Road Raj (India)

Member Name: MGirl

Product:	India
Date:	04/08/02 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Forts!

Disadvantages: Corruption, Hassle, Extreme heat

Travelling in India was the hardest experience I had whilst travelling. I spent 5 weeks in India earlier this year and these were my impressions. Not everyone will agree with them I’m sure but they’re not atypical.

We arrived in Delhi airport having sensibly pre-booked a hotel. What we didn’t realise is however worldly you are, however aware of scams, you cannot avoid being ripped off in India. If this bothers you (it does bother me) then India really isn’t somewhere you should visit. Once you get into a taxi, it will never take you where you want to go. Indian people will look at you and see dollar signs and so will try elaborate techniques to extract that money from you.

A common scam (which we fell for) is saying your hotel is double booked. We naively didn’t realise this was a scam because we were given another hotel free of charge. The scam was this hotel was metres away from a “tourist office” so whenever we looked like leaving, we were delayed by the hoteliers until a representative of the tourist office appeared.

Anyway, we eventually escaped the clutches of that office. The problem is being English; I find it difficult to make people appreciate how angry I am with their behaviour. The fact is, you have to lose your temper and be rude to people especially in places like Delhi, Varanasi and Agra, or you’d constantly be on the receiving end.

The problem with India is it’s a supremely corrupt country. This starts with the poor man on the street (which you can understand) but goes right up through the police, army and right to government.

India wasn’t all bad though. Once you accept the fact that people are going to rip you off (and learn how to minimise it) it gets better. We spent a long time in Rajasthan where we saw beautiful forts and palaces (Jaisalmer is recommended for the former) and 2 wild tigers in Ranthambore. We had a meal with an
Indian family in their home and saw the Thar Desert, albeit on a very painful camel trek.

All in all, India is an experience. I’m not sad that I went, but I wouldn’t recommend it to people, especially not for their first experience of Asia. If you’re determined to go, I suggest going to Rajasthan to visit Bikaner, Jaisalmer and Udiapur in particular, Jodhpur and Jaipur if you have time. I would avoid entering the country through Delhi if you can, or organise an immediate onward flight. I’d also miss out Agra completely. From our hotel roof we could see the Taj Mahal but it’s completely over-rated. Much more breathtaking was the image of hundreds of children flying kites from the flat roofs.

My other recommendations concern food. Most of the best food we ate was vegetarian. Try some of the paneer dishes (Indian cheese) and try Aloo Paratha for breakfast. If you travel in Rajasthan, keep a towel out of your luggage for wrapping water bottles in; it’s the desert state in India, which is really saying something. Temperatures exceeded 45 degrees Celsius when we were there.

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