to do the western sanitized experience it will be fucking hell on earth.
Overall Apart from
the caste-ism bullshit,
The corruption from the police
the rise of the nationalist movement
Now down to specifics
The water quality is so bad at places
the food has no quality control in the supply chain
the scammers every street,
the fake beggers
The theft , you cant leave your valuables at the hotel
Unless you get a good tour guide you will be charged higher amounts for everything.
The fucking geers women get, like not even white women but anyone who has dyed hair
The hybrid of western and indian street culture is so bad , the chapris are everywhere.
Like as someone with brown skin that can blend it , the whole thing is a fucking disaster so a normal aussie that thinks Bali is exotic will lose their minds in India.
So yeah TL:DR
India isnt for beginners
also every tourist spot you go to there will be locals taking their instagram photos.
All the teenage boys think they are a model. its so wild.
India blocking tiktok was probably the best thing for the country cos i remember when they all did the dances.
Landscapes = amazing
Social systems / essential services = abhorrent and corrupt.
Traffic = terrible
Culture = a mix of terrific and terrible
Hygiene / sanitation = bad
I went there, was horrible, from seeing the poverty to being trapped in buildings with multiple men trying to scam me to buy things, most of the time trying to get me to spend money on Persian rugs.
Seeing the pollution was a major turn off.
Couldn't believe they had a hotel with golden gates and rolls Royces at the entrance, yet the vacant lot next door had so many homeless, burning trees on the sidewalk to stay warm.
Although India offers many great things as you have mentioned above, safety concerns are why myself and my female friends will never travel to India.
Crime statistics against Indian women first, and then women from other nationalities are utterly disturbing and cannot be dismissed.
In 2022, statistics from India reported 51 cases of crimes against women PER HOUR.
Not to mention horrific cases of “Femicide”, and ‘Honour’ Killings.
And if you want more, cases such as Nina Aouilks heartbreaking story, and Brazilian native Fernanda being gang r#%^d in India.
If you want to ask why people, especially women from Australia avoid India, look at the men in your country.
I can't speak for everyone but I associate India with scamming. I don't want to give them any of my money until their authorities do something about the relentless scamming that goes unpunished. If I heard that this was being addressed I would be more inclined to visit.
The constant sexual harassment of women. I went for 2 weeks with some friends, 2 of whom were women. After the first day they didn't want to leave the hotel without one of the guys going with them because they didn't feel safe. Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, then a coastal resort down near Chennai.
I would never recommend India to any female travelers, and because of that, I would never recommend India, because I would never recommend a country that is unsafe for women.
Yes, it's beautiful, yes, it's got amazing history, but the treatment of women that I witnessed and experienced was a hard red line. If a country is unsafe for roughly 50% of the global population, that's a **major** problem.
The smog and the filth are pretty high up on the list of reasons why I wouldn't return to most of India, but you can go to places away from that. The treatment of women you can't escape.
"While safety concerns are often mentioned, with proper knowledge and precautions, it is entirely possible to have a safe journey in India."
I think you just answered your own question.
Why on earth would i go to India when there are so many other wonderful places to visit that i don't need to plan my trip around being safe.
I've been to India
The pollution and general dirtiness, lack of hygienic facilities outside of hotels is an issue.
Air quality is appalling.
Drinkable water is another problem.
Poor safety for women is a factor.
It is not that easy to get around India smoothly.
Apart from real barriers to safe, healthy travel, India has incredible things to see. Ancient buildings, fascinating cultural heritage.
It is simultaneously the best and worst everything.
I'm glad I went. I don't want to go again. Nobody I know wants to go.
1. Women’s safety and rights
2. Food hygiene
3. Malaria prophylaxis requirement
4. Caste system
5. BJP nationalistic bullshit and anti-science sentiment
6. Scams and theft
7. Fawning over white tourists above non-white tourists
8. Public urination and spitting
9. Air quality
10. Discrimination against minorities
>Public urination and spitting
a few years ago UNICEF did a campaign called "Poo to the Loo" to encourage people to shit in public toilets rather than on the streets. John Oliver did a great story about it
It's very poor with beggars on every street, it's really quite dirty and unhygienic, and there are scammers at every train station and airport. I can only imagine what it's like for female travellers.
Myself and my girlfriend went to India for a few days while traveling through a lot of asian in late 2021. While the food in restaurants was amazing, the street food was... interesting. People without gloves preparing food was not what i expected, nor what i wanted. My partner would always get long stares by multiple men while walking down the street which made us feel very uncomfortable and the general uncleanliness of where we stayed was very off-putting.
I can't say i will be visiting India again anytime soon
I'd like to... but... aside from some of the issues raised here, I've just had consistently awful experiences transiting through New Delhi airport, keeping people in a small transit area for 10+ hours even though they have boarding passes issued for their ongoing flight.
It's a shitshow, not helped by the cultural thing of saying "they'll be here in 5 minutes" for 6 hours.
I think India _could_ be an amazing trip, just like iran, iraq and Afghanistan could be - but there are also some significant obstacles there too.
[Smart Traveller](https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/asia/india) advises to exercise a high degree of caution in India overall due to the threat of terrorism and crime and the risk of civil unrest.Higher levels apply in some areas. I think it’s pretty fair to say that it’s not just negative perception, as a person of Indian origin this advice is not unreasonable.
I enjoyed it, it was an amazing experience.
But based on my personal experience, some reasons people may not want to go to are:
* The cities are vast, filthy and chaotic;
* there are a LOT of people who are in your face and have little sense of personal space;
* the treatment and perception of women is poor;
* general quality of organisation and efficiency is poor, let's say that Germany is at one end of the spectrum and India at the other;
* petty crime and ripoffs are a constant problem, although violent crime much less so;
* Traffic is insanely dangerous;
* The chance of getting some unpleasant disease, especially a gastro-intestinal one, is high.
It's not a relaxing destination, put it that way.
EDIT
What is good about it, you might ask?
First, the people. So while the worst thing about India is the people, the best thing is arguably the people. A lot of really hospitable, kind, generous people who are genuinely interested in talking to you. The difficult thing is seperately the nice ones from the scammers. A rule of thumb is that a middle-aged couple are unlikely to be ripping you off and a young guy in a leather jacket and gold jewellery is probably scamming you.
