Visiting India with children - precautions?

We are planning a 10-days trip to India with our 2 children, 11 and 5 years old. We will visit Kerala region and Agra via Delhi.


This will be our first visit to India. I'd like to ask if there are any precautions that we should take, mostly for the children.


Also, are there any specific vaccinations or medications that we should have?


Thanks!

How are you planning to travel within India? Train or fly? Regarding vaccinations, I would suggest you get in touch with your consulate for the required list. Though medicines are cheaper there, I suggest you take your regular ones from here.


When are you planning to go? December will be cold in Delhi & Agra. For Kerela, I suggest you take some anti mosquito cream. Also while in India, please drink bottled water only.

Regarding clothes, for the wife, please dress conservatively especially in temples. Though singlets and shorts are accepted, they are frowned upon and only attract attention. If you are a westener, you will attract a lot of beggars. Once you give alms to one, you will find yourself surrounded by 10 more.


India is a great and beautiful country. Please go with an open mind and get ready to be bowled over by the culture, food and people.

Thanks for your reply and recommendations RA.


We are flying to Cochin via Mumbai. From there, we will visit Munnar, Thekkady and Kumarakom by car. We will then fly to Delhi and drive to Agra.


How cold is it generally in Delhi, Agra and Kerala in December?


We are very excited (but yet slightly apprehensive) about this trip. We are overseas born chinese. We have many indian friends and love indian food and we are now looking forward to discover India.


Any more do's and dont's that you can think of? Anything to make it a very pleasant and memorable trip for the kids? Thanks.

It's great to visit India for the special building styles. :) But you may take a HNHSoft English dictionary as your travel assistant. :) http://www.hnhsoft.com

Tulipe, While on the road, pls carry a lot of wet wipes, toilet tissue roles, paper napkins, and don't know if you get them here- paper soaps. The reason being if you are driving, though you may get toilets, they may be not so clean and definitely without toilet paper. Paper soaps, you will get in all small shops in India. They are basically soaps as thin as paper which dissolve when washing hands.

If you are eating on the roadside, you will need to wipe your plates. The food will be awesome though!

No 2 cities/ towns in India are the same . The food, culture and language differ from place to place. You will be surprised by the 'Indian' food you get in HK and the actual available there. I totally envy you.

Kerala will be very pleasant and not cold. Are you taking up a houseboat there?

Delhi & Agra may get cold with temp dropping to 4C. Would advise seeing Delhi in the day time. Delhi is my home town and there are many places to see. If shopping is your agenda, let me know.

The Taj Mahal in Agra is awesome, and an unforgettable experience!

While in India, don't bother about calories and oil. Eat and enjoy. Would advise taking some tummy upset pill from here as a preventive measure.

Hi Tulipe

I was born in Kerala and have also spent nearly 12 years in Delhi - hence maybe I can offer some information about both the places.

Your choice of places in Kerala is excellent and will give you a good experience of "God's own Country" as Kerala is referred to. As for temperature in Kerala, nothing to worry about - it would definitely not be less than 20 degrees Celsius at this part of the year. Recommend you take note of the advice given regarding carrying some mosquito repellant which you and others in the family would be well advised to apply before going to sleep in the night. Food is cooked mostly in coconut oil and is easy on the stomach - a note of caution about the rice that you get to eat. There are two kinds of rice - one called raw rice and the second is called boiled rice. Suggest you avoid the second one because it is not easy for those who are not used to the big grains and the colour. Use only bottled water all the time in India. And pls refrain from offering anything to children who may come begging - before you know it you could have a few dozen surrounding you. In terms of safety, I would reckon Kerala as being quite safe and violent crime is hardly ever known to occur.

As for Delhi, the temperature in Dec \ Jan can drop in the nights to as low as 0 to 2 degrees but only for a few days in the year. Days are normally pleasant and if you are used to temperatures in the Region of 8 to 12 degrees you should not have any problems. Food here is very different from what you get in Kerala and is centred around wheat with rice being relegated to second place on the menu. Taste is also totally different and you can get to experience a wide variety of food more in tune with what is available in the North of India. Best to dress within certain boundaries in order to avoid problems while moving around - while visiting temples wearing short or revealing dresses is not welcome. You can make the trip to Agra by car or also take a train journey and return on the same day. Hope you have a nice trip. And as advised above would recommend you take some pills for safety sake to address any tummy upsets that may occur along the way. Can happen more because of the amount of eating that you would find yourself indulging in than from any issues related to sanitation of environment. Indian food is difficult to resist and hope you have fun.


(I am based in Beijing0

Thanks for all the replies. We're back from our trip. It was such a wonderful experience. The highlight was the overnight stay in the houseboat. No problem at all during our 10 days there, be it with food, mosquitoes, safety or hygiene. The kids wish we could still be there ... that says it all!

We had been advised to have hepatitis A vaccination and to take anti malarials. We decided to have none of them. From what I read, hepatitis A is contracted mostly through contaminated food. We made sure that we ate only at "safe" places. We did buy street foods a few times and had no problem. During day time, there was hardly any mosquito. As anti malarials have side effects, we used mosquito repellent whenever necessary (very seldom).


As for hygiene, I guess it depends on where you go and how you travel. Because we had kids with us, we played it safe. We did not use public transport, choosing instead to hire a car even if it meant long hours on the road. All the places of interest that we have visited were quite, if not, very clean.


Having said that, although we did not experience it, we did see places where hygiene was very poor and definitely not comparable to HK.


Hope this helps.