On leaving India I tried to make a list of likes and dislikes and although I have a few, most of the things in India can be violently hated and loved at the same time but here are a few of the best i could think of.....
LIKES:
The genuine humanity of the Indian people and their genuine friendliness
The haggling everywhere for every price
The fact that you can live like a king for $20 US a day
The amazing food that you can get everywhere
The genuine want to please you - if they cant get it they will find someone who can and they hate to say 'no' to you ever.
DISLIKES:
The red crap that Indian men chew and then spit in a long stream into the road - its a miracle they never hit me. This stuff they chew makes their breath STINK and their teeth rot and its vile
The constant hawking and spitting that is a way of life in India and they do it EVERYWHERE. Men spit all the time and it really started to turn my stomach when i was leaving.
The constant staring. I mean when you are on a train EVERY male on that train will stare at you and some will come into the carriage when the train stops just to stare at you - no matter how you dress or ignore them. You just had to get thick skinned but it really started to get to me after a while.
The fact that you cannot get rid of people. I had one rickshaw driver follow me for 40 mins in his rickshaw when i was on foot trying to pursuade me to get in. I had another one in Agra who followed me on foot and even sat outside the restaurant i went into and then into my hotel so that he could claim commission for taking me there!! That was a total of 4 hours he followed me for.
My return from New Zealand back into Indian culture was a little strange as although I had only 2 weeks left in India and I wanted to do so much I found it pretty hard work as the daily temperatures exceeded 45 degrees C!!I began my whistle stop tour by booking all my train ticket with the usual formalities of going to the front of every queue to get my tickets - I am going to miss the female queue thing when I am back home!!From Delhi I travelled overnight to Ajmer and caught a bus to Pushkar and spent 2 days there buying loads and loads of clothes and sending them home. On the train I met an Austrain guy who had been to India in 1990 and we had an interesting conversation about the changes in India over the last 10 years. The amazing thing he said that the only differences are the fact that there are now petrol stations and internet cafes - everything else was pretty much the same as it was in 1990! Due to the soaring temperatures the place was very quiet and I got some very good bargins as there really was no other tourists there!I took my stuff and went to the post office for the packingwallah to sew it up in cloth and seal it with wax - yes really! and then sent it home. The whole process took around 4 hours for 3 parcels.....Indian post office maths.....
Add the number of parcels to the number of workers in the post office then divide by how many times they go out for chai and then add that to the number of times you have to go to different places in the post office for glue and to find a packingwahlah and you pretty much get the idea!!!
I saw my first camels in Pushkar and you would think that they were slow?? No! Camels move so fast!!!
From Pushkar I went to Jaipur and clever old me I thought that I would be smart and spend the night in the train station in Ajmer as my train was at 5am the next morning. I decided to sleep in the upper class ladies waiting room and as I settled down to sleep thought 'this place actually seems pretty clean' ah foolish me as I woke up with FLEA BITES!!! was absolutly jumping - picture to follow on my web page soon!!!!
I didn't like Jaipur that much - was just another big noisy city and I left after one day. I wanted to go and watch the sunset as Jaipur is billed as 'the pink city' as it was painted pink on order of the king one year to welcome the UK king at the time (1700's) and the tradition was continued. However there was no sunset just the first monsoon rain and the road outside was a river in 2 minutes!
The one good thing I did in Japiur was go to the palace that hosted the worlds biggest sundial and the worlds biggest silver cup.
Seeing those things got me thinking so I have added them to a list....
So far I have been accross New Zealands longest bridge and seen the worlds largest jersey, largest glass of beer, largest silver cup, largest sundial. I will continue this list till i get home and i bet its gonna look a little weird!
From Japiur I continued to Agra, the town that plays host to the Taj Mahal. This town saw the clingiest touts and the most outrageous scams and prices for white people but luckily i avoided most of them! I visted the Taj Mahal and my bad luck with the weather continued. I first saw it from the roof restaurant of my hotel and it was like 'oh it looks like it does in the pictures! It didnt seem real at all!' I then went down and walked round and inside it and all the way round it. Instead of a sunset we got a sand/dust storm so the Taj nearly dissapeared at one point and then it started to rain! I wanted to also view the Taj by moonlight but it was cloudy and when i got up again for the sunrise it was still cloudy!!
