Here are some unexpected hygiene issues I encountered in India:
- Dirty beddings – Low and middle budget hotels will not change sheets for new guests, they change sheets once a month or so. If you prefer not to sleep in same sheets as a previous few guest ask hosts to put clean sheets
- Even clean sheets are not really clean – Indians wash the laundry in cold water, sometimes also in rivers (Varanasi is a good example of river washing) so some stains will stay on the bedding.
Wet floor bathroom - Wet floor bathroom – your bathroom might look like on the picture- shower is attached to the wall which makes the floor wet with water and soap. TheSink might also leave its things on the floor. It happened to me that I washed the teeth and felt some fluid dropping on my feet- just to realize that the sink has a big hole and no discharge pipe.
- Cows shitting everywhere – religious places like Haridwar, Varanasi, Rishikesh- they are filled with cows which leaves a big amount of cow dung.
Pigs eating next to garbage container - All kind of animals eating garbage – India is full of garbage and cows, buffalos, pigs, monkeys- they all feed there
- No toilet paper – the only expansive thing in India is toilet paper because locals don’t use it, they use left hand for dirty work. You can bring your own toilet paper, buy it or do like the locals do.
- Spitting on streets – it is OK to spit on the streets of India, don’t be surprised if, every once in a while. your taxi drivers opens the window to spit- that’s perfectly ok and not showing bad manners
- Using hands for serving food and eating – Indians are practical folks, they have a saying “Why would I use fork when God gave me 5 fingers”. That doesn’t mean that the food is dirty because of it. They wash their hands very often and avoid using left hand when touching the food (for the reason look under “no toilet paper” bullet)
India is very noisy
This is not hygienic shock but for me it’s still a shock – Hindus believe that if they make noise gods will hear them. In traffic – car blinkers are rarely used. Instead, indians preffer to use honks. Traffic roads are full of honking noise.