Back in India
Dec. 1st, 2019 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethlakshmiA reason to restart this journal is - I'm back in India.
This journal may have been at it's best when I worked out my thoughts here during my India trip 10 years ago. Yeah. 10. Years.
So, I figured I'd at least make myself the means to try again.
So far nothing earth shattering. A big difference is that I'm not as much of a newbie to India life. Also, I know my budget now and I'm not too worried about it. That said - the Indian Rupee to USD conversion is making my head spin. A good baseilne on my last few trips was 40 RP to the USD - so I could move the decimal place and divid by four - 200 INR --> $5, $3000 INR -> $75 - it got easy after a while. Right now, the trade is more like 70 INR to 1 USD... which just isn't as easy - 200 INR = just under $3, $3000 INR = ~$42 USD. It's not as easy to divide by 7 on the fly and I haven't got a good metric in my head.
Couple that with the baseline has changed - I could buy quite a lot of different stuff for under $3000 INR, and this time the costs just seem higher. Not for everything - travel inside the city is still quite cheap. And even the cab from the airport worked out to $39 for 1 hour of travel. Pretty good by Boston standards.
Clothing has been pretty widely different - key stuff:
Will share pictures soon... tired and headed to bed.
Another thing - I can't tell but I think jet lag is kicking my butt more than before. But also I was VERY tired when I was leaving. I slept on the plane, but was headachy and probably didn't sleep so well.
Tomorrow a small festival (celebrated at home) and then we pack for Mysore. Tuesday, we go to Mysore.
This journal may have been at it's best when I worked out my thoughts here during my India trip 10 years ago. Yeah. 10. Years.
So, I figured I'd at least make myself the means to try again.
So far nothing earth shattering. A big difference is that I'm not as much of a newbie to India life. Also, I know my budget now and I'm not too worried about it. That said - the Indian Rupee to USD conversion is making my head spin. A good baseilne on my last few trips was 40 RP to the USD - so I could move the decimal place and divid by four - 200 INR --> $5, $3000 INR -> $75 - it got easy after a while. Right now, the trade is more like 70 INR to 1 USD... which just isn't as easy - 200 INR = just under $3, $3000 INR = ~$42 USD. It's not as easy to divide by 7 on the fly and I haven't got a good metric in my head.
Couple that with the baseline has changed - I could buy quite a lot of different stuff for under $3000 INR, and this time the costs just seem higher. Not for everything - travel inside the city is still quite cheap. And even the cab from the airport worked out to $39 for 1 hour of travel. Pretty good by Boston standards.
Clothing has been pretty widely different - key stuff:
- There seems to be more ready-made stuff
- Prices really vary - I got 2 churidar sets for ~5,000+ INR ($70) that were quite lovely and well made, and then 3 sets + extra dupattas and some misc other stuff for the same price. And then 4 really gorgeous cholis (also ready made) for that price.
- I know we're targeting ready made because unlike the last time, I really don't have the time to set down in one place and pick stuff up from a tailor... so better to just have it. But also - I think the ready made options are a lot better than they were. I really didn't have a problem getting my giant American size, and all my new clothes fit very nicely.
Will share pictures soon... tired and headed to bed.
Another thing - I can't tell but I think jet lag is kicking my butt more than before. But also I was VERY tired when I was leaving. I slept on the plane, but was headachy and probably didn't sleep so well.
Tomorrow a small festival (celebrated at home) and then we pack for Mysore. Tuesday, we go to Mysore.