I expected it to be harder….

I expected it to be stressful, super challenging, maybe overwhelmingly heart wrenching. It wasn’t. And maybe that was mostly due to my Intrepid Travel tour and absolutely exceptional guide, Saurabh and the 4 other women who I had the privilege of spending the last 2 weeks with.

And maybe it’s because India gets an undeserved bad rap back home…. There are definitely not so nice aspects of travelling here but the food, culture, history and architecture more than make up for them! So here are a few of my general impressions:

The not so good:

The tourist scams – try as I might not to get ‘sucked in’ I still did. It started with the taxi ride from the airport and a poor choice of kiosks (even though my homestay host had clearly laid out which kiosks were good and how much it should cost). I was tired, stressed about the series of nonfunctional or dysfunctional ATMs I’d had to deal with to get my 10,000 rupees, and I just took the offer from the second kiosk I checked at. So I paid roughly double what I should have for my taxi ($30 versus $15). In the grand scheme of things, not a huge deal. I also told the story earlier about the other taxi ride runaround in Delhi (fortunately that one only ended up costing me about $2.50 and an hour and a half of my time more than it should have). And I lost 10 rupees (16 cents) to a religious figure on the street who had a yarn bracelet tied on my wrist before I even knew what has happened – so I paid him to get away.

There are countless other scams, touts and pickpockets when you’re out on the street too. But mostly if you keep your wits about you and learn not to make eye contact with or acknowledge the people constantly begging and cajoling, it’s ok. It feels awful though to ignore a small child or a young mother cradling her baby asking for money, but I had to learn to look away. Giving money only fuels the problem – children and babies are most often ‘tools’ for begging and supporting it only encourages more of the same.

Also disconcerting is the staring – a tall, white female in a male dominated South Asian country draws some attention. And that spills over into this odd phenomenon where everyone wants to take a photo with you – ‘just one photo’. I was literally mobbed at Qutab Minar to the point where I had trouble leaving. And it’s everyone – young men and women, children, mothers and fathers! Again, the polite Canadian in me wants to do one thing but knows that being ‘rude’ might be the only reasonable response!

The garbage problem is real. It was explained that culturally, civic responsibility isn’t strong here. People see the garbage as ‘not their responsibility’ so personal residences and yards are mostly tidy but common spaces are often a plastic strewn horror. I’m still struggling with understanding this one.

The pollution is choking. Like everywhere we went! City or countryside, it doesn’t matter. I assumed Delhi and Mumbai would be bad, but was surprised when literally everywhere was a foggy/smoggy haze! The most shocking illustration of the pollution for me (aside from the black color when I blow my nose 😆) is that Apple Fitness notified me 12 days in that my average respiratory rate had increased from 13.7 breaths per minute to 15.4 breaths per minute. I literally have to breath more here to get enough oxygen!

The traffic is mind boggling. So many motorcycles, scooters, rickshaws, trucks and cars! And lane markers, traffic lights and stop signs are merely suggestions! Saurabh explained that because there are so many people, culturally everyone is conditioned to ‘fill in the spaces’. And so they do – a 2 lane road is likely to have 5 vehicles across it, honking and maneuvering between and around – very close at all times. And almost every single vehicle is dented or scratched (not surprisingly).

Being a pedestrian is life threatening! Pedestrians have zero right of way – anywhere – even in a crosswalk. And it’s different than Asia – there they will go around you if you just walk at a steady pace. Here they will drive over you if you don’t stay/get out of the way. I had to play ‘Frogger’ (an old video game reference from the 80’s for those of you who don’t know) on a 6 lane street in Delhi on my way to Qutab Minar even though there was clearly a pedestrian crosswalk!

The street wildlife is unnerving. Cattle are holy and everywhere! Stray dogs are absolutely everywhere. And cats were more present in Mumbai. And the goats roamed freely through places like the market in Udaipur! I know from experience that animals are unpredictable and I was just waiting for a spooked cow to run me down or a stray dog to lash out as I walked by! Ok – maybe that’s slightly exaggerated since most of these animals are surprisingly docile and most of the time completely ignoring the chaos around them while they snooze or just wander.

It’s definitely disturbing as many of the cats and dogs aren’t in the best physical condition. I want to rescue them all!! The cows and goats, however are well taken care of!

The so very, very good!

The chai!!!! Specifically masala chai loosely translated to ‘mixed spice tea’. Brewing good chai is an art and we were lucky enough to have a chai connoisseur as our guide – the Chai King! Saurabh was all about introducing us to his personal obsession and we all jumped right on board! There are lots of variations but the best ones have cardamom and ginger steeped with fresh milk, Asam tea and a healthy dose of sugar (1 tsp per cup of milk). The mixture is brought to a boil and cooled 3-4 times until the desired colour is achieved. It’s a perfectly safe street food if you get it fresh made since it’s been boiled for so long. There’s so much more to tell you about chai, but I don’t have the time or space to get into it here.

If you’ve read the rest of my blogs you should have a pretty good feel for my opinion of the food. I’m truly obsessed – the spices and the flavours are perfection! And it was fantastic to be able to learn so many cooking techniques! I’m so excited to go home and go shopping for spices and cooking tools! I seriously think I will need to cook this food on a regular basis or suffer from withdrawal! Also, I can’t say enough good about being unbelievably lucky enough to have a true foodie as our guide – thank you so much Saurabh 🙏. And it was such a privilege to be able to safely partake of the street food! Yes, I got sick but I honestly think it was due to my own error in ordering a snack that was of western origin instead of local. If only I’d just stuck to the local food…. And, I’m happy to say I’m the only one in our group who didn’t come down with a cold, so that’s something at least!

I can’t go without mentioning the lime soda and lassi. A good lime soda here is made with fresh lime juice, soda and sugar. Many of the locals might disagree and enjoy the addition of rock salt and other spices. In my opinion, rock salt is death – it smells and tastes like sulphur – aka 💩 – haha. And I can’t get on board with the salty drinks, but then I’ve never been a Gatorade fan back home either! So – you can order your lassi (yogurt based drink) salty, sweet or fruit flavoured. And you can order your lime soda plain, sweet, salty or mixed sweet and salty! The choices! I’ll take a sweet plain lassi and a sweet lime soda any time!!!

Also evident from my other posts – the historical beauty and culture that permeates the entire country. Admittedly I need to do some more reading to fully wrap my head around the history but so many representations and relics of that history that I saw were absolutely jaw dropping.

I’m going to sign off here for now, but I’m sure there are going to be alterations to this blog as things come to mind over the coming weeks.