It really is an amazing building though and is total testament to the weirness and oddities that is India. It was said to be the greatest monument ever built for love. It was built by a muslim man for an islamic woman and is the greatest tourist attaration in India - a primarily Hindu country!
I also saw my first and only elephant on the streets of Agra. From Agra I headed back to Delhi and spent another night in Delhi airport and then the following morning headed for African shores......!
The following are notes from an Indian newspaper which proves that although many Indian people speak english, it is not Victorian English, or Broken English but very much Indian English where most of what is written makes sense but now and again they choose slightly the wrong word either making the whole thing nonsense or hilarious!
Ie the Indian Express May 5th 2007:
'Man returns from dead, jailed wife,lover freed'
'Tony Blair almost lost control of Scotland'
From shrieking with laughter at that in the paper I turned the page to read a Doctors letter:
'Middle aged woman with pregnant teenage daughter who was also mentally challanged'
In such cases experience points suspicion to a relative as in most cases they are the culprits. Yes confirmed the mother casually it was one of her Uncles.
Doing the only thing I could I asked her mother if I could equip her daughter with some simple birth control. In such cases the law also permits removal of the uterus.
The mother said she was not interested in anything of the sort. Such a reply from someone who understood the full implication of what she said was mind numbing.
Where is that girl now - is she safe, alive, pregnant again, raped again?
Severla points - firstly ok India is not westernised nor has any wish to be so but HOW can the above story be ok, how can this be allowed to continue? However forward thinking and technologically advanced India becomes India will remain the same - fixedly so and blinkered to the best that westernised culture has to offer.
They will take the parts that are permitted to fit along side their culture ie the pornography, the money, the internet and the technological advances but when it comes to culture Indian people will never change - no matter which country they are in. This may seem a little harsh to judge the whole of India this way but after talking to a lot of people both tourists and Indians for the last 3 months the only changes they could tell me about in 20 years was petrol stations, internet, mobile phones, cricket and politics.
As has been said 'a defined culture is strictly for bacteria, let us leave it that way' To me that is the best explanation of India that I can find. I have attempted to explain and show India in several ways and every time I feel I have only scraped the surface of the culture that is India
Next blog will be from Africa!!!
LIKES:
The genuine humanity of the Indian people and their genuine friendliness
The haggling everywhere for every price
The fact that you can live like a king for $20 US a day
The amazing food that you can get everywhere
The genuine want to please you - if they cant get it they will find someone who can and they hate to say 'no' to you ever.
DISLIKES:
The red crap that Indian men chew and then spit in a long stream into the road - its a miracle they never hit me. This stuff they chew makes their breath STINK and their teeth rot and its vile
The constant hawking and spitting that is a way of life in India and they do it EVERYWHERE. Men spit all the time and it really started to turn my stomach when i was leaving.
The constant staring. I mean when you are on a train EVERY male on that train will stare at you and some will come into the carriage when the train stops just to stare at you - no matter how you dress or ignore them. You just had to get thick skinned but it really started to get to me after a while.
The fact that you cannot get rid of people. I had one rickshaw driver follow me for 40 mins in his rickshaw when i was on foot trying to pursuade me to get in. I had another one in Agra who followed me on foot and even sat outside the restaurant i went into and then into my hotel so that he could claim commission for taking me there!! That was a total of 4 hours he followed me for.
My return from New Zealand back into Indian culture was a little strange as although I had only 2 weeks left in India and I wanted to do so much I found it pretty hard work as the daily temperatures exceeded 45 degrees C!!I began my whistle stop tour by booking all my train ticket with the usual formalities of going to the front of every queue to get my tickets - I am going to miss the female queue thing when I am back home!!From Delhi I travelled overnight to Ajmer and caught a bus to Pushkar and spent 2 days there buying loads and loads of clothes and sending them home. On the train I met an Austrain guy who had been to India in 1990 and we had an interesting conversation about the changes in India over the last 10 years. The amazing thing he said that the only differences are the fact that there are now petrol stations and internet cafes - everything else was pretty much the same as it was in 1990! Due to the soaring temperatures the place was very quiet and I got some very good bargins as there really was no other tourists there!I took my stuff and went to the post office for the packingwallah to sew it up in cloth and seal it with wax - yes really! and then sent it home. The whole process took around 4 hours for 3 parcels.....Indian post office maths.....
Add the number of parcels to the number of workers in the post office then divide by how many times they go out for chai and then add that to the number of times you have to go to different places in the post office for glue and to find a packingwahlah and you pretty much get the idea!!!
