Korean Job Discussion Forums

[hogwonguy1979]

I'm taking a longer vacation this summer and am thinking about heading to India for part of it. Is it bad during the monsoon season or should i just stick to burma, laos, thailand etc where its not that bad?

[bucheon bum]

The further north you are, the drier it is. That's the general rule of thumb. Rajasthan is desert so it isn't really affected by the monsoons but obviously it is also extremely hot. I traveled through the northern part of the country in June and July, and the only place where the monsoon was a serious factor was in Calcutta. The himalayas are great that time of year: warm in the daytime, cool in the evening. Only "downside" is they're packed with tourists (both domestic and foreign).

Now if you want to go to Mumbai, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, etc, then yeah, I'd look to go elsewhere.

[alwaysbeclosing100]

i just did delhi, rajasthan, amritsar and kolkata in the winter. i could not in a million years imagine doing those places in the summer heat much less in the rain. you would be walking in a human and animal sewer and i do not exaggerate one bit. darjeeling and gangtok have better summer climates in india. i did sri lanka in the summer. the weather was quite good. there is a summer festival in hikkaduwa. some of southern india has a climate similar to sri lanka.

im a huge burma fan. i say any time of the year is a good time for burma. it is the best country in the world. yangon was hot and humid in the summer but not as bad as expected.

bangkok is hot in the summer IMO. chiang mai is a better place for the summer. im not much a fan of the beach scene in southern thailand no matter what the weather.

[travel zen]

I was sweating buckets on Christmas day in Bangalore, India. If its that hot in the winter ....

[johnnyrook]

I went to India in the summer a few years ago, started in Mumbai and travelled north from there. Honestly, it wasn't that bad, but I've lived in hot humid climates all my life. But, if I compared it to say South East Asia, which I've also travelled during summer, it's probably more tolerable, but I could be wrong, it didn't bug me that much in either place, but I feel like it bugged me more in SE Asia, but I didn't always stay in accom with aircon there so maybe that's the difference. Don't know about Southern India.

The absolute worst experience I've had in Asia for heat and humidity in summer was actually Hong Kong.

[bucheon bum]

[ThingsComeAround]

Actually, I'd love to go there. For food and programming C++

but I heard food prep isn't as good, and food poisoning is more common there. Any truth to that?

[Caffeinated]

[brento1138]

[alwaysbeclosing100]

i think burma has much lower random crime than say thailand or the philippines. i think the chance of bad food is higher in india and dramatically higher in a place like delhi than burma. as long as you stay out of the ethnic/tribal areas in dispute and dont start an antigovernment newspaper burma is an extremely safe place. i felt far less safe in colombo than yangon. troops in colombo seemed very on edge/trigger happy and ones in yangon seemed to be sleeping and smoking.

[ModernNomad]

A lot of people get sick on arrival in India, but I think it's a shame when people avoid street food out of fear of diarrhea. My experience with sickness on arrival in other countries seems to follow a pattern depending on the cleanliness of the country I came from, which leads me to believe that the body just needs time to build immunity against local bacteria. It's not likely that you'll be rushed to the hospital or something. You might have diarrhea for a couple days. Bring some meds. Enjoy the food. Be wise about certain things like whether ice in your drink is tap or bottled water.

Here's the history of my colon which backs up my theory:

US to China, got sick
China to India, fine
China to Nepal, fine
France to India, got sick
Japan to India (just 3 months later), fine

[eat_yeot]

[Caffeinated]

[Tiger Beer]