Where is Diu?

Reaching There

Living there

Where should I live

How much do these cost?

What can I eat?

What I should be eating?

Diu is often compared with Goa but it has a very different feel and people who make it a very different experience. I have been to both the beaches in off season and the difference is amazing. While some activities might be closed in Goa during off season Diu becomes even more lazy and quiet. It is the weekends which infuse life in the otherwise solitary streets and beaches. Diu gets a lot of alcohol/liquor tourists from dry state of Gujarat. Though many hotels and guest houses close kitchens, the smaller bars are always open and never without patrons. 

A small island territory, Diu has beaches and forests to offer a visitor, along with many churches, temples and some Zoroastrian structures.

While researching for our trip I was quite surprised by lack of information on the city. Maybe I did not look at the right place, maybe there is actually a lag. I decided to do a series on Diu and finally compile it as a eBook available for download (maybe). Before I go to the specifics here are some of the tips I wanted to give out.

Take that auto

We weren't smiling by the end and do not have a single photo to prove our bad state

If you are flying and plan on staying in the city and not near the Nagoa beach I would suggest you take an auto and not try to wing it walking like we did. We have walked 6-7 km at many places but for the first time we were beat walking the 7 km stretch. Not only was it very hot no auto or phatphat stopped to take us when we decided to give up until we were 2 km short of our destination. From the st. Paul church to our guest house felt like a mountainous climb instead of the few 100 m of gently climbing road. Take the auto at the airport.
Same hold good for getting down at the bus stand and living near Nagoa.

Forget the AC

This is afternoon in our room

If you can survive slight hot weather I would recommend you skip AC and revel in the winds of Diu. Even though the sun is bright and beating down hard winds are cool and almost always flowing. All of our afternoons were spent indoors as we waited for the hottest part of the day to go past. Nights get cool and you will need a light cover to keep you comfortable.

Carry a mosquito repellent

If you love open widow and sea breeze mosquitoes will be your biggest woes come evening. We did not take any repellents and paid for it one night. It would be best to carry a plug-in repellent or the coil though I would recommend plugins as they are not smoky and smell less.

Get a transport

Our ride along with the owner's these are everywhere in Diu

There is no public transport except for auto rickshaws but they are too few and may be absent when you want to come back from the secluded beach. Cycles are definitely the best option and will cost you about 100 a day for a new one and around 50 for a old pair of wheels. We opted for a scooter, not the greenest way but we had taxed our legs and cycling scared us. It cost us 300 a day but usual costs are 350 we were told. with petrol for 150 filled in we roamed around all corners of Diu clocking around 100 Km.

Eat local/Kathiyawari

If you are eating at any of the local places and not a resort your best bet is Kathiawari food. It is about half the price of other fares and is delicious. A plate of Kathiyawari subzi or curry will cost you 60Rs while a thali should be around 100-140 Rs. Even if the complex mix of Indian spices scare you this one should be fine. It has a good balance of spices and is not hot like most local food choices around India. With a small amount of sweetness added it is both satisfying and delicious. Among all the food we had we are a big fan of Gujrati thali and undhiyu.

Visit the INS Kukri memorial

View from the Kukri Memorial

There are many beaches in Diu being an island it is blessed with sand and sea. Most famous is the Nagoa beach which is 2 km from the airport. Another beach and perhaps my favorite is the Chandrikamata beach on the Kukri memorial side. Like most other beaches there is a temple at this beach too and you can witness evening prayers with floating lamps. But when you move towards the memorial you are met with a hillock and a backwater beach. This one is also one of the cleanest beaches. The backwater pool has rocks on the sea side which make for beautiful breaking waves and result in huge amounts if broken shells which litter the beach. If you like shells take a small walk on the rocks behind the beach opposite to the memorial. Here small crevices are home to numerous small developing shells and some full grown ones.

Diu is a lazy city with its charming beaches and historical structures. It might not be the place where the party is but it is the best place to take a break from hectic travelling and life.

205/3 Behind Diu Museum, off the Hospital road 02875-253851 (number from Lonely Planet)

I rarely write reviews more because of my laziness to click pictures when I am staying at any place than for any other reason. This time I managed to pull out the camera while in the room and click some photographs.

