India - First Impressions

Well…India! What to say…

I am writing this beginning 4 days in, sitting in a hostel in Agra so everything I have to say is still through early eyes, and of course I can only speak for the places I’ve seen but, India is (so far…) undeniably a complete sh*thole! (Excuse my French.)

So lets start with Delhi. The morning we left Kathmandu I cried, it was that bad. I really really didn’t want to go to India. Everyone had just made it out to be so bad and nasty and the people so awful that I just couldn’t bare the thought to going and spending our final weeks there. I mean I am READY to come home and I just didn’t want to go out on a bad note.

The flight was fine; only 1.5 hours and I’d been telling myself over and over and to just go with the flow.

In the passport queue I asked an English guy behind us if he knew where he was staying as we didn’t have a clue. We were going to head to Parharganj which is the backpacker district but which is also the biggest slum area of Delhi where you’ll get hassled and probably pick up some disease, so when he said he lived in Delhi I was beside myself!! I asked if he knew of any decent place to stay and he said that South Delhi is a much better bet if you want to enjoy the city. He kindly offered to share his taxi and drop us off at a place nearby his house in GK-1 (a district in the South) and all of a sudden I could relax. It was all going to be so much easier with someone who knew the wheres and whyfores, and it was.

Delhi is hot! I mean like 42 degrees hot and stiflingly humid, so in other words, sweat city!! John, the kind English guy quickly got a pre paid taxi and off we went.

Now I thought Kathmandu traffic was madness but India is a whole other level. There are no rules, lanes don’t apply and it’s each man for himself. All the cars have scratches and dents. There is building work going on everywhere and debris of that building work everywhere. There are people living under bridges and on the side walks and every spare inch of space they can claim if needed.

We pulled up outside the hotel that John suggested but on inspection it was way out of our budget. I mean EUR45 per night in Delhi is like paying EUR1000 for a hotel in Rotterdam, it’s just ludicrously expensive. So we declined expecting to make our own way from there, but John walked off with Tymon to look for another place which was so nice of him. He had just got back from South Africa, had had a really long delayed flight, the last thing he wanted was to probably take twice as long to get home as usual, but he did! Anyway the boys finally came back and we all unpacked the taxi and walked down to the hostel. (John walked home too as he was close by.) The hostel from the outside looked awful, building work going on all around, but inside it was a very nice room – and with aircon!! HURRAH!! It also had a TV which was a great bonus, but then we were paying EUR25 so I should bloody well hope so for that kind of money!! Still ludicrously expensive.

So we freshened up and went for a walk around the area. Round the back of our hostel were 2 streets with a sort of park like strip between them in the middle, full of shops and restaurants. And it was really nice. All very civilized and so far no one had grabbed onto me asking for money!

We dived into Pizza Hut (sorry Willem, I know you’ll be disappointed that we ate pizza on our first night instead of local cuisine :0) and hit the sack with the TV ready for the bombardment that was surely coming the following day!

But it didn’t really come. We’d asked John how much roughly we should pay to get into town with an auto rickshaw which are these yellow and green little 3 wheel van things, so bartered a price and set off into the killer traffic. It was another scorcher of a day, with no sign whatsoever of the monsoon, much to our surprise and relief. The streets were just as mad and we made our way to the train station to buy tickets out as we heard they get pretty booked up. New Delhi train station was supposed to be a hovel, with the worst of the worst kinds of people hanging around, and while it wouldn’t win any awards it wasn’t that bad. It was a bit confusing where to go but everyone had told us that the tourist booking office was on the first floor and under no circumstances were we to believe anyone who told us otherwise.

You see India is pretty much one big scam! Hotel touts and taxi touts will tell you that your hotel is full, overbooked, poor value, dangerous, burned down or closed or sometimes even that there are riots in that area. They will then attempt to take you to a hotel where they’ll get commission. Some will even ‘kindly’ take you to a ‘tourist office’ where a colleague will phone your hotel and corroborate the driver’s story. In reality of course he’s talking to his mate in the next room! They will do anything to get money out of you and it has the worst rep on our travels so far.

