How to travel India | Is it safe

 India. It can be overwhelming, it can be a little scary. And if you're gonna travel here, it's going to challenge you at some point or another.

Article number one that I posted last week showed you the experience of India. Today's video is gonna show you the realities, some of the information that will help you make the most of this trip and why you need to come see India, because even though this might not be the easiest place for a first time traveler I wanna show you why India will leave a lasting impression on you, because there's really nowhere else like it in the world. In this video I'll be talking about Delhi, Agra, Jaipur as well as talking about the world famous and beautiful color festival, known as Holi. I'll also be covering the best ways to get around, safety, what were the people like and so much more. So let's get started with where you're going to get started on this trip. So we've landed at the International airport. We got our phones set up. And for $20, US, we have 60 days of 1.4 GB a day in data and unlimited calling in India. So, really really cheap phone plan. Apparently it takes roughly 20 hours for them to activate it depending on when you land and so we had to wait until the next day for the phone card to start working. Let's find out if your sim card really turns on in one minute or if we just paid some dude a bunch of money. (phone pinging) Surely enough it did start working. So I'm pretty sure that's a standard here, but if you can find sim cards that work immediately, then all the power to you.

Now one of the main ways to get around India is going to be by taxis and the amazing thing is, it is so affordable to take a long taxi ride. Whether it be 10 minutes or two hours, it's a great way to get around, and it doesn't really add up that quickly. Have you ever wondered why you've never seen a chase scene in India? It's probably 'cause you wouldn't get very far. (horn honking) One of the things that I really liked is the fact that Uber is actually in India. So with the app I already have on my phone, I can go ahead, book a cab and get myself to where I need to be, have GPS all tracked and you know that they're at least gonna have a GPS system in their car, whereas if you go with the average taxi, usually you have to communicate directions, there might be a language barrier. Try to take that from the airport, but in our case we didn't have data. So we took a prepaid taxi where we just went to the transport authorities, they have a little desk there, and we told them where we needed to be, they gave us a price that was a little bit expensive actually. Prepaid taxi for a 20 minute drive is $10. But it got the trip started and it wasn't a big deal. Now everyone's opinions differ, but some people will actually say to skip Delhi.

Now, I'm personally very happy that we started there. I was really happy to be able to see what is one of the most densely populated places in the world, to see what is one of the hubs of India. It was a culture shock to say the least. It was a unbelievable sensory overload and I'm so happy that I got to see that, to witness it, I think that Delhi's an experience. I don't think you need a ton of time, but if you're coming to Delhi and you want a really, amazing top value place to stay, definitely check out The Legend Inn. The front desk and the team that worked there, are one of the main reasons you need to go. They were so nice to us and I really appreciated it. So our hotel has India's first ever indoor climbing wall. Some of the main things that you need to do in Delhi are going to be Yamuna Ghat. And this is a place where we experienced an incredible sunrise. I don't know where all these birds came from, but this is their paradise. You can pay about a 100 Rupee per person, to get on this boat and with that you can get some amazing photos. Later that day you can go to Old Delhi, where we went to Chandni Chowk.

Chandni Chowk is probably the definition of chaos of busyness, crowd, honking horns, explosions of sound and smells, it is like the craziest thing that I've ever experienced as a traveler and I'm so happy that I got to see that. It's not a relaxing experience by any means, but if you've traveled like I have, it's always amazing to see new things and this was one for the bucket list. And because we were there during Holi, it was actually extra busy. Now once in Chandni Chowk, there's a couple spots there, definitely worth checking out. There is Jama Masjid, a little tiny sanctuary. I think it might be a holy area, so we have to be respectful and quiet. 'Cause you can't wear your shoes. We actually had to go buy some pants here. We found some for four bucks and they let us in. Katy's all well dressed today. - Yeah. If you're a girl and you're watching this, a good tip is just wear long skirts and always have a scarf with you. It'll be very helpful. - But just next to it is the must check out place. And this is Khari Baoli. And I'm sorry for mispronouncing it, if you're from India, please I'm doing my best here. It is Asia's largest spice market and my gosh, you will smell it. Oh my gosh, it's so spicy. It takes over your lungs, your throat, your nose, again, on with the theme of sensory overload. This is a place you need to check out and if you're able to find it, there's a hidden staircase, where it brings you up to the top of the spice market, giving you a view over the chaotic streets, into the spice market, and it's a really cool spot to get some photos, relax, feel a bit elevated over the crowd. If you wanna find that I recommend asking the locals there. The locals are always so nice and they will definitely try to help you out.

