Thinking about a 10-day trip to India. Am I guaranteed to be sidelined with some form of illness? I've read stories where people couldn't leave their hotel for days due to diarrhea, even when taking strict precautions.
India
Thinking about a 10-day trip to India. Am I guaranteed to be sidelined with some form of illness? I've read stories where people couldn't leave their hotel for days due to diarrhea, even when taking strict precautions.
Why so short trip?
After third week I was sick for couple days, it was fine smoking hash and resting from traveling, other white people I talked with didn't complain about getting sick.
>I've read stories where people
Take a million of tourists and the craziest shit has happened to them.
I've never heard someone irl who went in India and didn't believe at some poit they were going to die because of the sickness. Talking about 10+ people because every time I hear they went there I ask about it.
Thing is it always involves being too confident after a few days and eat some raw vegetable or shit.
being a bit dramatic no? if it was that serious people would always talk about it. out of all the people i met during the last 2 month trip only one mentioned being violently ill, my friend didn't get sick at all during his month long trip.
people are truly moronic when it comes to avoiding bacteria. drinking glasses, plates, forks, all of those are filled with local microbial street shitters. there is no avoiding it, but you can choose to struggle.
>being a bit dramatic no? if it was that serious people would always talk about it.
NTA, but everyone has a different experience.
I've been to India about two-dozen times and lived there for several years, too. On my first trip, I did a pretty good job trying to avoid anything that could make me sick--I kept my mouth closed in the shower, and even brushed my teeth with bottled water.
But, at some point or another, I ended up having a vegetarian, rice-based snack--probably not the best idea, but not something that people typically get sick from, either.
To make a long story short, I got violently sick and had to stay with a friend's family for three or four days. It was bad enough that their parents said they'd take me to a hospital if I didn't improve. I had non-stop diarrhea and vomited so much that it felt like my esophagus had been torn to pieces.
I went back the next summer, and still got sick. It wasn't as bad as the first time, though. Every few weeks, I'd either get nausea or the shits, which would typically pass within several times. Nowadays, I've built up Indian levels of immunity, so I can more or less eat and drink whatever I'd like without getting sick.
Again, IME, different people have different luck. You can do everything right and get butt-fricked by something unexpected (and you might never know what it was, either). Other people take few--if any--precautions, and never have any significant health problems. Many of my friends and relatives came to India for my wedding (they'd never visited before), and the only person who got sick had respiratory tract-related problems that seem to have been caused more by air pollution in Delhi than anything else.
I'd probably play it very safe if I were in India for a 10-day trip, since any disruption has the potential to throw the whole plan off. For longer trips, I don't think it's a bad idea to get progressively more adventurous.
>I don't think it's a bad idea to get progressively more adventurous.
That's not how the immunity system works, either try 100% avoidance never eating street food or in restaurants and not touching eyes etc, or give zero fricks.
Traveling is shit if you can't have drinks in bars because locals clean with dirty hands in dirty water. Canned drinks should be cleaned with alcohol.
>I ended up having a vegetarian, rice-based snack--probably not the best idea
I'm pretty sure you were exposed dozens if not hundreds of times before that.
>I'm pretty sure you were exposed dozens if not hundreds of times before that.
Most probably. As I said, I can't be sure that's even what got me sick.
-don't use any ice cubes
-only drink bottled carbonated water
-stop eating street food or train stop vendor food
-wash your hands and DRY them (important)
-imodium
this is all bullshit. you think restaurants are hygienic? the local bacteria is everywhere it can't be avoided.
At least you can't say India is overrun by foreigners. I kek'd reading these numbers. Foreigners not even a tiny fraction of 1% of visits.
Eat steaming hot food if you can. Don't eat the slop served from the trays.
A lot of the memes about shitting yourself inside out are just
stupidity, but it is true that food hygiene standards are a lot lower in india than in western countries so you can expect problems if you don't take precautions. eventually your guts get used to it but not in 10 days
main thing to watch out for is that farmers routinely use sewage as fertiliser so any uncooked vegetables are off limits. Great news for salad dodging Anglos. Hot food is fine (the heat kills pathogens). Bottled water is fine (watch out for scavenged refilled bottles). Anything that goes near your mouth has to have been sterilised.
Most cases of the squits are not that bad and caused by bugs you've already had at some point in your life. However the more exotic stomach bugs are everywhere in India. If you do get the runs and it lasts more than a day or two seek help.
A large portion of those 'foreign' tourists in less well known areas are indian diaspora (or second/third gen descendents thereof) travelling on overseas passports to visit family. Actual foreigners are rare
Why carbonated wtf
>10 days
You'll get diarrhea and go home
Indian here, so let me lay out some general rules for you to follow.
>drink packaged water bought only from convience/kirana stores
>don't eat Street food from carts etc
>only eat from restaurants that you think are hygienic.
>check Google reviews if possible.
>ask the state's or city's subreddit for food recommend.
>if you're ordering food, then do it via Zomato/Swiggy and choose restaurants above 4+ rating preferably and atleast 3.5 star rating.
>all big goyslop chains like KFC, McD etc are safe obviously. Indian foodchains like Moti Mahal, Khan Chacha, Behrouz, Briyani by Kilo etc are good too.
>if you're in a metro and confused, just go to the nearest shopping mall's food court
if you do get sick, it's likely to very light stomach discomfort. it's not really a massive problem
I and my brother both got styes (similar to pimples forming on your eyelid) from the dust in the air. remember to wash your face regularly.
india is fun. I would recommend you stay longer than 10 days, because going to india is expensive.
I just went to India for 12 days and got diarrhea right as I was coming back. I shat over 20 times in one day and couldn't keep water down and had to go to the hospital. It wasn't fun.
But my trip to India was incredibly fun. As others said, eat hot food at restaurants that are full of locals. Things specializing in western food are going to give you the shits. There aren't repeat customers coming there, so why bother? Plus they're not eating their own food so the service is lacking.
Eat only vegetarian food. Meat and fish is often unrefrigerated and left in the open with flies all over it. You'll see it pretty often. That shit leaves poisons in the food that can't be cooked out and will cause food poisoning. I risked meat a couple times and it tasted awful, so honestly, don't bother. Stick to vegetarian. They know how to make vegetarian food properly anyways.
Don't eat anything with raw vegetables. I'm pretty sure the cause of my almost deadly diarrhea was a sandwich that had raw lettuce and tomatoes on it. It was an okay sandwich. It wasn't worth the diarrhea though. A piping hot dosa would've been much better.
As others said, wash your hands. I also kept a little bottle of sanitizing gel to clean my hands before every meal. Yeah, washing your hands will get the grime off, but then you have possible bacteria from the water on your hands. Hand sanitizer will kill those.
Now this is some top jeet ESL english.
Please do the needful sir
Don't eat the street food.
Don't eat any animal products.
Don't eat at 'restaurants'.
Don't eat any fresh produce from farmers markets.
Don't buy or eat any untinned food from the supernarket. Only buy the most expensive imported bottled water.
Don't dumpster dive, the rats will make you sorry.
Don't eat food anyone gives you, just smile back while rubbing your belly, this will let them know you've just eaten.
It's best to fast every second day anyway while touring in India to refuce your chances of getting sick by 50%
Why the frick would someone travel to India and dumpster dive there, that's such a bizarre warning
This board is full of vagrant traveller wannabes.
India seems like a popular place on here 🙂
based on the 500 threads you make every day then sure