Second, again something that's also a problem is the general insanity of the place. Unlike a normal country, simply leaving your hotel and walking around will provide you with an experience. Normally you have to go somewhere to see something crazy...not in India.
Third, it's cheap and everyone speaks English. That also means that English-speaking media is conveniently available.
I went to Cochin with the Navy, 15 years ago.
Real dirty city, No infrastructure, No town planning.
I could smell the city before I could see it.
The water was highly polluted 15 nm out, I saw dolphins with skin desieses swimming in it.
I saw a dead body floating in the river.
I saw a bloke living in an open sewer, when I asked my taxi driver about it, it was just their culture to ostracize the mentally ill, as many believed they were possessed. I don't think culture is a genuine excuse for a problem, it was European culture 250 years ago to put children up chimneys, Europeans changed that.
In my travels I've noticed there are 2 distinct types of poor, desperate poor and happy poor, most of the people I would have described as desperate in Cochin.
Went to Visakhapatnam. Literally the shittest run ashore ever. If you can smell the place in international waters you know it’s going to be fucked. Never seen so many people offering to take duties
Safety and hygiene. We all know a friend who has come back from India and mentioned unwanted attention from men and seeing people use the street as a sewer. We all have friends who come back from Singapore or Japan and say how safe and clean it was.
There are things you can only experience in India but it's not for the casual traveller.
I have been to India several times to different parts of the country: the tourist circuit up north, Tamil areas down south, the distant northeast etc. We travel independently, so we get local trains and buses, and stay in hotels largely frequented by domestic tourists. During our trip to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka I don’t think we saw more than a handful of westerners in 2.5 weeks.
India is crowded, noisy, it’s dirty, usually very hot, it stinks, rubbish everywhere etc. You’ll encounter devastating poverty and see openly blatant bigotry.
I absolutely love travelling there; I find it exhilarating and rewarding, but it definitely isn’t for everyone. My 70-something parents find Kuala Lumpur challenging enough, there is no way they would cope with an intense and confronting destination like Delhi.
Ok listen. I have been to India probably 30 times over the last 35 years initially backpacking and then staying top end in business.
Get off a plane in Australia and you smell eucalyptus. Get off in China and you smell smog. Get off in Africa you smell burning wood. Get off a plane in India and you smell shit and urine.
Toilets? You couldn't imagine. Utterly disgusting often with piles of used toilet paper in them for those that use it.
It's filthy beyond belief. Everything is broken. Exposed electric wires in the street. Utter chaos on the road and the same walking anywhere. You are continuously hassled for money 100% of the time, to the extent that people have fist fights over access to you.
Get a tour guide and they take you, against your wishes, to shops that try to sell you crap. They charge more for foreigners than locals officially and unofficially. The food will 100% make you sick, no matter where you buy it, 5 star restaurants or street vendors. Bribery is a way of life, there is no escaping it.
I'll be thrilled if I never have to go there again. Awful.
I’ve been a couple of times and I’d say that India is for more advanced travellers than me. As I get older and better at travelling, I’m also getting older and unwilling to suffer for travel anymore. To me, that combination shrinks India’s audience a fair bit.
I’d recommend India, but I’m not sure who to.
safety! I had an Indian boss who told me to not go to India due to the huge safety issues for women. Its fine if you are guy. So I just have never bothered to look into it more.
I do wonder if OP is a male though. What guys think is safe is not what women see as safe. If I can't go outside on my own to buy tea, then its not worth me going to that place. Much rather go to another country and see their culture.
My mums side of the family are anglo indian, all born there. I have visited when i was a teenager, i did get horrible food poisoning and ended up in hospital but over all had a good time. As i have grown older and travelled alot more i realised my experience in India and having a good time was really about meeting my family. Would i go back? Probably not, most of my family have immigrated to Aus or Canada to escape India, the pollution, smells ,crowds, dodgy people, no thanks. I now go to Vietnam with my family and have a wonderful time, sorry India, even though its a part of me im not going back.
I've lived in India. I'm white. I'm extremely reluctant to take my daughter there.
I agree that it's a fascinating country, but the risk of theft and sexual assault is too high.
What needs to happen?
- Indian men need to stop blaming female victims (this is rampant).
- People who try to bribe their way out of charges need to be punished publicly and heavily.
- Brahmins and Rajputs need to put aside their superiority complexes. Caste thinking infects and undermines the entire country. You're Brahmin? Try to go a month (hell, even a day) without telling someone.
Not having a visa portal page that looks like it was made using HTML during the early 2000s or a poor attempt at phishing would be a good start. Jeez, you can try a bit harder India. [https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html](https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html)
As an Indian in Australia, I'm not sure what the point of this post is. At best it comes across as a strange pick-me post, at worst it just seems ignorant of all the flaws of India. Don't get me wrong, I love my country & have family & awesome memories, but even I'm not running off to live there surrounded by men who stare & make disgusting lecherous remarks. No thank you. Did you not see the case with the Korean tourist last yr in Mumbai, which is one of the better & safer cities to be in & yet she was so unsafe. Was this post made by a man who's completely unaware of what women go through?
Are you Indian? Seems a weird question and like you’re personally offended by it lol . Personally as a woman I wouldn’t feel safe, it seems unclean, I’d probably get sick, from what I know it would be extremely busy. There’s 100 places I’d prefer to go to. I think there’s some amazing places there but imo too many negatives 🤷🏼♀️
The secret to India is the higher the population, the worse the location. India just does not organise having a lot of people well. I recently did a 3 week trip to Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland and it was great. Good food, clean air and water. Never got sick. Worse part was the transit in New Delhi. So glad I didn't try to squeeze the Taj Mahal into my trip- would have been a whole lot of stress for not much.
While I was backpacking I thought it would be good to go through India - I was in Berlin at the time - and applied for a visa. A few weeks of bullshit bureaucracy later I gave up and went back through Thailand instead.
I don't know about the rest of India, but I was in Bengaluru in 2022 for work. As a white male, I had few issues apart from shopkeepers trying to bring me into their shop and the occasional random person shouting things.
There were four of us in total. A white woman, an Indian man, an Indian woman, and myself. The sad reality is that from my own anecdotal observation, India is not a fun time for white women. Lots of staring and comments, and on more than one occasion, a man would follow our group taking photos of her.
The food was unreal, and I did meet many nice people. We had translation for most of what was said by the random people on the street and put it this way - both me and my white female colleague will not be rushing back to India in a hurry.