There's a lot of cool stuff in Delhi, but with limited time, this is all we saw. And so, we were onto our next spot and that is going to be Agra. Now, Agra is about an hour and 40 minute train ride and about a three and a half hour taxi away. Now, we ended up taking a taxi, because of the holidays, the trains were completely booked up, except for 5 AM. Now because there were three of us on this trip, me, Katy and Malte, we actually found that it was basically the same price to take a cab  as it would've been to buy three individual train tickets. Now, mind you it is faster by train, it's probably more comfortable, I think it comes with breakfast, but we didn't wanna get up at 5 AM, 'cause we were jet lagged. We actually downloaded a couple of the local taxi booking apps that the locals use. We found they had less flexibility, 'cause you had to commit to a ride many hours in advance, and they were about the same price as the competitor, being Uber, so I preferred stick to Uber, it's automatically billed to my credit card, it's all taken care of.

Short distances or long distances, Uber will work in the bigger cities. If you're gonna be traveling India, then you're definitely gonna be spending a lot of time in trains, planes and taxis. That's where I wanna share with you guys today's video sponsor that is keeping me, powerful, while on the road. mophie sent me this here juice pack. And what the juice pack is, it's an amazing way to keep your phone safe, 'cause it's a phone case, but it also charges your phone while on the go. Now, the amazing thing is, it's wireless charging. So as soon as you turn it on, it is charging your phone, through the back of your phone, which is unbelievable if you have some of the newer android, or if you have an iPhone, it works amazingly well, and the awesome thing is, you can charge this case at the end of the day and your phone at the same time, just by dropping it on a wireless charging station, or by plugging it in. So even though your phone is getting heavier, it's really practical and because I'm literally living on the road, this is something that I will definitely be keeping on me. And with that, let's now talk about Agra. If you're not here during the high season, you probably won't have any problems booking your train and so if you're gonna do that, I recommend using this website. It's probably gonna be the best way to go city to city in India. A seat from Delhi to Agra with air conditioning in economy is going to be $12, whereas the first class is about double that, around 22, $23, so it's quite reasonably priced. And I think it even comes with a bit of food, so definitely gonna be the best way to get around, you're saving time, it's more comfortable, so Agra is not a place that has a ton to offer, but it does have one thing in particular that I would highly recommend you check out and that is the

world famous Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is one of those places that lives up to the name and the hype and that can't be said a lot of the time. It is a marvel, it is a jewel, and it's crazy to think that this was built 400 years ago. They literally moved mountains to make this place, it's unbelievable. I have a little tip for you. If you hire a guide, you can actually skip by the ticket purchasing gate. So, if you're running and you're like, oh my gosh, we're gonna miss the sunrise, 'cause that was us, we hired a guide for 15 or $20, and that enabled us to get past the first line, but then we sadly realized there was a second line, which was basically the security line. The women's line was probably five times longer and so we were in within three minutes of that line, but Katy took about 20 minutes and so we unfortunately said ta ta for now, 'cause we had to go capture that sunrise and we met her inside at the Taj. In Agra we stayed at a nice four star hotel called the Radisson. Because of the vacation high season, the prices definitely went up. This what $90 gets you for one night. Three people in one room and they actually included breakfast, although I don't recall paying for it, so. But when I just checked online, the average pricing is actually closer to $50 to stay in a really nice room. So I definitely recommend that. And one of the reasons I recommend staying in bigger hotels, is because in India, it's a little bit hard to find food that you aren't worried will get you sick. It's not that there's not good food, because I've seen food that looks unbelievably tasty, but for me, the idea of getting sick for three days on a seven day trip through India would be a total devastation and so I was eating very carefully. I don't wanna spread fear, but you of course need to figure out what works for you, how careful you want to be and for me on this trip, I wanted to be as careful as possible and the crazy thing is, even with practicing extreme caution I got sick once with a bit of a stomach bug, Malte literally had to sprint from the metro system to find a bathroom and Katy also got sick on one of the days.

