Backpacking in India is hard work. A constant awareness of where we find a hygienic place to sleep and to eat. Which transport modes are good and which are to be avoided.
We ended up in the hospital with travelers diarrhea and only anti-biotic could get rid of that nasty happening. Constant vomiting plus diarrhea at the same time is BAD news!
Just a little later, in a dirty train with head-scratching kids, we had lice in our hair too... at such moments nothing is fun anymore... !!!!!
Not to put you all off from going to India, Indians have a good sense of doing business, and because of the really low salaries, huge opportunities are there for the population.
Large international companies move whole production lines to India and airline (and other company) call centers, IT and accounting service centers are widely spread in India.
Maybe that works, but on small scale, on the streets, it doesn’t work out for the non-package tourists who are discovering India, as they discover so many other countries.
The English language skills of many Indians are not all that great. The Indian smiles are there, and are honest, but are certainly not coming from those who need to make a living and DEPEND on the tourist’s rupees. On large scale cheating and ripping-off people is going on.
Things are done ‘half’ only, buy a t-shirt or other garment and see if fall apart after washing it a couple of times. Colours don’t stick, thread is coming out etc.
It is sad, we expected way more from the country that advertises with ‘INCREDIBLE INDIA’. In that same advertising campaign, they accidently used an African instead of an Asian elephant, but who cares... elephant = elephant.
Do we want to return? Maybe for a project, or on an organized tour (whereby we are bad package tour tourists...). Returning as backpackers... at least not for a while
Strange enough, we do keep this experience as a memorable one. The country has surprised us a lot, there are so many things we have seen which were so unusual. Nothing seems impossible. And of course, there are very nice people in this country too!
Our last week in India was in Bombay, Mumbai as it is called nowadays.
Here are some impressions:
Ghandi
People are making money with anything and everything, here are some more jobs performed on the street:
Selling art work
Open-Air office ??
Quick shave :-)
Talking about INCREDIBLE INDIA. This is the largest "laudramat" in the city. Quite amazing, men are working really hard to wash hotel towels and bedsheets, as well as tourist clothes and whatever else needs a wash. Everything is done by hand, with some help from the sun to get it nice and dry again.
From the top of the bridge next to the train station people, and not only tourists, have a great view at this rather unusual 'spectacle'.
unquote
The picture above was taken by us. We did not expect to encounter this INCREDIBLE system, but we did, which was great. Talking about AMAZING. This is amazing, especially as it runs like clockwork!
A real issue is the poverty in Bangkok, especially women and children, but also older men are begging for money and food. Eating on the street is almost impossible without feeling bad.
We ended up in the hospital with travelers diarrhea and only anti-biotic could get rid of that nasty happening. Constant vomiting plus diarrhea at the same time is BAD news!
Just a little later, in a dirty train with head-scratching kids, we had lice in our hair too... at such moments nothing is fun anymore... !!!!!
Not to put you all off from going to India, Indians have a good sense of doing business, and because of the really low salaries, huge opportunities are there for the population.
Large international companies move whole production lines to India and airline (and other company) call centers, IT and accounting service centers are widely spread in India.
Maybe that works, but on small scale, on the streets, it doesn’t work out for the non-package tourists who are discovering India, as they discover so many other countries.
The English language skills of many Indians are not all that great. The Indian smiles are there, and are honest, but are certainly not coming from those who need to make a living and DEPEND on the tourist’s rupees. On large scale cheating and ripping-off people is going on.
Things are done ‘half’ only, buy a t-shirt or other garment and see if fall apart after washing it a couple of times. Colours don’t stick, thread is coming out etc.
It is sad, we expected way more from the country that advertises with ‘INCREDIBLE INDIA’. In that same advertising campaign, they accidently used an African instead of an Asian elephant, but who cares... elephant = elephant.
Do we want to return? Maybe for a project, or on an organized tour (whereby we are bad package tour tourists...). Returning as backpackers... at least not for a while
Strange enough, we do keep this experience as a memorable one. The country has surprised us a lot, there are so many things we have seen which were so unusual. Nothing seems impossible. And of course, there are very nice people in this country too!
Our last week in India was in Bombay, Mumbai as it is called nowadays.
Here are some impressions:
Markets everywhere.
Caves on Elephant Island, a boat ride away from the city.
People are making money with anything and everything, here are some more jobs performed on the street:
Sharpening knifes with the power of riding a bicycle.
Religion always sells.
Talking about INCREDIBLE INDIA. This is the largest "laudramat" in the city. Quite amazing, men are working really hard to wash hotel towels and bedsheets, as well as tourist clothes and whatever else needs a wash. Everything is done by hand, with some help from the sun to get it nice and dry again.
From the top of the bridge next to the train station people, and not only tourists, have a great view at this rather unusual 'spectacle'.
Food is sold everywhere. Sometimes it looks tasty but the question always remains: is if safe for a tourist stomach or not....
We are careful, but there where loads of people buy and the people look clean, we go for it :-)
Here a really delicious sandwich, made of a roll filled with a vegetable mixture, spices and sauce. So nice!!
Following text is copied from: popupcity.net :
quote
Dabbawalla is the Hindi term for someone who’s job it is to deliver a hot lunch (dabba) from a worker’s house to his working spot. The dabbawalla is a more than 125 years old cooperative network of more than 5,000 largely illiterate rural workers who use the metropolitan transportation system to bring lunch bags from home to the office. 200,000 Fresh meals carefully prepared by wife’s and mothers in the suburbs are being delivered downtown at men’s work, every day. The empty dabbas are returned home. Dabbawallas use nothing more than 3-4 symbols crudely painted on their ‘dabbas’ to create an unparalleled food supply chain by using their remarkable intuition and teamwork.
unquote
The picture above was taken by us. We did not expect to encounter this INCREDIBLE system, but we did, which was great. Talking about AMAZING. This is amazing, especially as it runs like clockwork!
A real issue is the poverty in Bangkok, especially women and children, but also older men are begging for money and food. Eating on the street is almost impossible without feeling bad.
We limit this subject to just one picture, see above. People sleep on the street all the time and often you have to watch that you don't step on them, especially when it is dark. The image of this man stays in our minds though. Carefully check the picture and you see his artificial leg placed on the curb.
And one last picture... what do Indians think about tourists? The above Tuk-Tuk has "Capacity for 3 Idiots". Not sure if that is a statement....
Bye India. We are leaving with mixed feelings....
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