My first visit to India

Marcia

Hi everyone

As i have promised, here i am to report about my trip to India. It can look more than a report, a diary. It is large and I don´t expect all having patience to read it all. But this is not important. I just want to do what I have promised doing when I was back and I am very late! I hope it can be of some use for other people visiting India for first time. I did not visit many places. First week we were headed to Bangalore for a wedding and in the other week we visited Kabine and Mysore.

My trip was last June and we had a great time. I was not expecting to have so much fun and i do believe that, if we had gone within a group of tourists it haven´t been so good. It was really good to live, somehow, part of the routine of an Indian family and go out, making shop with natives and things like this. Besides the opportunity to meet some friends that i have never met in person, added so much emotion to my trip. Well.... after this large introduction, here come my views.

Our first Saturday in Bangalore was hilarious. Hubby and I decided to make an walking tour. I was sure i would have problems in India to communicate in English, first because I know the accent is bit different and second because my English, especially the listening, is not exactelly the best! The friend living in Bglore told us NOT TO TAKE a "tuk tuk". He seemed bit afraid, especially in this occasion because we would have to leave the hotel too early to get to the tour meeting point at 7 am! So the suggestion was to fix a cab from hotel and be safer. When i was back to Brasil he said the real worry was about tourists being kidnapped or things like that .

Anyway.... we did as he suggested and despite following the instructions to get to the meeting point in time that was not possible, because we got lost ! We took a wrong avenue and having just 5 minutes left to the meeting time i had to call the guide and say I was going to give up . I could not find the way!!!! And I had asked a boy in the way, but he seemed don´t understand anything I asked in English. He just nodded all the time, like agreeing with me, but no explanation at all !!! That day I almost sat on the sidewalk to cry like a baby! Of anger, for sure !!! My English could not be sooo bad !!! I had traveled abroad before!!! . And I had all written down in a paper, very clear for any need to ask for help!! Then I realized that not all people speak English and I speaking kannada was really out of question Finally I had the brilliant idea to ask a tuktuk driver to talk to the guide and follow her instructions to take us to the group. Done! Finally we were there having made the group loses just 5 minutes!

The walking tour is the best way to see the city like it really works. If you are a fluent English speaker it will be fantastic. For a no fluent English speaker like me, it is not 100% profitable, but even though still a good experience that I would certainly repeat in other city. I don´t think from a bus we could have enjoyed so much! It was nice to go around, observing how is life in real, seeing the usual sympathy of the people with tourists and most of all, the sympathy of children. I felt happy to see them always smiling and waving to all tourists. So smiling cute!

Something that was difficult to me (and it is the same in every country of very different food habits ), was the meal. And the breakfast included in this tour was just the proof it would take me a good time to get used to eat spicy food as a first meal in my day . Unless for the coffee and milk that are just like we enjoy in Brasil (hot and strong), the other things represented a challenge to me. So, if you are used to eat the old and good traditional Brazilian breakfast (bread and butter, coffee with milk, some fruit or juice, cheese and some cereals), I suggest you to have always a package of biscuits or some fruit in your bag! This can help you to survive until next stop .

Walking by the tumultuous streets of Bangalore was other different experience. Of course we knew traffic was crazy, but really I did not imagine the extent of this craziness. I don´t live in a city which traffic can be considered “normal", but even though It was impressive the lack of organization in the traffic. The way buses stop to get passengers, and go away open doors, how people are delivered in the middle of the avenues and cross the streets like juggling ! Sidewalks also are another chapter! And the most incredible is: even under such confusion (a real chaos sometimes) traffic works! And I am still thinking what are the traffic agents for…LOL. While in my city, São Paulo, we are fired for sounding the horn too much, in India you are supposed to do it as much as you can…..always in order to avoid accidents!!!! Maybe after some years driving in Bangalore the minimum accident is getting duf !

Really folks, I guess I enjoyed so much the trip because I went to India with an open mind. More than this: I tried to have an empty mind and don´t get influenced by others´ opinions. So I could, even surprised, get the best out of the experience and have fun figuring out the contrasts and enjoying the most important in all travels: learn from the differences. And came back wishing more , wishing visiting North India in one next opportunity.