Now with that being said, I should also mention, you can't drink tap water in India, so always go with bottled. One other spot that is quite interesting in Agra that we did not have time to see is The Red Fort. We didn't go inside of it, we just stayed on the outside, because we were short on time. But other than that there's not a ton to do in Agra. Now, if you're there for Holi, this is something you'll definitely wanna check out. It's called Vrindavan and Vrindavan is said to be the birth place of Holi. And it's about a one and a half, two hour taxi ride away from Agra and this is where the Holi festivities are absolutely off the walls. People are throwing dried paint, people have water guns, people are dropping buckets of water from the second story of their apartment rises, it's madness. And I need to be very transparent, because it's not gonna be something for everyone. I had an unbelievable time. Me and Malte were so fortunate to have met nothing but nice people who were having a good time. And one thing that we're really happy we did is, we actually did not go into the temple. The temple was way too crowded. So my tips are to stay in the side streets, where it's a little more manageable. It's still gonna be crazy busy, but you at least will feel like you have some breathing room in front of you. Now the other thing too is, because we are tourists, we do get a little bit more attention and so more paint will be thrown at you. (laughing) It's all over me. I love it, this is so cool. And that's where it's key to have some sunglasses on. Something that will protect your eyes from getting directly hit with paint. At some points we got a bit of paint in our eyes, it was not the end of the world, it was uncomfortable, but that's it, but it's only because we had sunglasses that we didn't get our eyes destroyed. And I have some friends that unfortunately had that experience where they were not having so much fun, because of it. Now, the other side of it that I

wanna delicately handle, in saying, I don't think this is a place for a female tourist to come and visit. You can have your own private Holi with friends, we did that on the second day, on the actual day of Holi. We just got together in Agra in an alleyway, and threw some paint, took some photos, it was a lot of fun. And there's also private parties that you can find from place to place in some of the nicer hotels. It might cost a bit, I'm not sure. I wanna remind you that I personally had a great time and again, the people of India are amazing. But all it take is one or two really drunk people and all of a sudden your day's been ruined. It's definitely a very mixed bag of reviews. Take it as you will. Now if you do decide to brave the Holi festivities, here's what you're gonna need. You're gonna need a set of white clothing or something that can get utterly destroyed and it won't matter. Secondly you're gonna need some way to protect your electronics, so we ended up having a nice, little bag that we put around the camera, allowed us to get some amazing footage and not worry about the paint getting on it. And with that of course, your travel essentials are gonna be a power bank, whether you're shooting with your GoPro, whether you have your phone out, then you need a way to keep it powered and that's where I wanted to show you this. The power station PD. And this guy right here can give your phone about 35 hours of additional use and charge two devices at the same time. It actually charges 2.5 times faster than plugging into a wall would, with your typical wall adapter. Definitely an awesome tool on the road. And these power banks will be traveling with me on many trips to come. With an awesome visit to Vrindavan and to Agra, it was time to move onto our next destination. Now we considered the train, but again we had a slightly larger group and we preferred just to have the convenience of grabbing a taxi. In Agra there's no Uber, I guess it's not running in that city, but we found the most amazing taxi driver in the freakin' world. The guy feeds dozens of dogs everyday. He gives back to the community so much and we're ready to go all the way from Agra to Jaipur and we're doing so with our top notch, trustworthy friend, who you need to call if you're coming to India. This is Tory. He's a legend. Amazing guide, he drives all around India, just shoot him a message on WhatsApp and I'm sure he'll be more than helpful to show you around. We paid about this much to go from Agra to Jaipur. There may be slightly cheaper ways to get around, but for us this was perfect and it was great to see the money was going to an awesome dude. Our adventures brought us to my favorite part of India, Jaipur. And Jaipur is known as the pink city, although, it was more of a sandstone city, I didn't quite understand the name pink city. It is also loosely compared to Paris. It definitely has some very picturesque architectural sites and with that I wanna list off some of the really cool spots that we checked out that I think you should too. The first is gonna be this Jaipur Gates. Now, this is kind of an Instagrammer spot, it's a little