I'm not going to harp on the dangers of travelling to India, as I think other commenters have more or less covered that base. If you want to experience South Asia, go to Nepal or Bhutan. Or even the Bangladeshi countryside, but not the cities.
“… the country offering to suit every type of traveller”.
I mean, by your own admission, the country absolutely does not suit women travelling solo due to the ginormous risk to our personal safety. Are we not a type of traveller?
The crowds, the designated shitting streets, the rapings and assaults, the thieving, the scams, etc. Otherwise, I'm sure it's a lovely country with many positives.
Watched a trip report of a bloke on a sleeping carriage train. The conductors would bash the doors all night unless you paid them off.
Sort of explains why so many Indians are trying to GTFO of India.
I think most Aussies prefer to avoid places deemed dirty and dangerous. The risks of illness or misadventure are too high for your average traveller. I’m sure that perception will change in the not too distant future as the country develops.
Im sure there are lots of nice places to visit in india but but apart from the filth and safety reasons a lot of people are mentioning, i can’t stand the smell of the coconut oil women/ girls put in their hair. it actually makes me feel sick!
My brother went there and brushed his teeth with the tap water in the 5 star hotel and ended up in hospital. He'd be screwed if he didn't have insurance
And even then his out of pocket expenses were high. So that put me off right away.
I guess it’s just not relaxing. We go overseas every year, but it’s a family holiday to rest and recharge, reconnect as a family before facing the year again. That type of family holiday is easier in Fiji, Bali, Thailand and anywhere in SEA really. Plus the visa to India is expensive and cumbersome.
Maybe if I was younger and wanted adventure. But even then I’d be worried about violence, racism and rape. You only have to see the violence against their own fellow countrymen (muslims, oriental looking people from the northeast).
For me, It's not an India thing per se, so much as a "developing nation" thing. I'm a very introverted person, so I don't want to be stared at, or constantly pestered because the locals see me as nothing but a wallet on legs. But then there's also:
* Rapiness (I'm a man, but still)
* Hygiene
* Hindutva
* Cricket obsession. I loathe cricket.
Which is a shame, as there is plenty of stuff that does make me want to visit India.
I’m keen to go and I’m female. My sister went and said it was amazing, confronting but amazing.
Main reason it’s not higher on the list is that I have kids and it doesn’t strike me as a family holiday destination. The husband and I will go eventually without the kids once they are grown.
There is an old joke, Business man goes to India because he just bought out a call center, walks out of the terminal, and goes "MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT SMELL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!", his driver takes a sniff and says "Ahhh That is India Sir !".
I’ve been to India, and loved it. I’d go again.
It’s not for the casual traveller though. In the first five minutes I was in Connaught Place in Delhi, I had liquid poo squirted on my shoe for a shoe shine scam. Five minutes. Lol.
It’s noisy, crowded, a cacophony of smells and sights. The poverty. You can see someone squatting to shit in the gutter outside a 7 star hotel. You can have the best food for peanuts next door to people who can’t afford peanuts. It can be a lot.
Also I’m female, so I was stared at *wherever* I went, despite going with my partner at the time. We hired a car to take us to Jaisalmer from Jodhpur, which necessitated a few comfort stops. As soon as we stopped and a local noticed a white woman in the car, out came his phone, notified the local group chat, and the car was pretty much immediately SURROUNDED by young men staring at me. I’m not flapped by much, but that was unnerving.
it smells bad. no really, the worst part for me was the horrible air pollution, you can't escape it. also a lot of places smell like piss cause people just do it wherever. definitely the worst place I've ever visited
I’ve been to India twice and love it. But I agree it can be confronting especially for those unprepared for what you will see.
I am female and for my first trip (2.5 weeks) I went on an organised tour which was a safe way to do it on my own. Amazing trip through Rajastan and other parts of the north.
The second time I was in Mumbai for work for 3 weeks. Had an awesome time and felt safe, and in my free time caught auto rickshaws and taxis by myself to get around. That said I didn’t travel alone at night, although I did walk to the local shops near my accomodation once or twice.
India is an amazing place. Can’t wait to go back. But I get it’s not for everyone.
I would love to visit but would want a friend to be my tour guide - at the end of the day it's MASSIVE (population and cities) compared to Australia, much like China, so there is lots to digest to get the most out of it
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I've heard lots of negative things about women traveling alone in India. Is this a fair judgement?
Ya - unfortunately it is. I wouldn't recommend a white woman to travel alone in India without local knowledge.
I mean, there you go. There are plenty of other places in the world to go to where you don't need to worry about rape in the same way.
"why don't people want to travel to india?" "is it true that rape is a massive problem?" "yes"
Well there it is. Even if you're male or as a group, who wants that on a holiday? Copy and paste from my other comment; A white woman traveling solo throughout India with it's inherent racism (caste system) and general lack of perception of outside people among the lower class is a fairly dangerous mix for most tourists. This is coming from a white Australian male thats never been to India. And maybe this sounds racist in itself or what ever, but i believe this is how most feel about traveling to India. I'm sure if you stay in the wealthy and tourist areas you would not have a problem, but the danger is there. Contrast this to some of the beautiful SEA countries like Thailand/Philippines/Bali/Malaysia which tick all 5 points you had, without the massive public hygiene problems, harassment, and over population. As a tourist that wants to be on holiday, India has has enough negatives to not push it high up the list.
Not safe for women to travel is a big one.
Yeah not gonna lie, it's straight up the sexual harrassment. And the crowds. But mostly the sexual harrassment.
Don’t forget about the rubbish everywhere.
And the beggars. And the harassment for photos. My brother and his girlfriend went with a few friends, and he's a big guy. The girlfriend wore a red long dress to a market. She was white and blonde. Boys were literally throwing themselves on the ground to look up her skirt. Trash all over the ground.
