March 17 : Mumbai

Mumbai is a good chapter to mention one of the less pleasant parts of traveling India: Scams.
You’ll encounter them daily, and while most of them are petty tricks, like trying to sell you a tour for 4000 INR which in the end is agreed on for 1500 INR, sometimes there are also larger scale traps of which you should be aware so you can avoid them. If an offer sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

These things are more likely to happen in big cities like for instance Mumbai but it surely doesn’t hurt to have a critical mind wherever you are.

Here is my personal experience:
Shortly after having arrived in Mumbai a friendly person (and Indians in general are very friendly, so nothing suspicious about that!) saw me being a little lost (my hotel was 500m off from where it should be according to g-maps!) and quickly offered his help to find the hotel – and we did. After I had installed myself in my room and had a shower I left the hotel again and the good guy was still around. Altough my alarm sensors started waking up in that moment, I still let the men persuade me of coming with him to a nearby travel agency where they could help me arranging train tickets for my onward journey. OK, why not give it a shot, booking trains is indeed an incredibly hassle (at the time of writting this I still have not used a train in India so far because it is very complicated for non-indians to book one…).

After arriving at the agency I get served a warm Chai and quickly they know all about my plans: 3 weeks left in India, going to Rajastan, Delhi, Agra,.. and within minutes the travel agent presents me with a complete travel plan, covering all the main spots, booking hotels and most important: reserving all the necessary train tickets in my name. At my concern that I like deciding spontaneously and I dont lkke fixed plans (although my route is pretty clear), I am being told that this i no problem at all, train bookings can be easily changed through them by simply sending a message.

The whole package for 120.000 INR (roughly 1300.- €). Surely more than I would spend on my own for 3 weeks in India but on the other hand if it means that everything is taken care of… it is a tempting offer. But given the difficulties I had so far for booking any kind of long distance transport (except flights) and everything I read about it I remain a little suspicious. So I tell them, I will have lunch now, think about it, and then decide. At this point they start insisting, “ah but the train ticket for tomorrow will get more expensive after 1 pm, etc etc,…” I don’t care, even though they try a lot to convince me to seal the deal (and they are good at it, I almost did!) I leave the place to have some food – and post the whole thing in a few FB India travel groups. Nothing more reassuring than to ask the hivemind. And the internet collectivly agrees: This is 100% a big Scam. There is no easy train reschedulging, there is no easy “Tourist Travel Pass” etc – if it sounds to good to be true it probably is! So that ends my episode, and I went on doing things on my own, with times stressful but in the end always happy and rewarding.

First hand hints and tipps about bus and train booking and which apps to use coming soon!