And try they did. A guy standing by the metal detector pretending to work at the station told us that the tourist bureau was ‘under construction’ so we had to go around the corner to another office. He took us to one counter to prove that we could only buy same day travel tickets there and kept telling us that we had to go round the corner. We thanked him for his time and went on into the main building where we saw the sign for the tourist office and went on up. We even had a nice view as we came up the stairs of a man standing in the corner with his pants around his ankles, willy and all hanging out in full view while he was rubbing his leg. God only knows what he was doing; he had a far away look in his eye and was obviously oblivious to what he was doing! Hahaha – a nice welcome! The guy downstairs was a big fat liar. The office was all in working order and within 20 minutes we had our onward ticket to Agra and Jaipur booked.

Next stop the Red Fort. We weren’t that far away so no auto rickshaw would take us so we had to get a cycle rickshaw. We were asking around a couple who knew what we were even saying and who would go for a fair price and before we knew it we had several locals hanging around us butting in trying to help or just getting involved and being annoying. We finally found a guy to take us and we entered the part of Delhi I was so glad not be staying in. It was a mess. The noise level of the horns is extreme and the roads a battle. There are cows and dogs and man pushed wagons, people everywhere. After a while he stopped and told us we were there, but we couldn’t see any fort. He spoke no English so we tried to communicate where we wanted to go and off he set again but only round the corner to where 2 police guards were to ask for help. They told us we had told him to go the wrong place and not the fort (there were 2 gates with the same name apparently) and while we were talking to these guards I swear within minutes we had a crowd of about 15 locals all around us. They were all staring and peering at us thinking some action was going on. They are so nosey. I have the feeling that privacy or personal space are things that do not exist in India. It was so funny. Eventually we got to the bottom of where the fort was, agreed to pay extra and arrived at the fort.

From the outside it looked quite impressive, big red sandstone walls, but I have to admit, once inside it was a bit of a let down. It was all over the place and really run down and just not that interesting to be honest. It was a strange experience though as it was packed with locals (it only costs them RP10 while it costs us RP250!!) and they just stare. Not just stare and move on but stare and stare, head turning stares. It’s quite unnerving at first. Tymon found it extremely rude as they were mainly staring at me (so he thought) and I tried not to look at them so I wouldn’t notice. But I have to say – Indian men (I’m talking very generally here) are, well, they’re pervy! They’re really lechy and creepy the way they look at you. But they’re fascinated and even more so with white women and men (I have of course become a foreign local here!) Tymon was like a famous person. Indian guys would come up to him and ask to have their picture taken with him, it was hilarious! You’d find them slyly trying to take pictures of us on their mobile phones, it’s all very bizarre and a little weird. They are fascinated by Westerners.

We left the fort, grabbed a bite to eat at McDonald’s before jumping in an auto rickshaw back to the hotel. The thing about the rickshaws is you have to be sensible and stick to your guns as they will try and rip you off. As long as you stick to your price and make sure they know you will not stop at any shops or wait for them to get gas for half an hour on the way, its fine. You get to where you want to go with no problems. In all honesty so far I haven’t found them to be so bad or dishonest, a bit cheeky sometimes, but for the most part, decent. Indians are friendly, if not annoyingly persistent. Everyone talks to us and wants to know where we are from (we say Iceland as they don’t where it is or have any knowledge about it so they leave us alone – haha it’s a brilliant tip we got that works like a charm!) and at the end of the day yes they are trying to sell you something, but they are only trying to survive.

That night we chilled in the hotel with Star World (the TV channel with all the good stuff like Friends, White Collar, America’s Got Talent etc. lols!) and Tymon popped out to get KFC. We were embracing the Indian food as you can tell! Hahaha, but strangely enough I had a dodgy belly from McDonald’s – go figure!

