Melanie and Gavin's Travels

The price of things in India

A few people have asked me how much things cost here. We are sticking to about $20 US a day per person. We always pay in Rupees but I will just do the conversion to dollars.

- Rooms range from $2 a night to our current room at $14 a night. This depends on the city (Mumbai was ridiculously expensive), the time of season you are travelling and of course the room. The $2 room in Varanasi was decent, our $14 room here in Goa is amazing. Then of course Gavin and I split that cost so it helps travelling with someone.

- A 20 minute taxi ride is about $2 in a local rickshaw

- Most of our overnight trains have been SUPER CHEAP, $12 for 2 tickets to travel 765 kms over about 12 hours. It's insane. Buses tend to be more if you have A/C or lean back seats.

- Food is pretty cheap, especially local dishes. We tend to spend the most on dinners. Last night we had an Indian dish with rice, naan bread, salad and calamari plus 1 beer, 1 juice, 1 pop and 1 water between us and it was $8 including a tip (about 10%). We can get local meals for $1. Our breakfast at the hotel now is $1 for all you can eat fresh bread, papaya, pineapple, cornflakes, tea/coffee and eggs. We LOVE it. Today I mentioned I was excited to have hash browns again and she said "I'm Swiss, I will cook you some before you go!"

- Bottle of Coke up to 50 cents
- 1 Liter of Water 30 cents, 5L $1
- 1 kilo of fruit approx $1
- Lobster fresh from the sea $20
- Regular dinner dish $2
- Beer is $1
- Wine is more and Indian wine which is okay but only worth the $1.50 at home!
- A strawberry smoothie at an actual cafe in the next town is $1 and darn good too

- Internet $1 an hour usually

- The movies were about $3 in a good cinema and we have seen 2 Western films

- Postcard with a stamp 30 cents

- Phone calls are wickedly cheap and most through and internet line. 10 cents a minute here in Goa is the cheapest we have found them. I've made a lot of calls here over the holidays and guess I haven't spent more than $10 in total.

And that's all I can think of! Now that we are leaving Goa soon I am taking more photos, which is quite funny as all the local men want to be in them. It's so peaceful and relaxed here, I will miss my favourite Indian city. The other night we found an authentic Italian place for dinner and had the most delicious pizza.

We arrive in Bangkok on Jan 10th so I will write more from there. Oh and speaking of Bangkok... here's hoping there are no more bombs! I can't believe all of these things that are following us around. Here is my list 1) Before we flew to Bangkok the PM was ousted in a coup 2) When we went to Nepal they were still having problems with the Maoists and then the peace deal was signed when we were there 3) Before coming to Goa the Israeli government put out the warning of a possible terrorist attack here over the Christmas holidays and now... 4) 1 week before we go to Bangkok there are bombings (ironic it happened there since we thought it might happen at a bigger Goan beach). So I can only hope we will be safe and stay out of trouble.

posted by melaniewilkes @ 7:18 PM