Universal Travel Adaptor

(with power surge protection!)

Trust me! If you’re planning on travelling with an expensive smart phone, laptop or any other gadget that needs charging, then please follow my advice and invest in a good quality POWER SURGE PROTECTED travel adaptor.

On a very recent trip to India, I stupidly plugged my laptop into the wall with a very basic travel adaptor, which led to my connector throwing out sparks (yes it looked like a firework!) and consequently burnt out the connection port on my laptop. I was actually lucky to have not lost any data, but I did face a very expensive repair job once I got back to London! 😐

Power cuts and voltage variations are very common in India. In fact, I can’t remember any trip without experiencing a power cut at some point, so make sure your gadgets stay safe with a surge protected universal travel adaptor.

After my recent experience, I did some research and found this travel adaptor to be the best on the market. It’s a little expensive, but worth every penny, when you consider the value of your tech or the price you will pay to fix it when it burns out.

Anti-bacterial hand sanitizer gel

A general lack of hygiene and proper sanitation facilities is to be expected in most public places throughout India. It’s crucial therefore to keep a small bottle of hand sanitiser with you at all times. Many people in India eat and prepare food with their hands and if you wish to muck-in and do as the locals do, then it’s particularly advisable to use some hand gel before sitting down to your meal. You can usually buy a small tube of these gels in pound shops and thrift stores, but do check before you go as some of them are a bit sticky and smell like you’ve just cleaned your hands with cheap whiskey! I was more than satisfied with these gels on amazon, which I purchased just before my last trip to India.

Earplugs

India’s not particularly renowned for its quiet ambiance and serene silence. If you’re staying in an urban area, you will undoubtedly notice the distinct and almost constant irritation from honking horns. Temples typically begin their worship at sunrise and will broadcast early morning prayers through giant loudspeakers on full blast. Even if you’re not a sensitive sleeper, having a pair of earplugs in your travel bag could be a saviour and is one of the best travel investments you could probably make when planning a trip to India. I’m a very sensitive sleeper and have tried out a few different ear plugs over the years. I found that these ear buds are by far the best option for sleeping. The reason being because they only cover the ear canal (as opposed to sitting inside the ear canal itself) making them a much more comfortable option when sleeping on your side. They’re also made from a squidgy material that moulds into the perfect shape.

Activated Charcoal Tablets

OMG! I got such bad food poisoning recently in Kerala. I was knocked out in bed for days, and so relieved I had some of these capsules with me. To date, I have not seen activated charcoal widely available in India, so I highly advise getting these on Amazon before you travel.

Activated charcoal is a great alternative to Imodium and completely different to the stuff you slap on your BBQ grill 😀! They are a potent natural remedy that can aid stomach cramps, bloating and flatulence. Activated Charcoal is more commonly used to treat poisoning and drug overdoses, because it has this amazing ability to trap toxins within the body, enabling them to be flushed out instead of reabsorbed into the bloodstream. They’re also a great cure for hangovers, making them a good thing to keep handy even if you’re not travelling to India ! Always make sure you get capsules that are made from natural sources (such a coconut shells).

Coffee

If you don’t drink coffee then please ignore this one, but if you’re a fan (like me) then it might make sense to take your favourite brand along before you travel, especially if you don’t like instant coffee. Good coffee isn’t too hard to find in the big cities, but if you’re travelling off the beaten track then it will probably be a lot harder to get. Furthermore, if you enjoy drinking coffee first thing in the morning, then it makes sense to carry your own coffee maker as most guesthouses will only have instant coffee available (if you’re lucky). The shops I’ve seen in India that sell good quality coffee, are typically expensive and overpriced, compared to what you would pay at home. I recently purchased an aerporess and don’t think I would ever visit India again without one! It’s light and easy to carry and seriously makes one good brew! In fact this little gadget makes such good coffee that I even use it out of choice at home these days.

Kurta Pyjama

Kurta (or Kurti for women) is a light and loose garment that almost every Indian citizen owns and frequently wears. There are many types of Kurta available on the market, but the kind I’m recommending for the traveller is a plain and simple style like the one I’m wearing in this picture. This style of kurta pyjama is inexpensive and can be worn both indoors and outdoors. Wearing a kurta in India is a great idea for the following reasons…

• You will fit in amongst the local people. Standing out from the crowd as a foreigner can often be frustrating; inviting many unwanted stares and glares, plus the chance of being exploited by touting merchants and taxi drivers.
• Dressing like the locals is a great way to ensure you’re respecting the local traditions and culture. This can be especially important when visiting some sacred places or during holy festivals. It’s also a great tip to follow for women travellers in India, who could attract unwanted attention or disturbance for wearing any short or revealing clothing.
• Kurtas are light and comfortable and are the perfect choice to wear when travelling long distances, on sleeper trains for example. They’re also a great option to wear in bed at night, as they will keep you cool while providing a protective layer to shield your skin from biting mosquitoes.

I personally don’t think it makes sense to buy a kurta from home before you travel as you can virtually get them anywhere and everywhere on the ground in India for a much better price. If your India adventure begins in Delhi then my advice is to head towards an area called Karol Bagh, which has dozens of decent shops for purchasing good quality and cheap kurtas and kurtis.

