Date 2005 | Occasion |
| January 1 | New Year's Day* |
| Januray 21 | Eid ul Zuha or Adha |
| January 26 | Republic Day** |
| March 8 | Maha Shivaratri* |
| March 25 | Holi |
| March 25 | Good Friday* |
| April 13 | Baisakhi, Vishu/Bahag, Mesadi, Maghi* |
| April 18 | Sri Rama Navami* |
| April 21 | Milad un Nabi or Eid ul Milad (The Prophet's Birthday) |
| April 22 | Mahavir Jayanti* |
| May 22 | Buddha Purnima |
| August 15 | Independence Day** |
| October 2 | Mahatma Gandhi's Birthday** |
| October 12 | Dussehra |
| November 1 | Diwali (Deepavali) |
| November 3 - 5 | Eid ul Fitr* |
| November 15 | Guru Nanak's Birthday* |
| December 25 | Christmas Day* |
Festivals and holidays differ in different regions. Hindu and Muslim festivals are scheduled according to the lunar calendar and don’t fall on the same day every Gregorian year.
*Restricted holidays - Given at the discretion of the organization/employer.
**National Holidays
Weekend: Sunday
Health
The quality of health services is more than adequate in Ahmedabad with its well-equipped hospitals, 24-hour chemists shops, competent doctors and adequate medical services. Medicines are fairly cheap and though chemist shops in the cities are well stocked, it is always a good idea to take along prescription drugs. Travellers from yellow fever areas are required to have an inoculation certificate. Prior inoculation for poliomyelitis is recommended.
The entire Indian sub continent has the same health hazards so one line of defence should cover you on all territories. 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. Also carry sunscreen with minimum SPF 20 to escape sunburn.
Safety
Ahmedabad is a safe destination for travellers. Just follow usual traveller caution. Political disturbances and riots are usually localised and everyone’s aware well in advance of potentially troubled days ahead. 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:
- 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),
- Keep several photocopies of your passport, insurance, travellers’ cheques etc. scattered through your luggage,
- Do not use a waist pouch, it may as well be a transparent plastic bag: it’s that fragile and that obvious!
- Do not put all your money in one place,
- 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.
- If you lose your passport lodge a First Information Report at the local police station and contact your embassy.
India uses the metric system where 100cm=1meter; 1000meters=1km, liquids are measured in litres and solids in kilograms.
220volts/50 hertz is the frequency at which electricity is available WHEN it is! Power cuts and ‘load shedding’ is a regular feature all over the state. Another reason for visiting in the cooler months would be that not only do power cuts become fewer but you’ll also feel the pain of them less! If your electric razor has flat-pin plug then carry a combination plug that will feed into a round-pin socket: across the sub continent plug point sockets are round rather than flat.
If you are above 17 years you may import the following in without attracting duty:
200 cigarettes or 50 cigars or 250 grams of tobacco, a litre of alcoholic drink, 250 ml perfume, gifts up to a value of Rupees 750 (foreign passport holders), gifts up to a value of Rupees 6000 (Indian passport holders) and articles of personal use.
It is illegal to bring in drugs, gold and silver bullion, plants and coins that have gone out of use.
Post & Communications
Postal services in India are quite efficient. Letters overseas must be marked "Air Mail" or "Par Avion". It takes a week to 10 days for letters to reach the U.K. and the U.S from Ahmedabad. Have letters for you (surname first) addressed to the Ahmedabad GPO (General Post Office) off Relief Road, ‘Poste Restante’. The GPO will hold letters for 30 days, and you have to show your passport for identification. Parcels are a bit tedious to send or receive and often when they do finally arrive, they’ve been tampered with. Courier services are widely available in the cities and small towns.
"Cyber cafes" are an increasingly common fixture in Ahmedabad with the Gujarati Diaspora spread across the world, though rates vary from locality-to-locality, so you can check your mail and surf the net. Very often the Internet business is an extension of what used to be a just a "PCO". In loopy lanes, beneath shady peepul trees, in busy markets...........all over the city little yellow boards spill out of little kiosks with the cryptic letters "PCO-STD-ISD" (........... huh?) 15 years ago the telecommunications miracle swept India and today, proud bearers of that legacy, ‘Public Call Offices’ bring to the streets the services of ‘Subscribers’ Trunk Dialling’ and ‘International Standard Dialling’. Most offer fax services, and more and more now, Internet facilities too.
Country code for India: 0091. Codes for the metros: Delhi-011, Mumbai-022, Calcutta-033 and Chennai-044. When calling from overseas omit the zero in the city code.
It is customary to tip 10% of the bill at restaurants, but you may tip less if service charges have been included in the bill. At hotels tip 10 bucks to the bellhop, the same to the doorman ‘durban’; if the service is particularly good, substantially more to the concierge and housekeeping. You’ll find some of the most friendly and colourful service at tiny nondescript roadside stalls called ‘dhabas’. A small tip, even if it is only loose change, will be appreciated tremendously.
Black and yellow cab drivers do not expect to be tipped. The opposite is true if you have a hired a cab for a long period. Your rented car driver and your tourist guide expect to be tipped.
No matter where you are in India it is never going to be difficult to find an English language newspaper. All the major dailies, and there are many in this country where the fourth estate is startlingly independent and strong, have local editions with at least one from every region and one on the net. Local editions of national dailies published from Ahmedabad and metro editions of English newspapers are available at newsstands and vendors who also sell weekly newsmagazines, filmzines, women’s magazines and even international fashion glossies that now have an edition coming out of India.
Cable TV has reaped a rich harvest and the city skyline blooms with endless numbers of dish antennae and these are only going to proliferate further. BBC World Service and CNN beam the latest news; ESPN and Star Sports keep you up to date with how your club is (or is not) thrashing its rivals in UEFA; and Star (elsewhere known as Sky) beams an entire stable of entertainment channels.The widely accessible national channel too has some English programmes, and a daily English news segment.
FM in the metros means Music like in the rest of the world. BBC World Service and Voice of America are on the MHz bandwidth but the frequency is variable.
Recommended Reading
- Gujarat and the Gujaratis, Pictures of Men and Manners taken from Life by Behramji M Malabari
- The Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru
- Hindu India: From Khajuraho to the Temple City of Madurai by Henri Stierlin, Chris Miller and Anne Stierlin
- India: from Midnight to Millennium by Shashi Tharoor
- Gujarat, Daman and Diu: A Travel Guide by Philip Ward
- Traditional Indian Textiles by John Gillow and Nicholas Barnard.
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