One thing that made me truly surprised was the reaction of locals, the way they looked at us. Even in Bangalore that is a city having a big number of tourists and foreign people living there for work, we could observe the curious look of many people. I had asked my Indian friends some things about dressing. Especially because I was going to a marriage ceremony, and did not want to look “strange or offensive” making a bad choice on dressing. I was said, for example, sleeveless dresses were not offensive at all. And I am not really used to wear clothes that call attention anyhow. Jeans and shirts are our normal dressing and despite I could saw at malls exactly the same clothes I can buy in Brasil, in my first sight seeing in Bglore I felt many moments like I was coming from Mart or Jupiter! It was not embarrassing at all and this did not make me change my plans to visit everything I wanted to visit, but I would advice women in general to take some special care if you think to go out alone or wearing something too different or an outfit that can be considered sensual or so. And I could figure out what is just normal in some countries, in others can look like “provocative”. Just in case….. if we can avoid misunderstandings, why not?

Some days before leaving India I could find a report on Bangalore’s journal, saying about problems in Guajarat, advising women tourists to avoid some clothes for their safety and this included skirts!!

One last thing that I could not forget mentioning: the toilets! Before I leave to India i had been reading many threads here about how “exotic” can be a bathroom experience in India. So i was pretty ready to face it! But I was lucky and actually I took two especial cares:
1) Before leaving for any tour, always made a last "visit" to the bathroom!
2) Walking by anywhere like a shopping mall or a Café Day Coffee, never wasted a chance to visit the toilette again! You never know how long it will take to find another western toilette in your way! Feeling “relaxed” you can stand much more time
Actually having taken those simple precautions I really have no complains about the toilette experience. In Mysore we stayed at Ginger Hotels and in Kabini at Jungle Lodge. Also no problems with the bathrooms! I conclude that, at least in South India, “bathroom issue” is more folklore than real problem for westerns!

__________________
Do more than exist. Live.

skk

Great trip report - I've used that move in Turkey ( via cellphone ) and in Northern India 20 years ago, in person, when my Hindi was really really crap and I really had difficulties with language in Northern India. Worked both times. I was ready to use the same move in São Paulo if needed,as I planned to visit the World Bridge Championships this summer - in the end, it was all so brilliantly done online by the Brazilian organizers that I just "watched" it all online ( www.bridgebase.com ).

Great report again.

-skk

Marcia

Hi SKK

Thanks for your comments. Do you mean will there be a Bridge Competition in Brasil? Never knew about it BTW, in São Paulo, if you speak Spanish it also helps a lot

Saludos!
Marcia

danield

Wonderful to hear you had a good time inspite challenges.We all do. Hope you were bitten by the Indian Bug which is incurable. Must return to feed that beast.

Marcia

Thanks for your comments. Yes, hubby and me came back certain about the "bug" . Seems India is like this: you DO love it forever or you DO hate it

Regards
Marcia

skk

It has already occurred between 29-Aug-2009 till 12-Sep-2009. I think I confused matters when I said summer - I should have said Northern Hemisphere summer since Brazilian summer will be Dec-Feb, right ?

Yes, I use my "Rosetta Stone" language teaching software and work on improving my Spanish. But Portuguese will be even better, right ? There's an old, mid-80s, joke in Bridge circles about how this supercilious British TV commentator asked Gabriel Chagas ( Brazilian), who'd just won the World Championship, to say "We are the Champions" in Spanish; Chagas tersely replied: "I speak Portuguese !"

But I'm derailing your "Visit to India" thread.

-skk

Marcia

[quote=skk;838343] summer since Brazilian summer will be Dec-Feb, right ?

Yes...you are right. I am anxious waiting summer!


Yes.. portuguese is our native language. And for the "confusion" of the British TV commentator, i guess it is due to the fact that Brasil is the only country in South America where Spanish IS NOT the mother tongue. Most of people ignore that portuguese is spoken here. By the way they also ignore Brasilia is our Capital. Many think Buenos Aires is!

Saludos!