Ditch the guidebook, rely on speech bubbles

You don't have to lug around a weighty travel guide anymore. Goplaces (.in) gives you all the information you need at less than Rs 100, on your phone or in your pocket, complete with comic-book style illustrations

During a tour of the magnificent Amber Fort in Jaipur last January, a friend's audio guide crackled, hissed and went bust, half an hour into our walk. Not sure about how to find our way back to the audio guide office at the main entrance of the fort, I grudgingly decided to share mine vowing to take it up with the office at the end of the tour. Which we did, and got our money back, but not without much wrangling and fretting.

If that's the kind of experience you don't want on a holiday, go with Pictodguides and Phonoguides, courtesy Goplaces (.in), a site that does all the hard work of historical research and lets you carry it around in your pocket, quite literally.

A start-up created by brothers Amit and Sumit Ray, Goplaces aims to override "issues with traditional guidebooks" by presenting relevant Indian travel content in the form of comic book illustrations, for one.
Pictoguides, a graphic representation of the information you need to be acquainted with a place of interest, are "heavy on research, light on the wallet and just a few pages each," the website claims.

We checked out a sample to Hauz Khas (see picture), and came away satisfied. It begins with a short but informative guide to the history of Delhi's urbanised village and expands interesting nuggets in an onomatopoetic format, complete with speech bubbles to tell you how the arches "have inscriptions praising Allah."

Interspersed with quotes from 14th century poets and an explanation of inter-religious architectural influences, the pictoguide makes for a more visual look at a monument than the text-heavy guidebooks we've been used to.

Phonoguides and apps for the iPhone are the site's other interesting offerings. While we couldn't download the iPhone app, the preview looked interesting enough, including tips for your visit, directions and detailed historical references. Impressive, specially when you consider that they cost $1.99 (Rs 89). Totally worth it, we think.

The only bummeru00a0-- the site's obvious leaning towards foreign travellers, what with the over emphasis on the price in dollars, and towards locations obviously popular with white people including the Taj Mahal (yawn) and Humayun's Tomb. We could do without the foreign hangover.

Still, visual guides that are light on the pocket (whether they're downloaded onto your phone or come as 15-17 page PDFs that are easy to carry around for less than a 100 bucks), cannot be slighted. When the guides expand to include aamchi Mumbai's sightings (the Elephanta caves and Mumbai's other attractions are on their way), we'll sure as hell be clicking pay on the website.