Amritsar Travel Tips

Travelers Document

All visitors to India are required to carry a passport valid at least for the next 6 months. Visas are mandatory but exemptions include:

1. Bhutanese and Nepalese visitors who are staying for less than 3 months
2. Nationals from the Maldives, if they are staying for a maximum of 90 days (this includes any periods they may have spent in India up to 6 months prior to the visit in question)
3. Transit passengers who have a follow-on ticket within 72 hours of arrival as long as they are not going to leave the airport.

Special restrictions apply to Pakistani and Afghan nationals.

Currency and Cost

The Indian rupee is available in denominations of Re1, Rs.2, Rs.5, Rs.10, Rs.20, Rs.50, Rs.100, Rs.500 and Rs. 1000. One rupee is split into a hundred paise , available in denominations of 10p, 25p and 50p. There are coins for Re.1, Rs.2, Rs.5 and Rs.10.

A healthy budget in Punjab is about $35 a day that will see you sleep in decent clean beds and wake up to an attached bathroom for morning ablutions. It'll fetch you three decent meals, a spot of shopping and some auto-rickshaw rides. The dollar goes a long way in the country (the pound sterling, longer). The bare minimum is just under $15 a day, while a top end holiday could reach the skies.

Banks & Money Changers

Banking in Punjab is becoming easier. There are a sizeable number of ATMs in Chandigarh and Amritsar. Banking hours usually are 10 AM to 2 PM Monday to Friday and 10 AM to 12-noon on Saturdays. Changing money can be a tedious process so change substantial amounts at a time. The banks accept travellers' cheques or currency. Changing money anywhere but at accredited bureau is illegal.

Save up all exchange receipts (encashment certificates); these are required for visa extensions and other formalities, and when you want to convert rupees at the end of your trip.

Business Guide

Punjabis are by nature street-smart business people. Aggressive and great go-getters, the people trade in fields of agriculture, bicycles, woollen garments, dairy products, hosiery and textiles. With increasing liberalisation at both the economic level and at the societal level, business protocol has begun to adhere to western standards. In the big cities expect thorough professionalism when dealing with private companies and high-ranking bureaucracy. Keep appointments, be punctual (though that's a value that Indians are only now picking up), and shake hands if one is offered or greet with hands folded in 'namaste'. You'll most likely be asked questions about family and home not because anybody wants to pry but because many Indians believe that curiosity conveys concern.

Dress formally for business meetings. Women would probably be more comfortable in trousers than a skirt. Men should wear formal cotton shirts with a tie and trousers if the weather is warm. Otherwise a business suit is appropriate.

Health & Safety

The major risks to your health from the armies of mosquitoes are malaria, encephalitis, kala azar and dengue . Cover your arms and legs; be liberal with the repellent and in problem areas sleep under a mosquito net. Traveller's diarrhoea is another running problem and year after year traveller after traveller gets the ' loosies '. Ensure it's nothing nastier by avoiding green salads, uncooked food, and water that you haven't sanitised by dropping an iodine pill into.

Slightly more serious is the risk of contacting AIDS, Hepatitis B and other sexually transmitted diseases. For your sake and the sake of the people you're visiting always use a condom. Have safe responsible sex.

The quality of health services is not consistent. Urban centres, Chandigarh and Amritsar have good hospitals with proficient doctors, 24 hour chemists and diagnostic centres but it is not the same in the rural and semi-rural areas. The only alternative is to head to Chandigarh or Amritsar or Delhi if you anticipate trouble and if you have already encountered a problem then you could be airlifted. Medicines are fairly cheap in India and readily available in Punjab.

Travellers from yellow fever areas are required to have a certificate that declares that they are free of it. Prior inoculation for poliomyelitis is recommended .

Safety

Cases of mugging, theft and worse aren't completely unheard of but by and large serious crimes against travellers are few and far between.

Basic precautions:

1. Keep your money and travel documents close to your body (perhaps in a pouch slung around your neck, tucked out of sight under your shirt)
2. Keep several photocopies of your passport, insurance, travellers' cheques etc. scattered through your luggage
3. Do not use a waist pouch, it may as well be a transparent plastic bag: it's that fragile and that obvious!
4. Do not put all your money in one place
5. Be extremely alert in the dark. The multitudes who are around in the day, disappear into their homes at night, and you go from having a huge thick safety quilt to a flimsy sheet! Try your best to be in a familiar area when it gets dark. If you are not, at least know how you can get to that area from wherever it is that you happen to be.
6. Many women travellers wear the long tunic and loose pyjama dress of Indian women called the salwar-kameez and find that it substantially dissuades unwanted male attention.
   If you are travelling alone, do not advertise it.
7. I f you lose your passport, lodge a First Information Report at the local police station and contact your embassy

Shopping

Rags, woollen garments and carpets made in Amritsar are famous all over India. Prices are also cheap in Amritsar. Himachal Lamb wool products are manufacture in Ludhiana embroidered in Kashmir & Kullu and marketed in Amritsar. Though machine made in Ludhiana, these are sold at large in lots here. Onernay buy from the market near Telephone Exchange or from Golden Temple. Similarly Punjabi leather Chappal of Arabian Nights style may be purchased from the shops around the Golden Temple. Both winter and summer are severe in Amritsar. The tourism season is from Oct to march in Amritsar.