English speaking driver and English speaking guides. That’s what Indian travel agents mention in itineraries to prospective tourists of India. So where is the problem in this scenario? Well, each city visited in India brings with it a new guide. And with a new face comes a whole lotta conversation between your driver and the fresh faced local guide. Tourists become unknowing pawns in a state of foreign banter, a back and forth match of strange words and inflections marked with laughter, raised voices, and numerous head wobbles.

Visitors traveling in new surroundings will chart a range of emotions from elation to paranoia. Over time it’s not uncommon to grow tired of the lengthy conversations held between a driver and a guide, even going so far as to think a guide is gossiping about you, formulating a plan to exhaust you only to pay him to go away. Minutes pass listening to a beautiful foreign language spoken interrupted with, “Sir, this is the palace”. Really? All that dialogue with the driver and you can only point out the obvious to me?

Initiate a rule, call it a game if you will. The rule is only English is to be spoken in the vehicle between the driver and guide. Simple as that. You want to be a part of the conversation. Banter back and forth in a foreign language will dissipate immediately.