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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would not go back to India. Hard in many ways.[/quote]

Only, if you are traveling like the poorest of the poor.

I only luxury travel to and in India. I fly business class in middle eastern airlines (Emirates or Etihad), stop over at Abu Dhabi or Dubai, go in luxury and comfort and minimize the impact of jet lag,  Then, I either stay with my family/friends who have extra room, AC, well established homes and servants - or I stay in expensive 5 star hotels. I hire the best and most expensive touring vehicles available and drivers that are known to the family or have great reviews. And I travel mainly with family or friends.  I also shop a lot and get all my bulky stuff couriered to US.

India is not a place to do on shoe-string budget travel.  If you do that then you have to be inconvenienced sometimes.  However, India is still incredibly cheaper than US or Europe so it boggles my mind that westerners want to travel in the way the poorest of the poor are travelling there.  If you spend a fraction of your money that you spend in a Western country and stay in good hotels and take taxis from  proper registered taxi service, you will have an experience of comfort and luxury.

Nothing beats the food in India. Not one country I have visited has better food than India (ok, Thailand is amazing food too). [/quote]

As someone who lived in India as an American expat for 3 years, hard agree on all of this. I traveled all over India and I loved it but this is a place where you want the 5 star hotels (and they're not that expensive either compared to western prices -- and they're nicer!). You want to hire a private driver and all that. We were required to stay in specific hotels as expats when traveling around India for work -- all 5 star hotels. We took domestic flights on specific airlines through India vs riding the trains and buses. I did this in my personal travel throughout India as well. I absolutely loved India, but I'd sure feel differently if I were taking an overnight bus crammed with people or staying at a cheap hotel.[/quote]

My parents are well-off Indian immigrants from fairly wealthy families in India. We traveled this way to India yearly when I was a kid, and the few times I’ve been back as an adult, I also did it this way - staying at friends’/family’s luxurious private homes with AC and domestic help or at fancy 5-star hotels, hiring private drivers, and doing domestic travel by plane. I agree this can be done fairly cheaply if you’re calculating in USD, and the hotels are really among the most luxurious in the world, but there’s a very Marie Antoinette feeling to it given the obscene poverty just out of the window (or even inside the house, where even well-paid housekeepers and maids are earning the equivalent of $200/month) IMO.

I get that tourists spending $$ is helpful to the economy, provides employment, etc., but the insane disparities made me uncomfortable even as a kid. They still do as an adult, and it’s one of the main reasons I find India such a tough place to visit.[/quote]

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