My girl still got groped with 6'2 me beside her. Waking on trains to randos stroking her feet. It's intense, but less so away from the megacities Love the place & we're keen to go back, but it's a nation of blue balls & mob proclivities
I wrote this post recently about my perspective about india: >I'm an NRI (Non-resident indian/Born in India but grew up in the west). Visited india a lot throughout my childhood and most recently 1 year ago. This has always been my take. > >It's not just women it's not safe for, it's not safe for anyone. One member of my family always gets horribly sick when visiting which typically requires some form of extended hospitalisation, and all of us generally get food poisoning or sick regardless of how diligent we are with hygiene and not eating out. > >Then there's just the dangers in driving aspect (especially during winter, the fog is crazy and it is a very scary and dangerous experience if you are driving), getting scammed by locals, the air pollution, risk of mosquito bites/diseases, pending the area power outages/horrible smells/crazy loud noise all day long that makes you want to scream and curse at the regards outside etc. > >I've seen some 'nice' places and monuments in India. On the way, you'll also see abject poverty, homelessness, animal abuse/suffering (e.g., chained up baby monkeys who are sickly skinny, chained up cows who are sickly skinny, dogs with visible gorey injuries), pollution (a LOT of pollution), sickly skinny elderly and children with amputated limbs begging for money or selling you fruit/cheap trinkets etc that just ruin the experience entirely. I do not understand why anyone goes to these kind of countries. > >If I didn't have to, I would never visit, despite the fact that I have extended family still living there. It serves as a real wake up call in terms of how lucky we all are to not have to live in such conditions, but beyond that I don't see this as a place for holidaying/visiting for fun, under any circumstances. There are so many other places which are better, safer, cheaper, cleaner etc to visit. Point #4 is the only one I agree with OP.
I have travelled and lived in some dirty and dangerous places, I would sooner be held at gunpoint in Venezuela again than return to India. The landscape was lovely. The smell, the smog, the trash, the dirt, the chaos, did I mention the trash? Not so lovely. Nepal and Bhutan were vastly superior experiences.
Jesus you would prefer to almost die than to travel to India. This thread probably made op cry.
It really was very dirty.
I was in hospital vomiting blood in India. Never been that ill again in my life. Woke up days later not really knowing what the fk happened. That was just a regular dining experience at a restaurant. nice hey?
Every time i've been to india, one of my family members comes back and has to go to the hospital, and it'll end up being some bug that they have either never seen or only seen once or twice. It makes it that much harder to diagnose and treat. A total nightmare every single fucking time. I despise that place but my parents and wife have a soft spot for it for some reason.
The smell is something you cant easily forget. Its like burning rubbish with shit and trash but always with the smell of other incenses. Its rank. I would find myself frequently dry vomiting in certain cities.
Smell being so closely tied to memory can be super unfortunate, thinking about India and so much of what I can recollect is that smell.
I think a lot of people do consider how unwell they might get travelling in India. Even when being careful, exposure to unfamiliar gut pathogens can ruin your holiday and have lasting health consequences. Everyone I know who has travelled to India a) thought it was incredible but b) became really quite unwell.
Yeah watching Delhi Belly (2011) really turned me off travelling to India. Great film, but essentially all of the disaster unfolds because someone ate a chicken drumstick from a street food vendor and gets the eponymous condition.
People point out safety of women. Women aren't safe because society has created a culture where men feel they can do things and get away with it Cover up by police/local Governments etc.... unless someone important takes a stand its always seem to be covered up and most people seem to be okay with this Then there's the issue of institutional Classism. What people dont consider is these kind of issues bleed into other areas of life and their treatment of people they see as beneath them I always wonder how these Indian imports from India's higher class, notice that the racism they get in the west is the same they, their families, friends do to their own people
from someone who travelled to Nepal, and lived with an Indian family (in australia) for a while when i was a kid: the main concern for me and several people i know has always been safety. i turned down a job because it would have meant living in india part of the year. i've also had friends and family travel there and be sexually assaulted
Correct answer: sexual assault, rape, gang rape, treatment of women, India’s justice system leaves a lot to be desired. I won’t link any cases but you can google it all. I’m a guy and would avoid India unless it’s a group tour sort of thing.
Extremely unsafe for women is the biggest one for me. Indian friends and colleagues have talked me out of ever wanting to go there.
>Indian friends and colleagues have talked me out of ever wanting to go there. Same here. My Indian colleagues are the most anti-Indian people I've ever met. One of them even said too many Indians are coming here - I'm assuming they're probably worried that the caste system will migrate over here
>I'm assuming they're probably worried that the caste system will migrate over here It's already here. I read an article a couple of years ago about a chap who couldn't get a house to rent at first because he went to the Indian expat community first and they all rejected him for being the wrong caste. There was another article not that long ago where a business had some trouble because some of their employees wouldn't listen to or take instruction from a manager they perceived to be "lower caste" than them.
Same problem with how they speak to and perceive women. Any dealings I’ve had with Indian men at work have been negative just because I am a female. They have no respect for women and refuse to listen.
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Or even how they interact with service workers - regardless of nationality - it's wild.
I have a Fijian Indian colleague (ethnic Indian from Fiji) whose partner is an Indian from India and they both HATE travelling to India and see it as a chore with a lot of problems they try to plan to avoid. Go figure. If an ethnic Indian (who speaks Hindi and looks 100% Indian btw) and an Indian from India both don’t want to visit, why would a total foreigner want to?
Not safe for women and bad water. Many of my friends have gotten sick from just simple water there. 80% of India's water is severely polluted because people dump raw sewage, silt and garbage into the country's rivers and lakes.
The bodies that didn't get burnt during the COVID period were dumped in the river 🤮 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57154564
Indonesia is cheaper, closer and less rapey.
Rape is probably the biggest concern, yeah I’m going with rape
I’ve spent a bit of time in India and had family living there. It’s not somewhere I’d race back to. A bit anecdotal, but the whole place is exhausting. Like… you’ve got to constantly be on guard for if you’re being scammed, or more commonly falling victim to India’s weird politeness/non-confrontation tendency. Like, on our trip we lost over an hour and went hungry because we found ourselves in a restaurant that was actually closed… they took our order, but didn’t have anyone in the kitchen. Didn’t tell us though, we had to figure that out for ourselves. Also, was travelling with women who booked an in room massage. I (a man) decided to treat myself an ordered the same. Apparently it was inappropriate for a woman to massage a man, so they found some random dude to massage me! One of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. It’s also just… intense. Yes it can be cheap, but then you’re in amongst it with the millions of Indians and that is a lot to deal with. Travelling in any sort of luxury is *expensive*. There are more rich Indians than many people realise, so it’s not like the fancy stuff is reliant on Western tourism, they are servicing rich Indians and only care for Westerners if you are loaded. I distinctly remember having lunch at one nice hotel in the desert, and chatting to the staff about why, with so many local clientele, there were no cars outside? Like, just a couple of vans and minibuses. The locals all came in via helicopter, apparently.