bit out of the way and it really didn't do that much for me, but I got a cool photo, so if you're traveling for the purpose of getting cool photos, then check it out. The next one I'm gonna butcher is Nahargarh Fort. And this is a must. If you're gonna watch a sunset or a sunrise, come here, it is so pretty, you're up on the mountain, overlooking the entire cit of Jaipur. That was really beautiful. I highly recommend coming here for sunset. It's a perfect viewing area. You have to get in before five, 'cause I heard they don't let people in after that, but as long as you make it before then, you can stay until after sunset. - And epicness has gone up to at least a 9.5. - Wow. I think this was my favorite place that we went to in Jaipur. And with that very close by to it, there's a place, called Amber Palace. And we did not have time to see it. It has a very very distinct medieval kind of red fort look to it, but I highly recommend do not take the elephant rides up the mountain, because, well if you don't know about it, just watch my video called Black Tusk and you can learn everything about why you should not ride elephants. Another very beautiful site is Jal Malal. It's kind of a cool spot for sunrise. We got some amazing shots here. It's surrounded by a lake, so you can't go in, but I couldn't even find that much history on it, so it's kind of just a little eye candy. You have the Hawa Mahal, which is actually quite an interesting place. No doubt, the best place to come is right up this narrow little staircase, up to the top. They don't even charge you to come up here, which I'm really surprised about. And now we've got a beautiful view. We also just found out that the king had 33 wives, so you can imagine 33 ladies just watching daily life from the inside. Let's also hope he gave them noise canceling headphones, 'cause the horns out here are out of control. Badam badam, gadoosh. You have the Jantar Mantar which is basically a collection of sundials and instruments to measure the time of day. It was built in the 17th century and it has a lot of historical meaning, but for me, I don't know, it didn't really rev my engine, if you know what I'm sayin'. Now lastly we actually stayed in one of the historical sites. This is the Raj Palace. This is elegant, Indian luxury. It is unbelievably beautiful. And the nice thing about India is that a five star experience costs a whole lot less than it does in most other places around the world. For two nights we got to live like kings and queens. Wow. This is crazy. And this is actually a palace that was built in the 17th century, one of the first buildings in all of Jaipur. Every room is different than the other. They have antiques and artwork that will not be found anywhere else in the world, because they're complete one offs. They have all sorts of designs and interior choices, that of course would've been the stylistic choices of the 17th century, to be able to stay there for a couple nights and transport yourself into another time and place is one of the things that this place does best and everything from the beautiful courtyard, being inside the palace gates, it makes you feel like you truly are a king of a queen for a couple of nights. When we arrived at the hotel, we knew this was a historical site, but we didn't know they had one room in particular, and so the hotel team has actually invited us in to see The Gold Room. If you're gonna be staying in a