The next day we did some more sight seeing. We went to tomb of one of the old rulers, which was pretty impressive and the modern art gallery, which I think someone needs to explain the definition of modern to the manager, before heading back to the hostel to meet up with John for some drinks.

He took us to the Defence Colony which is another upmarket area full of restaurants and bars. He brought a friend too, Elliot who also lived in Delhi so it was nice to be out with some people who know the area and good restaurants, especially seeing as we hadn’t even eaten any Indian so far! It was a really great night. The food was very good and in the end as we moved onto another bar there were quite a few people out. It was a nice crowd and a bit surreal really to be out in a bar in Delhi. It was very unexpected as usually we just sit in our hotel room and watch TV!

The next day we were off to Agra, by train. This was another moment I was dreading. I had heard all sorts of stories about how awful the trains are (people getting chloroformed and held up at knife point!) so I wasn’t looking forward to the journey and this was only a short one being 3.5 hours. But it turns out that Delhi train station was way worse than the train itself. God it was absolutely FOUL! The track was an open sewer, there was rubbish everywhere, people everywhere and enough flies to be classified as a plague. It was disgusting!!

As time has gone on (I’m now in Jaipur, 1.5 weeks in) I really am baffled with the general mass people here in India and their mentality. I mean no one wants to live in a sh*thole right? You’d think that at some point people might say – you know what, if we stop defecating and pissing in the streets as if the whole city is our personal toilet, and if we stop throwing rubbish at our feet as if the whole city were our personal rubbish bin, we might be able to live a bit better!! I mean it really is amazing, the state of these cities. But nothing will change if the people’s mentalities don’t and that’s something that needs a hell of a lot of time and education, the latter of which is severely lacking in India. What the hell the Government is doing I’ve no idea because how they can think they are doing these people a service or looking after their country they must be dumb deaf and blind! It’s astonishing that a system allows this to happen.

India has one of the strongest and fastest growing economy’s in the world right now, and raising the standards of living has been on the agenda since Independence in 1947, over 60 years ago. So what the hell has the Government been doing for 60 years?? Recent estimates place around a third of the world’s poor in India with an estimated 250 million of those people living BELOW the poverty line in India. That’s a quarter of a BILLION people!! It is said that these people, according to a recent survey, live on less than 20 Rupees a day –that’s about 25 EUR cents! It’s not even conceivable to us as to how this is even possible, but then you see the streets and these people and their living conditions and you see exactly what it means to be living below the poverty line. It’s there right in front of your eyes and in your nostrils. The desperation and desolate lives that equals their existence. And no matter how much of an optimist you are, these people are not happy. They have nothing and are treated like dogs by their own kind and us (Westerners.) Most of the time we can’t even bring ourselves to look at them, we ignore them when they come begging at our feet and we especially don’t make eye contact as we know that if we look in there, make the smallest connection to these souls we will see the ugly bare truth reflected back at us. Our own greed and ignorance and self importance. Whoever coined the phrase ignorance is bliss was spot on. It’s part of the human condition.

Education for the masses is little if not non existent, literacy rates are low and the gap between the rich and poor is growing.

It’s so very easy for me to sit here writing from up on my western high chair, to say that India and Indians (in general) are disgusting, but they are simply of a product of what their Government wants them to be. I fear there is no help for India and no change to come that can help these 250 million people. The problem is so completely out of control and too big that it’s impossible. Sometime when I look around some of these cities I think it’d be better if you just scrapped the place and started again. India is certainly the worst poverty affected country I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t even compare to places like Bolivia or Cambodia. It’s overwhelming and very very sad. And what’s even worse is that no matter what anyone says, I will speak honestly and truthfully to you here - you cannot help but still judge, and still be disgusted and irritated. It’s too intense for any outsider to not acknowledge.

But aaaanyway – Delhi station. All I can say is thank God our train wasn’t delayed for 20 hours like some of the others! It was pretty much on time and the train was great. We booked an AC 6 seater cabin, although there was a family of about 9 which also ended up squeezing in, but apart from that it was great. Comfy and cool and actually arrived on time! Nothing to worry about at all.