Basic Info

Our place of choice in Diu was Herança Goesa. After a draining walk from the Airport the guest house was a blessing for its quick room allocation and friendly owners. The guest house is owned by an Indo-Portugese family living on the ground floor. There are 5 rooms on the first floor and two on the ground. All the First floor rooms have twin beds and double bed is available on the ground floor.

Location

It is perhaps the best location if you intend to see the city and churches. It is around 8 Km form the Nagoa beach but Jalandhar beach and INS Kukri memorial beach are nearby. You are just behind the two famous churches of Diu, the St. Thomas church and St. Paul's Church. It is around 10 minutes walk to the shops and waterfront, pharmacy is nearby and so are a few food options without going to the waterfront.

Room and costs

If there is anything you will hear about the place it will be its cleanliness and people are not lying. The room was far better cleaned compared to some hotels I have stayed at for double the price.
As I previously mentioned the room had twin beds. The beds were comfortable though we did miss covers or a light duvet as the night got a bit cold for us with windows open. A table with two chairs id the only other furniture in the room. Minimal and sufficient furniture does not clutter the room and there was good circulation space in the room. There is no closet which could be locked but the space is good for unpacking your luggage.
Toilet and bath were like the other areas clean and well provided for. There is a small gas heater which get hot water running. If there is any thing I did not like it was the state of plumbing fixtures. Some minor repairs or replacements would greatly help.
Both the room and toilet are well ventilated, some may even say that it was too ventilated. The windows had clear glass and flimsy curtains made it difficult to change inside the room without fearing for your modesty.
Room has a fan which served us well and we were did not desire air conditioning at any point against our experience in Goa. Plug points are there near the bed and the table, definitely where we want them.
There were no towels or toilet paper provided there was a big bar of soap in the toilet.
Check in-out time is 10 am though we requested another 30 minutes and they had no issues with it, maybe because it was off season. Gate closing time is 11:30 pm.
The room cost us 600 per night.

Food

They do breakfast and dinners but kitchen was to be opened from next month so we walked around for food. Due to its proximity to the waterfront food options are always nearby.

Common Areas

There is a terrace (next to our room) with common table and an ashtray. You can also go up to the roof which along with a nice view has pleasant breeze in the night.

Final Call

We loved the place it was quiet, comfortable and never far away from anything but the airport and Nagoa beach. We met a french guy who comes to Diu every year for twenty odd years and has lived here for past seven. Ask for the rooms with the balcony they were occupied when we went. Definitely the place to live in when all you want is good accommodation for reasonable price.

Did I tell you about the Andaman trip in September end. This year has been AWESOME with all the trips we have been able to do and enjoy. We set up a budget target for our travels when the year started and we have exceeded it maybe spent almost double already. Anyways we are going to another beach and this time unlike Diu I am hoping to get some swimming and snorkeling done. SCUBA is right now looking very out of our pockets and so is the surfing trip I had wanted to go on later in the year.

Right now I am breaking my head about what to take along and what to omit. One of my bigger concerns is my weight and getting a swim suit. I am looking at few and I am honestly unable to decide which ones to buy.

Apart from the clothes it is my desire to carry a small barbecue to the island, not just to have great food but also to save ourselves some money. The trip looks like it is going to be another expensive one and I am not really sure where I am going to dish out the money from. so I am working hard on my freelancing.

The reason why the trip is threatening to empty our pockets is because of the obnoxiously expensive accommodation (affiliate). The only reasonable accommodation I am able to find comes with scuba diving and that will decimate my resources. I feel like I should go and start my own home stay in Havelock and have a huge hall where people can bring in their sleeping gear and rest for the night. Let me know what you think about that. Anyways a sleeping bag is definitely not one of my desired items to pack. It is just too bulky and with the standing seats on the ferries which we will probably take it doesn't sound practical either.

Our itinerary for the ten day trip includes Havelock, Diglipur and Little Andaman. As of now I don't think we will be in Port Blair for long though cellular Jail is definitely one of the things I am interested in.

If you have been to Andamans and have a few tips to share or if you can direct us to a place you think will suit us. Our criteria clean and CHEAP like the guest house in Diu.

Photo on the top is from awesome people at Death to the Stock Photo.