I saw my first camels in Pushkar and you would think that they were slow?? No! Camels move so fast!!!
From Pushkar I went to Jaipur and clever old me I thought that I would be smart and spend the night in the train station in Ajmer as my train was at 5am the next morning. I decided to sleep in the upper class ladies waiting room and as I settled down to sleep thought 'this place actually seems pretty clean' ah foolish me as I woke up with FLEA BITES!!! was absolutly jumping - picture to follow on my web page soon!!!!
I didn't like Jaipur that much - was just another big noisy city and I left after one day. I wanted to go and watch the sunset as Jaipur is billed as 'the pink city' as it was painted pink on order of the king one year to welcome the UK king at the time (1700's) and the tradition was continued. However there was no sunset just the first monsoon rain and the road outside was a river in 2 minutes!
The one good thing I did in Japiur was go to the palace that hosted the worlds biggest sundial and the worlds biggest silver cup.
Seeing those things got me thinking so I have added them to a list....
So far I have been accross New Zealands longest bridge and seen the worlds largest jersey, largest glass of beer, largest silver cup, largest sundial. I will continue this list till i get home and i bet its gonna look a little weird!
From Japiur I continued to Agra, the town that plays host to the Taj Mahal. This town saw the clingiest touts and the most outrageous scams and prices for white people but luckily i avoided most of them! I visted the Taj Mahal and my bad luck with the weather continued. I first saw it from the roof restaurant of my hotel and it was like 'oh it looks like it does in the pictures! It didnt seem real at all!' I then went down and walked round and inside it and all the way round it. Instead of a sunset we got a sand/dust storm so the Taj nearly dissapeared at one point and then it started to rain! I wanted to also view the Taj by moonlight but it was cloudy and when i got up again for the sunrise it was still cloudy!!
It really is an amazing building though and is total testament to the weirness and oddities that is India. It was said to be the greatest monument ever built for love. It was built by a muslim man for an islamic woman and is the greatest tourist attaration in India - a primarily Hindu country!
I also saw my first and only elephant on the streets of Agra. From Agra I headed back to Delhi and spent another night in Delhi airport and then the following morning headed for African shores......!
The following are notes from an Indian newspaper which proves that although many Indian people speak english, it is not Victorian English, or Broken English but very much Indian English where most of what is written makes sense but now and again they choose slightly the wrong word either making the whole thing nonsense or hilarious!
Ie the Indian Express May 5th 2007:
'Man returns from dead, jailed wife,lover freed'
'Tony Blair almost lost control of Scotland'
From shrieking with laughter at that in the paper I turned the page to read a Doctors letter:
'Middle aged woman with pregnant teenage daughter who was also mentally challanged'
In such cases experience points suspicion to a relative as in most cases they are the culprits. Yes confirmed the mother casually it was one of her Uncles.
Doing the only thing I could I asked her mother if I could equip her daughter with some simple birth control. In such cases the law also permits removal of the uterus.
The mother said she was not interested in anything of the sort. Such a reply from someone who understood the full implication of what she said was mind numbing.
Where is that girl now - is she safe, alive, pregnant again, raped again?
Severla points - firstly ok India is not westernised nor has any wish to be so but HOW can the above story be ok, how can this be allowed to continue? However forward thinking and technologically advanced India becomes India will remain the same - fixedly so and blinkered to the best that westernised culture has to offer.
They will take the parts that are permitted to fit along side their culture ie the pornography, the money, the internet and the technological advances but when it comes to culture Indian people will never change - no matter which country they are in. This may seem a little harsh to judge the whole of India this way but after talking to a lot of people both tourists and Indians for the last 3 months the only changes they could tell me about in 20 years was petrol stations, internet, mobile phones, cricket and politics.
As has been said 'a defined culture is strictly for bacteria, let us leave it that way' To me that is the best explanation of India that I can find. I have attempted to explain and show India in several ways and every time I feel I have only scraped the surface of the culture that is India
Next blog will be from Africa!!!
posted by Amy | 9:16 AM
1 Comments:
ahhh, hindoostan....
the smells (dung fires, smog and cremation), the sights (the biggest slums in the world!), the heartwarming interactions with the locals (one chocalate? one schoolpen? one rupee?).
It says a lot about India that one could complain for a thousand thousand lifetimes and still have enough breath to wax poetic about the place.
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