India – Second Impressions

Bangladeshi tourists at Agra Fort

Marc may have been a bit harsh in his first assessment of the country.  We’ve spent a few more days  and visited a few more sites to realize that every place in India is not the same (wow, what a revelation, right?).  What has surprised us the most is the friendliness of the people.  Seemingly everywhere we visit people bombard us with questions and are really excited to learn we are from America. (Sometimes I think that people just want to practice their English, which is fine with us.)  Inevitably we learn about an uncle or third cousin who is a doctor or engineer in either the US, Canada or Britain.   Also, we’ve been invited to visit two different families so far.  The strangest adjustment for us is the number of people who want to take a photo with us or of us.  Sometimes people strike up a friendly conversation and then ask for a photo.  Others try to surreptitiously take one.  Marc jokes that we’re minor celebrities!

The hardest part of traveling in India has been dealing with the touts and moto/bicycle-rickshaw drivers.  We are doing our best to remain calm and patient, trying to be understanding, knowing that they are just trying to earn some money; however, some people are just plain deceitful.  On two occasions (that we know of) touts have outright lied to us.  I am also quite disturbed when random men try to touch me in public.  The most blatant attempt was in Agra when a guy in a passing moto-rickshaw grabbed my arm while I was talking to Marc in our moto-rickshaw.

Despite the handful of negative experiences, India is certainly growing on us.  Our favorite activities so far are breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Marc is trying not to eat the same dish twice while consuming a fruit lassi with every meal.  Each city seems to bustle with activity at all hours of the day and night, presumably due to the 1.15 BILLION people that live here.  Even at 4:30am on a Wednesday morning when we took a moto-rickshaw to the train station, there were people out and about.  We also love all the colors, especially the women’s saris.  Finally, it’s hard not to be amused at a herd of enormous water buffaloes marching slowly across a crowded street (or train platform) while buses, rickshaws, and motorcycles honk and swerve to avoid them.

It is the premonsoon season and the thermometer is inching its way up from really hot to unbearable.  So far the heat is tolerable but we might have to adjust our Rajasthani itinerary and escape to the mountains or the beach.  We have no excuse for not updating the blog more often since we are spending so much time on trains but as usual we are behind (yes, Brazil fell into a black hole but we will post eventually!).  So far we’ve been to Darjeeling, Varanasi, Bodhgaya, Khajuraho and Agra.  We are now in Jaipur and we’ve booked upcoming transportation segments that will take us to Udaipur (where we’ll take cooking classes), Jodhpur (the “Blue City”), Jaisalmer (camel safari!), Bikaner (Rat Temple!) and Amritsar (site of Sikhism’s Golden Palace). I was hoping to make it to Ahmedabad to see Ghandi’s ashram but the train gods (aka Indian Railway) won’t allow this trip.