We have all been duly warned about the dangers and pitfalls of credit cards. Why is it then that most of the travel hackers and experts swear by their favorite cards and some even recommend getting multiple cards. There are a few reasons for this

Everything in moderation and control can yield good to great results. Anyone who buys within their spending limits but routes it through heir credit card is going to do good no matter how bad the credit card fine print is.
No body tells you to buy run of the mill credit cards. The cards recommended are specific and suit one purpose or another.

Why should I get a credit Card?

Credit cards as their name suggest are a way of taking money from the bank for a small predetermined time, specified in the credit card agreements as billing cycle. These cards allow you to earn interest from your money and while receiving kickbacks for using the card. My first card was way back in 2010 when I needed it to book our honeymoon tickets. Completely oblivious to how it should work I would put money back in the card as soon as I spent anything. I never got in debt but I never used the card and its facilities to their fullest potential.
If you direct 10000 worth of expenses through your card and have to pay it back 40 days later you can earn around 30 bucks or so in interest. Someone good at accounting can probably give you an exact figure. Most of the cards provide much more incentives than just saving some interest.They might offer a 5% cash back, movie tickets or air miles which happen to be something most of us travelers are lusting after all throughout the year. If you still do not believe what I am saying let me tell you we flew from India to Sri Lanka and back for just 4000 combined because of the miles our regular expenses had saved us just like return flights for two people to Andaman cost us around 12000 while our friends had to pay over 13000 each for the same flights. We have taken multiple free flights in last year all because we found and use the right credit card and this is not including all the ones we paid half price for, like the one from Mumbai to Hyderabad in August while coming abck form Diu.
Did I mention it also gives the holder free access to many airport lounges around the country?

How can I select a credit card?

There are a few criteria to select a credit card which can best suit your requirement which stay true for any par of the world and any purpose. To decide on a credit card to buy look at these major points.

Annual Fees

This is perhaps the smallest of the criteria but it can be considered to be the biggest deal breaker for many. A free for life credit card is going to do nothing for you, you will not see flights or or that matter even get you a discount on a eCommerce site. As with most of the things in material life you get what you pay for. We pay 3000 a year for our card and it has more than made up for over five years of fees in past fifteen months. If you are still hell bent on the free card, go through the pointers below and then choose your card.
Another factor to remember is the waived off fee, which means when you accrue certain amount of expenditure on your card in a year they will waive off you annual fee. Just like fees is a deal breaker or many this clause is usually a deal breaker for me. What if for whatever reason I did not meet the amount and had to pay up the fees, more often than not these cards do carry a bigger fees one such I know of comes for 5000 a year double of what we currently hold but you can get it waived off if you spend 400000 or more in a year. If you are committing to these cards always consider the annual fee in you expenditures if it is waived off take it as a bonus.

Purpose of the card

Why do you want a credit card? Is it just because you want to have a means to pay at places where there is no other paying option, or you are looking to gain something from owning the card. If you are looking for the former it is best to go for lifetime free cards which offer minor discounts and offers along the way without burdening you with the  fees. If you are looking to get more out of the card ownership it is time to define exactly what you want and how yo wish to utilize the card.

There are card for everything from airlines to major shopping chains and some with their own points store where you can buy stuff for free once you have accumulated enough points to qualify through your spending. If your biggest expense if gas you might want to go ahead and look for a card which gives you free petrol. There is nothing better than leveraging your mandatory expenses to help reduce them and make your money stretch. No matter what way you save up it is finally going to go in the same kitty. One of my friend has a card which gives them loyalty points for a famous shopping chain, for him it means easy and cheaper shopping. There is no right purpose and you can want anything from free movie tickets to free flights it's all on you.

Kickback totals

This has to be the most important of all factors which should direct you towards a suitable card. Why? Because this is the reason why you are getting a card in the first place.
The card we own gives every new enrollment bonus 10000 miles which translate to 5000 Rs for a fees of 3000 Rs a year this doesn't seem like a bad deal. Additionally you will still be earning miles and getting those free flights. If you  do not want to take matters to next year feel free to cancel the card before your renewal date and use up your miles too.