Baby Wipes / Wet Tissues

I believe it’s fortunate (for the sake of our environment) that most people in India clean themselves with water instead of paper after using the toilet. For the foreigner however this somewhat eco-friendly technique might not be the easiest thing to accomplish and many experienced travellers will therefore advise you to carry an emergency roll of toilet tissue when travelling in India.

While I think this is good advice, I would like to offer an innovation to this idea  and suggest that you carry a pack of baby wipes instead. Firstly, they’re packaged much more discreetly (no foreigner really wants to be seen walking down the aisle of a train carriage with a toilet roll in hand) and secondly baby wipes have far more uses in the hot and humid climate. That said, I saw a program on TV recently that showed just how damaging most commercial baby wipes are to our environment. What surprises many people are that the major branded products are usually made from synthetic materials, which means they are NOT BIODEGRADABLE. This is really bad news for our sewer systems and even worst for our environment.

So my solution is that you get some of these eco baby wipes (available on amazon in the link below). They cost only a few pennies more than the usual brands on the market, but the best thing about them is that they’re made from natural materials and are biodegradable.

And lastly, roughly 27,000 trees are wiped out everyday by the toilet paper industry, so perhaps it would be a good idea to master the local technique for cleaning yourself with water during your travels in India and help to reduce your carbon footprint (environmental rant over) ✌️!

Sleeping Bag Liner

This one’s not for everyone but highly advisable if you intend to do some backpacking in India or plan to sleep at  budget guesthouses during your travels. I’ve stayed in some pretty grubby places in my time, particularly during my more adventurous years of roughing it with my backpack. Sometimes you arrive at a place late at night and even when you ask for a fresh replacement set of bed sheets, they end up smelling no different to the first bunch! For those moments, having your own sleeping bag liner like this will mean you can have a peaceful nights sleep. These liners are traditionally designed to slot into sleeping bags but I don’t think it’s necessary to carry a sleeping bag when travelling in India as it’s generally too hot. These liners however are a must because they’re lightweight, making them easy to carry and even come with a flap that you can hide a smelly pillow underneath too! They’re also pretty good for protecting you against biting mosquitoes during the night because you tuck yourself right into them, meaning your legs won’t be exposed as you sleep. Click the link below and you’ll see that they come in different sizes, which is particularly useful for travelling couples or those wanting a bit more room inside!

Travel Lock (for your hotel room)

I find the vast majority of hotel rooms in India contain a barrel lock like the one shown in this picture. It’s always reassuring therefore to use your own personal padlock to secure your room, rather than the one provided by the hotel management. Better still, I think it’s a good investment to take a combination lock (instead of a traditional padlock and key) just like the one available in the amazon link below. The advantage of using a combination lock is that it will save you from having to carry your own key around town when you leave your room. The small combination locks typically used for suitcases probably won’t be robust enough to secure a hotel room door in India, so make sure you get a slightly larger version for your own peace of mind.

Rubber Sandals (Chapals)

I always remember my uncle from Punjab distinctly informing me that you should NEVER enter a bathroom in India without wearing a pair of chapals (slippers). The reasoning behind this advice (without being too descriptive) is basically a combination of two reasons…

• Most Indian bathrooms are designed as wet rooms with a drain plug in the middle of the floor.
• The Indian technique for cleaning oneself after using the toilet tends to be performed ever so slightly beyond the area contained within the lavatory bowl!

Put these two reasons together and you should understand the wisdom of my uncle’s advice! Rubber sandals are always best as they dry quickly and can be used while showering too. Haivanas seem to be the cool rubber sandals that all hipsters are wearing nowadays, so why not grab a pair before you travel.

Apple Cider Vinegar

This might seem like a crazy one to add to the India travel kit list, but give me a moment to explain myself here! So, my uncle lives in Malaysia (in a place notorious for mosquitoes) and when everyone else gets bitten, the mosquitoes always seem to steer wide of him! So, we started to explore the possible reasons why this might be and began to look at the things he consumed in his diet, to see if we could pin down an explanation. One thing we noticed was that my uncle (who suffers from gout) drinks a daily tonic of apple cider vinegar. Having done some research, it also turns out that apple cider vinegar is a known remedy for repelling mosquitoes, which has been used by the army for many years! So, there you have it…drinking a daily tonic of apple cider vinegar will help to keep those annoying insects at bay. The best apple cider vinegar on the market (and the one my uncle takes) is made by an American company called Bragg. It also turns out that apple cider vinegar has a whole long list of other health benefits too, so why not consider taking a small bottle along to India as a natural alternative insect repellent.

De-worming tablets

If there’s one piece of advice I give to anyone travelling to India, it is to take a de-worming tablet. I’ve written a lot more on the subject of parasites in India in the health & safety section of the blog. A few years ago, my uncle in Goa had ingested tapeworm eggs and it was seriously not a nice experience for him! The eggs had hatched in his digestive system and the worms then moved towards his brain, causing him to have a spasm, where he consequently dislocated his own shoulder! Had he not treated it quickly, it could have proven fatal. The moral of the story is to read this and understand the best practices to avoid parasite infections in India.