"Don't go to India because ..." Prejudices and Misconceptions Collected

I think you will yes; in fact I find it gets more so on each return.

(Sort of educates you in what to look for, no? As with everything I guess.)

I really would strongly advise all our members who haven't been here yet, not to come to India.

Why?

Because you'll end up living here, then you'll be telling everyone who wants to come here all the bad things about the country!!!!

LOL, Nick

What an adventure ..... Woooohooooooooooooo!!!!

But you've already been to India ONCE!! Why would you NEED to go back? And for FOUR MONTHS this time! Why don't you just go to Europe with all of your other friends!!

we have had that one.
and....why go for 3 weeks....you have been every year for last 5...what more can there be to see???

For god's sake don't go to Southern India. You can't get roast lamb.




(true )

Yeah, I got that one too; or variations of, 'go somewhere safe and civilized, like Yosemite or Amsterdam' -- (three women from my city were murdered in Yosemite a few years ago, and another young friend of my son's died in Amsterdam near the canals....) -you have to use your head wherever you travel, to be safe and remain healthy; how many of us wouldn't even walk thru some of the alleys in our own cities??

Don't go to India because it has the highest number of road deaths per head of population in the world!



(Damn! That one's true too )

Don't go because you'll come back a Buddhist and your father won't be happy!

(I think they meant Hindu.. as I wasn't going up to the far north i.e. Ladakh, I was just going to mid-north .i.e. Kolkata, Varanasi etc)

Here's an email recently forwarded to me, by a friend. The original sender was an American yuppie - I guess he didn't know what hit him. Is it true or is it untrue? Both, I guess. It just seems such a shame that someone has to be soooooooo negative...


>>I made it home from India, probably one of the more disturbing places I
>>have ever been to. One cannot appreciate the level of poverty that the
>>people there live in and how insignificant most of them are treated. First
>>we went to Delhi for some meetings, and then to KolKata, out of the two
>>KolKata was the most strange. We lived in a 5 Star hotel, with Butler
>>service and a Driver complete with White Hat and Gloves for when we were
>>traveling outside of work. For work we rode in government vehicles and
>>driven on absolutely horribly kept roads past endless shantytowns along the
>>side of the road. It was a two hour drive from the hotel to the work
>>location, half in the city, half rural country, in the city it wasnt
>>uncommon to see cows just laying in the middle of a 6 lane road or grazing
>>in the median strip. Beggars, some as young as 4-5 squeeze between the cars
>>and tap nonstop on your windows looking for handouts, unfortunately if you
>>give them anything it doesnt go to them but to a mob guy who owns the
>>corner. Road rules are who ever fits or is the biggest wins out, we were
>>often driving on two lane roads that were packed completely across with
>>bikes, walkers, rickshaws, carts, cows, goats, buses, trucks and people and
>>with no respect to any line markings or side of the road as they traveled.
>>When it was really jammed it was ok, but when there was a bit of space then
>>it got really scary as speed picked up and there was no telling what could
>>be heading at you, we had several trucks and busses head right at us in our
>>lane in a 3rd world version of chicken. Funny part the whole time all the
>>drivers are honking there horns, must be the most horn crazed country
>>around. Buses are the absolute worse, the drivers compete for fares so they
>>race from one stop to the next to try and get the most people on their bus
>>that they can, bus accidents are very common, we passed dozens of busses
>>just busted up on the side of the road and the news one day reported some
>>many having his arms ripped off as two busses side swiped each other.
>>
>>Living conditions for most is sickening, people live everywheres,
>>overpasses, on bridges, over sewage canals, and live in everything that can
>>be stuck together or even on nothing, saw quite a few just sleeping on the
>>side of the road. There is always a smell of some sort, either of a polluted
>>nature or in worst case decaying trash and human waste. Trash just gets
>>dumped right out on the streets and the chickens, goats, cows and less
>>fortunate just go through it. Outside the city, sanitation doesnt exist and
>>it is not uncommon to just see people releiving themselfs right next to the
>>road, when you pass a remote bus stop it was pretty common to see those
>>getting off just to let it loose right at the bus stop or go squat in a
>>field. On one of our trips one of our accompanying cars actually hit a boy
>>on a bike, the Indian officials in the car got out picked the kid up and
>>brushed him off and moved him to the side, I think if we werent there they
>>would of just left him.
>>
>>Travel through the airports was also an adventure, they make you show a
>>ticket and passport to enter the terminal, it seemed most of those
>>inspecting the tickets at that point were illiterate and not used to
>>e-Tickets, you often had to show them your names on both so they could
>>compare the symbols. On flight back from KolKata to Delhi the captain was a
>>woman, I think that made many of the Indians on the plane pucker, women are
>>not treated very well there and to have a woman in a position of authority
>>is a bit outside the norm for most. At the airport my last night the whole
>>terminal lost power, not because of amy storms, just because that is what
>>happens with power in India, you loose it a couple times a week, the better
>>places all have their own generators and water filtration facilities. My
>>flight home left Delhi at 2:30 in the morning, and it took me about 29 hours
>>to get from there to home. Life in the hotels was really nice, airplane
>>ride, while long was at least in business class with lay flat seats and the
>>Luftansa lounge at Frankfurt had Good german beers on tap. I think Im going
>>to write this down as one of those great life experiences that you dont
>>necessarily have to repeat.
>>
>>Jim

TimMakins,

This sounds even more immature and juvenile than my teenage son's diary, when he visited India for the first time. I am amazed a company in the US sent this guy on a business trip to India! What a loser! I guess he'll never feel comfortable with anything that does not mimic his lifestyle in the US, to the T.

As folk keep saying on India Mike, India is not for everybody. Not everyone is suited to,or cope with India. You only have to count the number of natives who have left India since independence to see that not even the fact of being born there gives a person an immunity badge to Indian life.

Can you imagine, if it were for everyone?

Most of the things in that email are true, though....
(except maybe that he didn't quite get the reason for the honking, and dozens of buses on the side of the road seems excessive..)

btw, boston, maybe not yours, but many businesses send employees to foreign countries to get a job done, not to give them the opportunity to revel in their cultural sensitivity. Most of the people I know who travel for business rarely see anything outside of the hotel and the boardroom.

It's too bad that the email writer didn't get much of a chance to see more of India, and even if he had, he may have hated it; yet I still don't think it would merit him being called a loser.

Actually, I am not sure it belongs in this thread at all. A person sent an email out, probably without the intention of it being posted on a public forum, probably without the desire for himself to be derided because of what he wrote in it. At the very least, his name should be deleted as it most likely has been posted without his knowledge or consent.