travel

My husband and I (not overseas Indian, don't look Indian, don't know anyone nearby and only know the word Namaste/ Namaskaram.) visited India for the first time a few months ago (Kerela). We specifically chose Kerela because we heard it was one of the more developed and that it is cleaner and more orderly than other parts of India.

Still, because of all the rants online about the bad experiences and scams in India, we were very apprehensive and were always on alerts. We ended up feeling really bad that we didn't expect better from them.

When we arrived at the Cochin airport very late at night, we were very worried about the transport and the hotel. Both went extremely smoothly. The taxi was prepaid and the driver just drove quietly until we reached the hotel. He was actually surprised that we tipped him. When we arrived at the hotel at 1 AM (cheap one like $15 a night), the receptionist asked if we were hungry and told us about a nearby shop that was still opened. Then he told us to just took a rest and pay the following morning.

The follow morning, we walked to a restaurant nearby for breakfast. All the advice online that I read said that we had to check the price before we use any services, so I was somewhat panicking when they didn't show any price on the menu. The shopowner turned out to be really kind and the meal was extremely cheap (and good). That experience would repeat every time we eat.

At first, we were too scared to use a tuk tuk or what they call an auto, so we would walk everywhere. Then I told my husband "come on how much could it possibly be" and called one. It turned out the auto (in Calicut) all used the meter and it costed us only 40 Rupees for a ride!!!! We took many rides afterwards and it was the same. In other cities where they didn't use the meter, the rates were still very affordable. Not much difference from the metered rate in Calicut. One time we forgot to agree on the price before getting on and I started to panic ..again, but the driver still charged us just 40 Rupees.

We usually ate at good restaurants where the staff wore uniforms. They were great and much cheaper than modern looking places selling burgers and sandwiches etc. We did not come across any scary looking street food stalls that all the foreign Vloggers have been sharing a million times over. We count ourselves lucky for relying mostly on the recommendations on Google reviews, the local Reddit sub and a few local YouTubers (everything was in the local language, but we were able to find the name of the restaurants and the food). We didn't get sick once from the food. I never used tapwater for brushing my teeth. Having said that, I'm from a developing country myself, so I may have higher tolerances than others.

Everytime we moved from one city to the next, we thought the next city might be worse because it was bigger/ more touristy etc, but no..still no scams. I get scammed more in my city as a local 🥲.

I've been told by my Indian friends that things would be more challenging in the rest of India including in his homestate where we will be visiting later this year. We'll see if that's true.