Similarly there are cards which give you free nights at a hotel or a straight away domestic flight calculate what the total kickback as are worth and then you shall have the winner. Most of the benefits of the card in question are related to your original purpose that you defined in previous point. Remember there is nothing wrong in holding more than one card as long as the benefits are in your favor and they serve a purpose.

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If you are in US or hold a US address options are many and have been discussed in great lengths by many renowned travel hackers from The Points Guy to Nomadic Matt. But if you are in India not only are the available options too few and miserly they are usually not discussed in detail.

As we started travelling more in 2013 we were on a lookout for a good credit card which could get us the benefits I would hear everyone talking about but still fit our pockets. This meant we needed travel related cards but not those which had over 5000 as a yearly fees. There were a few cards that we considered mostly from the banks we had used over the years but we decided on Citibank Premier Miles to be the card of choice. If you are interested in other options or if for some reason you can't or won't get a Citibank card go ahead and have a look at the comparison here, a handy tool would be this calculator by the same person.

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Lets go ahead and see how this card did on our criteria scale.

1. Annual Fees 

The card has an annual fees set at 3000 which though a bit expensive wasn't something that we couldn't afford, or would burn a big size hole in our pockets.

2. Purpose of the Card

We were looking at travel card specifically those which would help us get enough miles for a few free flights in a year. We also wanted the liberty to not be chained to one airlines and have the option to book from whichever one was cheaper or had better deal going on. Additionally if we could use or convert those miles for hotels and other transport options that would be a plus. This cut out most of the other travel cards because they would bind us to one airline or another. This card allows us to book our tickets through various sites and rewards us with miles as well as allows us to redeem them on various sites including a dedicated portal.

Additionally we can use the miles to pay for hotel rooms and buses too. All in all a good deal for us with flexibility and freedom of use across various sites.
Another one of our criteria was to easily earn miles which is what this card gets you, this card makes it very easy to earn miles from your daily expenses and you get accelerated miles with most of the travel expenses.

3.Kickback Totals

Even though I call them kickbacks these benefits are the reason why we are interested in buying the card. Credit card is now not just a means to pay for your online expenses or delay paying for stuff you bought today it is a means to get the luxury you have been looking forward to.

This card gave us 10000 joining miles which translates to 5000 Rs for a joining fees of 3000 so it was a no brainer 2000 Rs earned by spending first 1000 on the card within 60 days. Every subsequent year you get 3000 miles whenever you pay your annual fees basically reducing the annual fees to 1500.

We earn 10 miles for every 100 spent on flights and some partner sites which include even online clothing and other shopping sites. For all other regular expenses we get 4 miles for every 100 sent. As a thumb rule we spend around 20,000 a month in groceries and around 10,000 quarterly in flights and other partner sites which gets us 3400 miles every quarter. In addition to this we also route our insurance through the card and most often we are the people who pay the bill and later split it with friends giving us around 1,00,000 in other expenses over the year. This comes to around 4000 miles earned a year or around 3900 miles every quarter. In one year we make 7,800 in actual money which we can then use to buy our free flights. Combined with 3000 miles earned for annual fees this the total comes to Rs.9300 which is more than three times of the annual fees we pay.

We usually try to book flight tickets for friends and family which helps us to get even more miles without spending any money.

Other benefits

The card allows the primary card holder to access multiple Airport lounges around the country for free. Our regular debit card also lets us access many of the same lounges but the card includes many more lounges and we have many a times saved over 500 per person by stuffing ourselves full in these lounges. With all the flying involved I would put this benefit at around 3000 a year at-least.

The kickback or benefit total for the card comes around 12000 a year which being a 300% profit over the 3000 Rs annual fees is a good deal.

Other factors we haven't used yet

Citibank allows you to convert your premier miles to other airline miles at quite a good rate more often than not these are converted at 1:1.

Cons of the card

Even though I love the card there is definitely one point which I find can be a disadvantage compared to regular airline miles. As the miles earned are directly related to money with a ratio of 1 mile=0.5 .45Rs it can be a problem when flight prices are too high. In most airline the miles required to fly a sector remain constant as long as the seats are available, but in premier miles you can end up paying considerably more if you do not book on time.

You can apply and get more details for the card here.

What credit card do you use? Are you now convinced to use a travel related credit card?