golden suite, that's only fit for a king, then of course you're gonna need your own private lobby and so that's where you have a little waiting area that is exclusive to the grand suite that we're about to go upstairs to. This is the golden suite. Literally they have taken gold flakes and covered it on the walls. This place is gonna run you about 15,000 USD per night. A lot of the pieces are actually bordered off, you're not able to touch them and this is one of them here. I asked earlier what's so special about these cushions, and actually what you'll see is if you look really closely, these are golden threads. So the entire furnishing has been decorated with gems and stones. So come with me here. This is the master suite. What you're seeing here is golden headboards, all this has been covered in carats and carats of gold. My personal favorite part of the room is this. The moment you walk into the bathroom, it is nothing but gold. From wall to wall, it's like the Versailles of India. I've nothing to compare it to. As far as sightseeing goes, that's everything that we have seen in India. We had a really limited time frame, but I wanted to talk about some things that I think will be beneficial for you to know before showing up. First things first, the Indian people are incredible. They're fun, they're playful, they love being on the camera, they love being goofy, they love posing and I love it. I think it's so much fun  and they made shooting really really easy. One of the highlights of India. With that, let's talk about safety. How did I feel, traveling India? Well, as a male that was traveling in a group of three, I felt totally fine. Never once did I feel endangered, I kept my camera around my neck, even through the busiest of crowds. Whether I recommend that or not, I'm not sure. But I do know that India did not come across as a place that was dangerous. It felt very safe to me, it felt very friendly  for the most part and so I don't think that you need to be traveling with that in the back of your mind, but as always, be street smart, protect yourself. Now, can girls travel India alone? I can't quite speak to that, but I do know, that I've heard ups and downs, I've met a lot of female travelers who have backpacked through India, like a month or two months, and they have loved it. Indian food. One of the things that I was most excited about and also scared of, because as I mentioned,  all it takes is one wrong meal to be out of the game for three days and I did not have the flexibility to get sick. So I'm glad that it was just a small stomach bug for basically all three of us. No one had anything serious. But Indian food is some of the best food on planet Earth. From fresh basmati rice, paneer, dal, butter chicken, my personal favorite and the naan, one of the most delicious items on planet Earth. When you put together butter chicken with the naan, it's like you don't ever wanna eat anything else. It's just so freaking good. And as somebody that loves a bit of spice, it's got everything I'm looking for. Even eating at a five star hotel, could still mean that dinner was only 20 USD for a pretty great meal. So, don't be afraid to go try dinner at some of these more luxury spots, because if you're coming from North American spending standard, it shouldn't be anything that blows your budget. I wanna give you some practical tips for India. The first thing you need to know, do not take any bills, or notes that have rips in them or pen marks on them. We were actually given a ripped bill and we were also given a bill with some pen on it. The reason is that money basically becomes valueless, it can't be used. Buy snacks whenever you can. If you see a grocery store, get some granola bars, get some almonds, get some food that can hold you through the day until you find the restaurant that you feel comfortable to eat at. What might be okay for a local might get you sick. Another tip is to bring some light pants if you're gonna be going into a temple. Another thing is India's temperature varies a lot. From city to city, from season to season. And so when we were there the weather was just perfect. I'm talking 22 degrees during the day, nice breeze, T-shirt and short weather, fantastic. If I had gone at the other time of the year, it could be like 40 degrees and just absolutely smoldering. So plan your trip around the temperature, because it will change the overall experience. Getting a visa for India is a must. I don't think anyone is visa free, but it is easy to do online. I think I paid about $80, which is actually quite pricey. It came within about a day or two. But it does quote that could take up to five business days. It's all done online and the link is right here if you wanna book through their website. I've been told not to buy through third parties, it might be a scam, I don't know. Another great tip is to bring the relevant power adapters and lastly, I've said it before, but I do think having your phone set up will be a good move. So the moment of truth. Will I be coming back to India? And the answer is yes. Yes, I definitely wanna see more of this beautiful country. It is a trip of highs and lows. Of incredible polarization between chaos and beauty and serenity and then more chaos and car horns, and meeting incredible people, tasting and unbelievable food and so many of these memories that I will never forget. I think this was the most memorable trip of my entire life. I know that there's so much more that represents India and if you don't know, I actually own a Indian motorbike here in Bali. It's a Royal Enfield. And Royal Enfield, if you're listening, it'd be super awesome to work with you. If you wanna set me up with a motorbike, I'd love to do an Indian road trip. If you're new to the channel here, hit the subscribe button, I post new videos every single Saturday and I'm actually just now gonna be getting into doing Wednesday videos where possible, giving a more raw and real BTS to the production of the Saturday videos. And lastly a huge thank you to mophie for sponsoring today's video. If you want 20% off their products, make sure to use the promo code down below and let's get lost again in the next one.