India Travel Guide

Citizens of Yellow Fever affected countries or travellers arriving from any of these countries must carry a Yellow Fever Vaccination Card at the time of arrival in India, otherwise they may be quarantined for 6 days.

The currency in India is the Indian rupee (sign: ₹; code: INR) (रुपया — rupayā in Hindi and similarly named in most Indian languages, but ṭaka in Maithili, ṭākā in Bengali and ṭakā in Assamese). The rupee is subdivided into 100 paise (singular: paisa). "5 rupees 50 paise" would normally be written as "₹5.50". You may also see "Rs" for rupees, as well as prices written like 500/- (with a slash and hyphen at the end).

India is big and there are lots of interesting ways to travel around it, most of which could not very well be described as efficient or punctual. Allow considerable buffer time for any journey with a fixed deadline (e.g. your flight back), and try to remember that getting there should be half the fun.

At the central (federal) level, the official languages of India are Hindi and English. Most Indians are multilingual. Other languages that are official to some degree (often at state level) are Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri (also known as Meitei), Marathi, Nepali, Odia (also known as Oriya), Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. There are also hundreds of less prominent languages like Tulu, Bhojpuri and…

As a rule India is quite safe for foreigners, apart from instances of petty crime and theft, as long as certain basic precautions and common sense are observed. Women should be cautious travelling alone at night.

Going to India, you have to adapt to a different climate and food. However, with precautions the chance and severity of any illness can be minimised. Don't stress yourself too much at the beginning of your journey to allow your body to acclimatise to the country. For example, take a day of rest upon arrival, at least on your first visit. Many travellers get ill for wanting to do too much in too little time. Be careful with spicy food if you're not used to it.

By phone

The country code for India is +91. In India, area codes are called STD codes (Subscriber Trunk Dialing - national long distance) and international dialing is called ISD (International Subscriber Dialing - international long distance).

Indians, by and large, are neutral communicators. Although Indians try to be respectful and courteous in social situations, words are often taken at face value. It's important to be explicitly clear and upfront about what you intend to say as euphemisms, idiomatic language, and the like may be misunderstood.