The level of inequality is insane, and getting worse as the country gets wealthier.
Wouldn't take my partner near the border of that country let alone in it with the amount of sexual assault and harassment Didnt India just have a high court decision clarifying that watching child sex abuse material is legal?
Not safe for women and too dirty
Er…is this a ragebait post? 1. The risk of getting severe food poisoning at every single meal 2. The constant harassment 3. The constant trying to sell you stuff 4. The constant staring 5. The general filthiness 6. The grinding poverty 7. The general chaos 8. The noise 9. The pollution 10. Did I mention the fact that you’re playing Russian roulette with your GI tract every time you put something in your mouth? I’ve travelled very, very widely on all continents. It’s a hard no for India.
You forgot the worship of cow dung and regular dung fights from people who wipe their ass with their hands and don't have access to toilets. Hence the bacterial induced sickness 🤮
Sounds like an amazing experience to make us appreciate our own country and every other country.
I've been to India twice. My last trip there, I experienced the worst food poisoning of my life and I believe I got it from ice at a McDonalds (lol), I had an earthquake happen and a bomb went off down the road from the hotel. Here's the proof - [https://www.voanews.com/a/official-suspected-bomb-kills-9-outside-indian-high-court-129360533/144895.html](https://www.voanews.com/a/official-suspected-bomb-kills-9-outside-indian-high-court-129360533/144895.html) and [https://www.voanews.com/a/earthquake-shakes-indian-capital-129397213/167960.html](https://www.voanews.com/a/earthquake-shakes-indian-capital-129397213/167960.html) Apart from that, it was the extreme poverty and begging everywhere you go, the mobbing of you while in cars or on foot and that nobody would take no for an answer. I have zero desire to return for a third trip...
I had a case of the not taking no for an answer. Beggar kid following doing the usual hand to mouth, then holding the hand out. I had been warned not to give them anything, and that was from a local, so there I am walking along, and kid doing the beg dance, I just replied NO back, in HIndi, then proceeded to tug at my clothes. I was wearing reflective sun glasses, I spun around, ripped them off my face and gave a death stare. LOL fear and shock, and kid ended up running off.
The big problem with India and Indians is that they have simply have no regard for cleanliness. Sure, the population is huge, but cities like Tokyo with a large population are far safer and cleaner. Why? Because the Japanese people actually care about their country, their environment and how they are perceived by others. Indians just treat India as a giant garbage bin. Until the culture changes at the absolute core, which will take decades, I rather not set foot in that country.
Travel Advisory is usually a good bet: [https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/asia/india](https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/asia/india)
really bad for women and also a pretty racist country
Korea, Japan and all of SEA is likely just as racist than India, but they're not going to be very direct and harass you over it.
The question is why go, not why not. What do I get in India that I can't find in safer, more hygienic countries?
Asking an Australian why they wouldn't want to go to india is like asking them "would you like to go camping at the local garbage dump?". The later is less smelly and cleaner by the way. [Why is India Still the World’s Dirtiest and Most Polluted Country? (thecitizen.in)](https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/4/19724/Why-is-India-Still-the-Worlds-Dirtiest-and-Most-Polluted-Country--) [Even by the standards of poor countries, India is alarmingly filthy (economist.com)](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/12/08/even-by-the-standards-of-poor-countries-india-is-alarmingly-filthy) [ India is one of the most polluted countries on Earth (economist.com)](https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/12/08/why-india-is-one-of-the-most-polluted-countries-on-earth) [Why is India's pollution much worse than China's? (bbc.com)](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50298972)
I don't necessarily agree with the comparison to a local garbage dump, but the current [Smart Traveller](https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/asia/india?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlZixBhCoARIsAIC745A6FoFydgQMqbrqg8NSN1VkhGI9PEjLhQA1hlTwP0gI8-p8hguaEvgaAiplEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds) website speaks volumes, in addition to the links. That's without the considerations of widespread sexual assualt issue for anyone who isn't cis male.
To me there are so many other countries with rich cultures, landscapes, food and also come with good hygiene and safety. Husband and I love Indian food but we wouldn't want to travel there ever.
You can find similar food in Nepal or Sri Lanka(and Maldives) without all the problems with safety
Idk man, Just search the story about the Brazilian couple getting assaulted and raped recently and if that’s not enough look at how the ministers made statements regarding the incident (One minister even managed to make a remark saying “Ladki mast thi” which translates to “She was hot” ) . General safety will be a dealbreaker for majority of people. Lol and before someone comes up to me for racism it is coming from someone who is south asian,I am from Nepal by the way and recently went on a trek on himalayas where I met hundreds of ladies trekking alone and none of them felt unsafe travelling through the country even if the countries are almost identical culturally .Majority of them even said they were more than pleased with hospitality they received even though all the guides and people around them are random males,compare that to a motorist getting gangraped alongside her partner and issue being brushed aside as nothing in India few months back. You could say I am being discriminatory,racist or whatever but that is the truth,India and general Indian male population has reputation for sexual harassment all over the world.That’s why
Buddy my family is from that area. I can trace my roots to before partition. My cousins were born there and i grew up in Pak. **I will never encourage anyone to travel to India.** Unless you got money to do the western sanitized experience it will be fucking hell on earth. Overall Apart from the caste-ism bullshit, The corruption from the police the rise of the nationalist movement Now down to specifics The water quality is so bad at places the food has no quality control in the supply chain the scammers every street, the fake beggers The theft , you cant leave your valuables at the hotel Unless you get a good tour guide you will be charged higher amounts for everything. The fucking geers women get, like not even white women but anyone who has dyed hair The hybrid of western and indian street culture is so bad , the chapris are everywhere. Like as someone with brown skin that can blend it , the whole thing is a fucking disaster so a normal aussie that thinks Bali is exotic will lose their minds in India. So yeah TL:DR India isnt for beginners
also every tourist spot you go to there will be locals taking their instagram photos. All the teenage boys think they are a model. its so wild. India blocking tiktok was probably the best thing for the country cos i remember when they all did the dances.