Agra – well if you ever do research about a trip to Agra all the guide books and people who have been will say, go see the fort, go see the Taj Mahal in one day and get the hell out. And I’d have to agree with them. Agra is even worse than Delhi. The streets are loaded with rubbish everywhere you look, dead horses heaped at the side of the road (which upset me a fair bit as you can imagine) the air carries the scent of urine and well it’s pretty nasty. We stayed in Agra for 2 days. The first day we walked around the market place which was chaos and ended up at the fort, which give it its due is impressive. It’s made out of white marble and was originally built as a military structure but one of the King’s turned it into a palace and it later became a prison for it’s creator 8 years later when his son seized power and imprisoned him in it. He was the one who also built the Taj Mahal, a tomb for his wife, which he could gaze out at from the fort till his dying day.

After the fort we walked back to the hostel via a large empty football field sized area full of kids and teenagers playing cricket mostly. They were so interested in us and kept wanting to touch us and shake our hands. Mostly Tymon at first and then me. A couple of boys asked for a photo with me so I said yes and before I knew it I had about 10 kids jumping on me and wrapping their arms around me and of course then came the moment to ruin it all, they starting grabbing at my bum! I broke free, a little relived as it had got a little bit grabby anyway and started shouting at them that it was out of order. Little perves, honestly what is their problem!!?? After that we made a swift exit as a group started to follow us out to the other side of the field. I mean they didn’t mean any harm I don’t think, but it also had that slight off feeling too that at any moment they could turn and start to mob us and take our stuff or something. I don’t know, it didn’t feel right, but we made it out and back to the safe haven of the hostel.

The next day was the one of I was most interested in, the one we had come all the way to Agra for – the Taj Mahal. We were up at 5.15am as we were told that we could catch sunrise then but the sun was already up when we left at 5.45am to get to the gate for opening at 6am. Wrong time of year!! But the sun was still very nice and low. I’d already caught the view from afar the day before from the fort but as you round the corner to see that famous classic image for yourself, it’s beautiful – a definite wow moment. Unfortunately the fountains and canals in front were empty of water as they were under construction which did kind of ruin the whole vision and meant that we couldn’t get that great picture of the Taj reflected in the water, but still, totally gorgeous. It’s amazing to think that all these stunning, humungous monuments are tombs, I mean if that’s not a declaration of love I don’t know what is! It is a shame though that even inside these peaceful places there are locals trying to scam you and squeeze money out of you. There was a guy who saw Tymon with his big camera and was like ‘oh yes I’m a photographer too, let me show some “secret” photo spots for great shots!’ Tymon followed, even though I told him that the guy would want money. Very few Indians will do anything out of the goodness of their heart, when there’s money to be made. And of course after he’d been given the “tour” of photo moments the guy asked for 250 Rupees! Tymon gave him something small, but it’s annoying that touts are allowed to parade around inside.

But it was definitely another tick off my list of things to see in my lifetime and definitely worth the train ride down to Agra. The marble work is stunning and so intricate. Although not as intricate and delicate as the Baby Taj which really is beautiful. The marble lattice screens there are stunning.

But if you’ve found this first entry to be on the negative side then I’m sorry for that. India is a two sided coin that has you spinning between two extremes. One minute you are ready to get on the next plane home as far away from the place as possible, the next you find yourself in the backstreets of some town, witnessing the sweet and simple pure life, being greeted by smiles and waves from everybody amongst the rubbish and open latrines. People say India is beautiful. Well, I wouldn’t go as far to say that just yet, but beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder. What I find to be beautiful are the colours of the womens saris that light up the streets in all the colours of the rainbow, the spices and vibrancy of the street markets and perhaps the fact that I find India to be a sh*thole, well, as a traveller, perhaps that’s the biggest beauty of all!

So after a hectic introduction to India, our next stop is Rajasthan which I’m really excited about. It’s meant to be a lot nicer than Uttah Pradesh so fingers crossed…