a few last travel details

if you are traveling to India, a few quirks on travel


airports are a bit different: in chennai at least: first thing you must do when you come in is find out which bag screening queue to get into, do that get a sticker on your luggage that's being checked, then get in the queue for your airline departure itself.  While waiting in line send someone ahead to get baggage ID tags for all your carry on luggage and if leaving the country, to get the immigration exit forms.  Fill out fresh bag ID tags for each of your hand carry luggage!  Then even for domestic sites, go through individual screening separate lines for men and women. They will pat you down, and then stamp things all over your boarding pass AND your little luggage tags. make sure to do this or you will not board.

smiles: smiles from staff and customs folks in Indian airports and train stations are quite hard to come by.  keeping a solemn dour face and being brief and curt seems to be the order of the day!  don't know why.... (maybe our customs agents and tsa folks are the same actually)... sometimes, smiles can be freed if you can do the south indian sideways head waggle... but this is quite hard to learn, makes us dizzy!

for train tickets book 3 months in advance if possible, use the Indian railways site 'trains between cities' to find out your train #s, your 3 letter codes for the stations you want and then go to cleartrip.com to book it and pay with your US credit cards (the indian rails site only seems to take visas linked to Indian banks). Last minute train trip changes:  a few seats are released about 72 hours before the train leaves so you can sometimes get a last minute overnight train...

train station information: hard to come by... there is usually a person at an information booth who may be helpful and direct you to the right platform.. but they do not always know where your car will be...... there are fourteen different types of offices at train stations (station manager, platform manager, whatever) and finding the actual one who may have your bedding or finding some sign to indicate where your particular rail car is going to stop, is hard. Trains do have car numbers like "A1" or "S1" and they do go in order usually S1, S2, S3 but sometimes in reverse order... many stations have an electronic sign way up high above the train platform, facing the train,  that shows the order of the cars. some stations have painted bulletin boards that list the order of cars for each train.  Perhaps in Delhi and Mumbai there are actually the porters in red shirts you can pay to find your car... as the books say... in the smaller country stations we were at, forget it!

by the way if your train ticket says your seats are A15 and A16 it's not A 15 and A 16 it's train car A1, seats 5 and 6...  so if you absolutely don't know where your car will be, go to the middle of the likely train and watch the signs flash by as the train pulls in then run like crazy in the right direction once you figure it out.

hotels... some hotels have a check out time, but SOME still have a system where your room rate starts the hour you check in... so if you come in on an overnight train and check in at 5 am, then if you stay past 5 am the next day, you may owe a whole other night's stay, be warned!  usually  just as with our hotel there is a tax added on at checkout... and before you can check out if your hotel room had one of those little mini bars you have to wait for this to be checked so allow time...

traveling by private car and driver: hard to know what the charges should be, if your hotel arranges it you may be paying a bit extra... this way of traveling was definitely pleasant and less jolty than buses but still just as terrifying, as the one lane road accomodates 3 cars and trucks wide ...

traveling by local bus definitely fun, but so hard to find the right bus if you don't read the local script so allow time... and notice that the front seats are nearly always reserved for ladies so if you are a lady traveling with a gentleman, be prepared to split up for a while if need be...