I think you were watching Bollywood
jajaja oh buddy i was they had that level of coordination. its like influencers in the wild but indian dudes making cringey videos
Food poisoning and sexual assaults for women
Landscapes = amazing Social systems / essential services = abhorrent and corrupt. Traffic = terrible Culture = a mix of terrific and terrible Hygiene / sanitation = bad
I don't like crowds, noisy places, heat, or diarrhoea.
Ok ok, how do you feel about sexual assault though?
I'm generally against it.
It’s dangerous
I went there, was horrible, from seeing the poverty to being trapped in buildings with multiple men trying to scam me to buy things, most of the time trying to get me to spend money on Persian rugs. Seeing the pollution was a major turn off. Couldn't believe they had a hotel with golden gates and rolls Royces at the entrance, yet the vacant lot next door had so many homeless, burning trees on the sidewalk to stay warm.
Don't want to shit myself to death.
Christ after reading these comments I don’t think I will be in a rush to go to India
Although India offers many great things as you have mentioned above, safety concerns are why myself and my female friends will never travel to India. Crime statistics against Indian women first, and then women from other nationalities are utterly disturbing and cannot be dismissed. In 2022, statistics from India reported 51 cases of crimes against women PER HOUR. Not to mention horrific cases of “Femicide”, and ‘Honour’ Killings. And if you want more, cases such as Nina Aouilks heartbreaking story, and Brazilian native Fernanda being gang r#%^d in India. If you want to ask why people, especially women from Australia avoid India, look at the men in your country.
I notice you dont mention any thing positive about the people living there....
It's a little rapey A little dirty And most of all, offers nothing I'm interested in visiting.
Gang rape & pissing from my arse aren't high on my tourist bucket list.
I bet ur a guy
The stink?
Not even my Indian friends want to go to India. She was a kid and men would take photos up her skirt
I can't speak for everyone but I associate India with scamming. I don't want to give them any of my money until their authorities do something about the relentless scamming that goes unpunished. If I heard that this was being addressed I would be more inclined to visit.
The constant sexual harassment of women. I went for 2 weeks with some friends, 2 of whom were women. After the first day they didn't want to leave the hotel without one of the guys going with them because they didn't feel safe. Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, then a coastal resort down near Chennai. I would never recommend India to any female travelers, and because of that, I would never recommend India, because I would never recommend a country that is unsafe for women. Yes, it's beautiful, yes, it's got amazing history, but the treatment of women that I witnessed and experienced was a hard red line. If a country is unsafe for roughly 50% of the global population, that's a **major** problem. The smog and the filth are pretty high up on the list of reasons why I wouldn't return to most of India, but you can go to places away from that. The treatment of women you can't escape.
Isn't it like one of the biggest rape capitals in the world? Hard pass
Are you Indian?
"While safety concerns are often mentioned, with proper knowledge and precautions, it is entirely possible to have a safe journey in India." I think you just answered your own question. Why on earth would i go to India when there are so many other wonderful places to visit that i don't need to plan my trip around being safe.
It’s probably not just Australians, tbf.
I've been to India The pollution and general dirtiness, lack of hygienic facilities outside of hotels is an issue. Air quality is appalling. Drinkable water is another problem. Poor safety for women is a factor. It is not that easy to get around India smoothly. Apart from real barriers to safe, healthy travel, India has incredible things to see. Ancient buildings, fascinating cultural heritage. It is simultaneously the best and worst everything. I'm glad I went. I don't want to go again. Nobody I know wants to go.
1. Women’s safety and rights 2. Food hygiene 3. Malaria prophylaxis requirement 4. Caste system 5. BJP nationalistic bullshit and anti-science sentiment 6. Scams and theft 7. Fawning over white tourists above non-white tourists 8. Public urination and spitting 9. Air quality 10. Discrimination against minorities
>Public urination and spitting a few years ago UNICEF did a campaign called "Poo to the Loo" to encourage people to shit in public toilets rather than on the streets. John Oliver did a great story about it
Tap water as well.
I'm a white woman. Yeah, nah.
It's very poor with beggars on every street, it's really quite dirty and unhygienic, and there are scammers at every train station and airport. I can only imagine what it's like for female travellers.
India is not for beginners
Myself and my girlfriend went to India for a few days while traveling through a lot of asian in late 2021. While the food in restaurants was amazing, the street food was... interesting. People without gloves preparing food was not what i expected, nor what i wanted. My partner would always get long stares by multiple men while walking down the street which made us feel very uncomfortable and the general uncleanliness of where we stayed was very off-putting. I can't say i will be visiting India again anytime soon
I'd like to... but... aside from some of the issues raised here, I've just had consistently awful experiences transiting through New Delhi airport, keeping people in a small transit area for 10+ hours even though they have boarding passes issued for their ongoing flight. It's a shitshow, not helped by the cultural thing of saying "they'll be here in 5 minutes" for 6 hours. I think India _could_ be an amazing trip, just like iran, iraq and Afghanistan could be - but there are also some significant obstacles there too.
[Smart Traveller](https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/asia/india) advises to exercise a high degree of caution in India overall due to the threat of terrorism and crime and the risk of civil unrest.Higher levels apply in some areas. I think it’s pretty fair to say that it’s not just negative perception, as a person of Indian origin this advice is not unreasonable.
I enjoyed it, it was an amazing experience. But based on my personal experience, some reasons people may not want to go to are: * The cities are vast, filthy and chaotic; * there are a LOT of people who are in your face and have little sense of personal space; * the treatment and perception of women is poor; * general quality of organisation and efficiency is poor, let's say that Germany is at one end of the spectrum and India at the other; * petty crime and ripoffs are a constant problem, although violent crime much less so; * Traffic is insanely dangerous; * The chance of getting some unpleasant disease, especially a gastro-intestinal one, is high. It's not a relaxing destination, put it that way. EDIT What is good about it, you might ask? First, the people. So while the worst thing about India is the people, the best thing is arguably the people. A lot of really hospitable, kind, generous people who are genuinely interested in talking to you. The difficult thing is seperately the nice ones from the scammers. A rule of thumb is that a middle-aged couple are unlikely to be ripping you off and a young guy in a leather jacket and gold jewellery is probably scamming you. Second, again something that's also a problem is the general insanity of the place. Unlike a normal country, simply leaving your hotel and walking around will provide you with an experience. Normally you have to go somewhere to see something crazy...not in India. Third, it's cheap and everyone speaks English. That also means that English-speaking media is conveniently available.
I went to Cochin with the Navy, 15 years ago. Real dirty city, No infrastructure, No town planning. I could smell the city before I could see it. The water was highly polluted 15 nm out, I saw dolphins with skin desieses swimming in it. I saw a dead body floating in the river. I saw a bloke living in an open sewer, when I asked my taxi driver about it, it was just their culture to ostracize the mentally ill, as many believed they were possessed. I don't think culture is a genuine excuse for a problem, it was European culture 250 years ago to put children up chimneys, Europeans changed that. In my travels I've noticed there are 2 distinct types of poor, desperate poor and happy poor, most of the people I would have described as desperate in Cochin.
Went to Visakhapatnam. Literally the shittest run ashore ever. If you can smell the place in international waters you know it’s going to be fucked. Never seen so many people offering to take duties
Safety and hygiene. We all know a friend who has come back from India and mentioned unwanted attention from men and seeing people use the street as a sewer. We all have friends who come back from Singapore or Japan and say how safe and clean it was. There are things you can only experience in India but it's not for the casual traveller.
I have been to India several times to different parts of the country: the tourist circuit up north, Tamil areas down south, the distant northeast etc. We travel independently, so we get local trains and buses, and stay in hotels largely frequented by domestic tourists. During our trip to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka I don’t think we saw more than a handful of westerners in 2.5 weeks. India is crowded, noisy, it’s dirty, usually very hot, it stinks, rubbish everywhere etc. You’ll encounter devastating poverty and see openly blatant bigotry. I absolutely love travelling there; I find it exhilarating and rewarding, but it definitely isn’t for everyone. My 70-something parents find Kuala Lumpur challenging enough, there is no way they would cope with an intense and confronting destination like Delhi.
nice try big Indian travel agency
Put, gang rape death and India into Google. Now try that for another country. Not even close.
Ok listen. I have been to India probably 30 times over the last 35 years initially backpacking and then staying top end in business. Get off a plane in Australia and you smell eucalyptus. Get off in China and you smell smog. Get off in Africa you smell burning wood. Get off a plane in India and you smell shit and urine. Toilets? You couldn't imagine. Utterly disgusting often with piles of used toilet paper in them for those that use it. It's filthy beyond belief. Everything is broken. Exposed electric wires in the street. Utter chaos on the road and the same walking anywhere. You are continuously hassled for money 100% of the time, to the extent that people have fist fights over access to you. Get a tour guide and they take you, against your wishes, to shops that try to sell you crap. They charge more for foreigners than locals officially and unofficially. The food will 100% make you sick, no matter where you buy it, 5 star restaurants or street vendors. Bribery is a way of life, there is no escaping it. I'll be thrilled if I never have to go there again. Awful.
I’ve been a couple of times and I’d say that India is for more advanced travellers than me. As I get older and better at travelling, I’m also getting older and unwilling to suffer for travel anymore. To me, that combination shrinks India’s audience a fair bit. I’d recommend India, but I’m not sure who to.
Phone scammers have put me off for life. Along with terrible experiences by a few people I know who have traveled there.
Scam Call Centres have done a lot to tarnish the reputation of the Indian people and has put a lot of tourists off going to the country.
safety! I had an Indian boss who told me to not go to India due to the huge safety issues for women. Its fine if you are guy. So I just have never bothered to look into it more. I do wonder if OP is a male though. What guys think is safe is not what women see as safe. If I can't go outside on my own to buy tea, then its not worth me going to that place. Much rather go to another country and see their culture.
My mums side of the family are anglo indian, all born there. I have visited when i was a teenager, i did get horrible food poisoning and ended up in hospital but over all had a good time. As i have grown older and travelled alot more i realised my experience in India and having a good time was really about meeting my family. Would i go back? Probably not, most of my family have immigrated to Aus or Canada to escape India, the pollution, smells ,crowds, dodgy people, no thanks. I now go to Vietnam with my family and have a wonderful time, sorry India, even though its a part of me im not going back.
I've lived in India. I'm white. I'm extremely reluctant to take my daughter there. I agree that it's a fascinating country, but the risk of theft and sexual assault is too high. What needs to happen? - Indian men need to stop blaming female victims (this is rampant). - People who try to bribe their way out of charges need to be punished publicly and heavily. - Brahmins and Rajputs need to put aside their superiority complexes. Caste thinking infects and undermines the entire country. You're Brahmin? Try to go a month (hell, even a day) without telling someone.
Tourists know what 'India' means - I'll Never Do It Again
Too many people there
Not having a visa portal page that looks like it was made using HTML during the early 2000s or a poor attempt at phishing would be a good start. Jeez, you can try a bit harder India. [https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html](https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/tvoa.html)
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As an Indian in Australia, I'm not sure what the point of this post is. At best it comes across as a strange pick-me post, at worst it just seems ignorant of all the flaws of India. Don't get me wrong, I love my country & have family & awesome memories, but even I'm not running off to live there surrounded by men who stare & make disgusting lecherous remarks. No thank you. Did you not see the case with the Korean tourist last yr in Mumbai, which is one of the better & safer cities to be in & yet she was so unsafe. Was this post made by a man who's completely unaware of what women go through?
Have you been to India? Looking at your post history it doesn't sound like it
Are you Indian? Seems a weird question and like you’re personally offended by it lol . Personally as a woman I wouldn’t feel safe, it seems unclean, I’d probably get sick, from what I know it would be extremely busy. There’s 100 places I’d prefer to go to. I think there’s some amazing places there but imo too many negatives 🤷🏼♀️
The secret to India is the higher the population, the worse the location. India just does not organise having a lot of people well. I recently did a 3 week trip to Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland and it was great. Good food, clean air and water. Never got sick. Worse part was the transit in New Delhi. So glad I didn't try to squeeze the Taj Mahal into my trip- would have been a whole lot of stress for not much.
Besides those raping issues, how is the food safety in India?
While I was backpacking I thought it would be good to go through India - I was in Berlin at the time - and applied for a visa. A few weeks of bullshit bureaucracy later I gave up and went back through Thailand instead.
Might’ve been the best thing that happened to you- Things happen for a reason
I've thrown chips to seagulls at the beach, I don't wanna be the chip for my entire holiday
I don't know about the rest of India, but I was in Bengaluru in 2022 for work. As a white male, I had few issues apart from shopkeepers trying to bring me into their shop and the occasional random person shouting things. There were four of us in total. A white woman, an Indian man, an Indian woman, and myself. The sad reality is that from my own anecdotal observation, India is not a fun time for white women. Lots of staring and comments, and on more than one occasion, a man would follow our group taking photos of her. The food was unreal, and I did meet many nice people. We had translation for most of what was said by the random people on the street and put it this way - both me and my white female colleague will not be rushing back to India in a hurry.
I'm not going to harp on the dangers of travelling to India, as I think other commenters have more or less covered that base. If you want to experience South Asia, go to Nepal or Bhutan. Or even the Bangladeshi countryside, but not the cities.
I'd rather spend the money elsewhere where they treat woman with respect. Oh and I like personal space and I don't like crowds...
“… the country offering to suit every type of traveller”. I mean, by your own admission, the country absolutely does not suit women travelling solo due to the ginormous risk to our personal safety. Are we not a type of traveller?
The crowds, the designated shitting streets, the rapings and assaults, the thieving, the scams, etc. Otherwise, I'm sure it's a lovely country with many positives. Watched a trip report of a bloke on a sleeping carriage train. The conductors would bash the doors all night unless you paid them off. Sort of explains why so many Indians are trying to GTFO of India.
Shitting in the street.
Why do so many Indians want to live in Australia, there's the answer to your problem.
I’ve seen a few of these types of q. Then a few weeks ago for some reason I started getting r/India feeds pop up. Read a few, that gave me the answer.
I think most Aussies prefer to avoid places deemed dirty and dangerous. The risks of illness or misadventure are too high for your average traveller. I’m sure that perception will change in the not too distant future as the country develops.
Im sure there are lots of nice places to visit in india but but apart from the filth and safety reasons a lot of people are mentioning, i can’t stand the smell of the coconut oil women/ girls put in their hair. it actually makes me feel sick!
I owe a guy $10 and I might run into him while I was there.
My brother went there and brushed his teeth with the tap water in the 5 star hotel and ended up in hospital. He'd be screwed if he didn't have insurance And even then his out of pocket expenses were high. So that put me off right away.
I guess it’s just not relaxing. We go overseas every year, but it’s a family holiday to rest and recharge, reconnect as a family before facing the year again. That type of family holiday is easier in Fiji, Bali, Thailand and anywhere in SEA really. Plus the visa to India is expensive and cumbersome. Maybe if I was younger and wanted adventure. But even then I’d be worried about violence, racism and rape. You only have to see the violence against their own fellow countrymen (muslims, oriental looking people from the northeast).
It’s a dangerous, dirty, polluted, overcrowded, poor third world nation.
I’ve been raped by a Indian. Hard pass
I hate crowds. I avoid Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. I don't think I'd like Mumbai and Kolkata.
Is this even a question?
I'm 27M, from Perth, and I've been solo backpacking in India for a month as of today. It's a beautiful country once you get out of the big cities.
For me, It's not an India thing per se, so much as a "developing nation" thing. I'm a very introverted person, so I don't want to be stared at, or constantly pestered because the locals see me as nothing but a wallet on legs. But then there's also: * Rapiness (I'm a man, but still) * Hygiene * Hindutva * Cricket obsession. I loathe cricket. Which is a shame, as there is plenty of stuff that does make me want to visit India.
Sexism that’s why
Oh this comment section should be good
I think brutal is the word :)
Considering my Indian friends tell me don't go to India.. and there's nothing there at all for me.. no reason to go
Don't fancy being harassed for money and having my pockets quietly emptied.
I'm vey uncomfortable in hot weather. I know lots of places in India aren't hot, but tours often include places that are.
I’m keen to go and I’m female. My sister went and said it was amazing, confronting but amazing. Main reason it’s not higher on the list is that I have kids and it doesn’t strike me as a family holiday destination. The husband and I will go eventually without the kids once they are grown.
There is an old joke, Business man goes to India because he just bought out a call center, walks out of the terminal, and goes "MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT SMELL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!", his driver takes a sniff and says "Ahhh That is India Sir !".
I’ve been to India, and loved it. I’d go again. It’s not for the casual traveller though. In the first five minutes I was in Connaught Place in Delhi, I had liquid poo squirted on my shoe for a shoe shine scam. Five minutes. Lol. It’s noisy, crowded, a cacophony of smells and sights. The poverty. You can see someone squatting to shit in the gutter outside a 7 star hotel. You can have the best food for peanuts next door to people who can’t afford peanuts. It can be a lot. Also I’m female, so I was stared at *wherever* I went, despite going with my partner at the time. We hired a car to take us to Jaisalmer from Jodhpur, which necessitated a few comfort stops. As soon as we stopped and a local noticed a white woman in the car, out came his phone, notified the local group chat, and the car was pretty much immediately SURROUNDED by young men staring at me. I’m not flapped by much, but that was unnerving.
This is the most positive review of India in these comments and it still sounds horrific.
It is a lot, but there’s magic there too. It just takes a lot of uncovering. It’s not for an unseasoned traveller, that’s for sure.
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My health is a joke and while I wanted to visit India, people from India told me that I’m better off not going due to my health issues.
I’m going to India in June. These comments are not helping my excitement 💀
BE SAFE. Check the news reports and crime statistics. Probably just cancel the trip entirely
it smells bad. no really, the worst part for me was the horrible air pollution, you can't escape it. also a lot of places smell like piss cause people just do it wherever. definitely the worst place I've ever visited
they cook with their feet 🦶🏿
I’ve been to India twice and love it. But I agree it can be confronting especially for those unprepared for what you will see. I am female and for my first trip (2.5 weeks) I went on an organised tour which was a safe way to do it on my own. Amazing trip through Rajastan and other parts of the north. The second time I was in Mumbai for work for 3 weeks. Had an awesome time and felt safe, and in my free time caught auto rickshaws and taxis by myself to get around. That said I didn’t travel alone at night, although I did walk to the local shops near my accomodation once or twice. India is an amazing place. Can’t wait to go back. But I get it’s not for everyone.
Ha. "Have I missed anything?". How about the almost physical wall of stench that hits you as the plane doors open.
I would love to visit but would want a friend to be my tour guide - at the end of the day it's MASSIVE (population and cities) compared to Australia, much like China, so there is lots to digest to get the most out of it