We've decided that spending an exorbitant amount ($246 Cdn) for a night at the Holiday Inn Delhi International Airport Hotel was a good buy after all. We enjoyed a solid night's sleep with no noise and just finished a 2 hour buffet breakfast with both Indian and western food. We're both able to eat today. I ate about a pound of bacon with my omelette, stewed tomatoes, fried potato patties, croissants, decaf coffee, sweet lassi (sweetened yogurt and water drink), fresh squeezed orange juice and lemon tea. Anita had about the same with a little less bacon but some other pastries, yogurt, fruit and nuts. We also packed some hard boiled eggs, fruit and buns for a later snack. Great breakfast.
Now we're just killing time in our room until 2 pm. Then we'll kill time around the outdoor pool and in the lobby until 9 pm when we'll get transported to the airport. Then there'll be more time to kill until our flight leaves at 12:45 am. Hopefully there will be some decent movies on tap for the 14 3/4 hour flight to Toronto. Maybe we'll even get some sleep.
It's time for a few final thoughts about India.
Our trip would have been much more enjoyable if we hadn't been sick so much. It's been the rare day that I actually felt good. It started with severe jet lag, then Delhi Belly, then more Delhi Belly that required antibiotics, then a sinus infection, then more Delhi Belly. After all that, I felt weak, tired and afraid to eat. Anita has been better but her Delhi Belly in Udaipur was pretty bad. Hopefully, we're both over it now.
Even if we had been well throughout, travelling from place to place here is often not pleasant. The airports and train stations are generally crowded. The trains are often late. The bathrooms on the trains are not that nice. The train booking is complex. The travel by car is terrifying. Some of the drivers are okay and some are vultures. The same is true of the tuktuk drivers.
In the cities, traveling by tuktuk means being exposed to the worst of the air pollution and feeling very vulnerable in the chaotic traffic. However, it's a cheap way to get around. Walking anywhere means constantly shaking your head "no, no, no" to all the hawkers and beggars. We're used to that and don't find it to be too annoying, as long as we don't get distracted and step in any of the shit from cows, dogs, monkeys, camels, goats, pigs etc that is literally everywhere. As we've said before, we're seen as walking stacks of cash. Maybe if we're prodded enough, some will shake loose.
This is the dirtiest and most polluted country we have seen. We thought the Mekong Delta in Vietnam was polluted until we got here. We feel like we've been swimming in bacteria for 4 weeks. And the people here litter all the time. Then there's the almost constant smell of burning garbage.
The middle class Indians we've met, many of whom are tourists seeing the same sights we came to see, are generally very sincerely friendly and helpful.They're often quite knowledgeable about Canada and we all laugh at Canada's nickname of "mini Punjab" since a lot of Canadian Sikhs come from the Punjabi state to the north of Rajasthan. Some of the local culture takes some getting used to. We have never heard an Indian tourist say "please" or "thank you" to any service person. They expect service people to do their jobs without expectation of any courtesy. Line-ups in India are like line-ups in China. Every line-up is a crowd like it's last call at a bar on a wild night. People try to force their way onto trains while other people are still trying to get off. It just doesn't work very well.
In 4 weeks, we have never dealt with a woman other than flight attendants and washroom attendants. Only about 30% of Indian women work outside the home, either through tradition or fear for their safety.
Those are a lot of negative comments but unfortunately almost every foreign tourist we've met has the same opinion that we do. India is missing out on a lot of foreign tourist money by not having a better tourist friendly infrastructure. Even getting our visa was more difficult than it needed to be.
The sights we've seen are incredible. The palaces and forts in Rajasthan, Agra and Delhi are huge and elaborate. We agree that the Taj Mahal deserves its reputation as the most beautiful building in the world. We just sat and stared at it for hours. We're really glad we saw it and glad that we had a chance to interact with Indian people to see what they're like.
If we had taken a group tour, we would have probably stayed mostly in big, bland hotels like the one we're in now and rode around on tour buses talking to fellow Canadians and never meeting anyone who lives in India, other than the tour guide. That would have been much more comfortable but not nearly as interesting. We're not quite ready for that yet.
In conclusion, we're glad we've seen a little bit of India but it's doubtful that we'll ever come back. At our age, we may not be ready for the group tour but we still like a certain level of comfort and less hassle when we're traveling. As a young German traveler said to us, "You must be strong to travel in India". However, there's no question that it's been interesting.
Now we're just killing time in our room until 2 pm. Then we'll kill time around the outdoor pool and in the lobby until 9 pm when we'll get transported to the airport. Then there'll be more time to kill until our flight leaves at 12:45 am. Hopefully there will be some decent movies on tap for the 14 3/4 hour flight to Toronto. Maybe we'll even get some sleep.
It's time for a few final thoughts about India.
Our trip would have been much more enjoyable if we hadn't been sick so much. It's been the rare day that I actually felt good. It started with severe jet lag, then Delhi Belly, then more Delhi Belly that required antibiotics, then a sinus infection, then more Delhi Belly. After all that, I felt weak, tired and afraid to eat. Anita has been better but her Delhi Belly in Udaipur was pretty bad. Hopefully, we're both over it now.
Even if we had been well throughout, travelling from place to place here is often not pleasant. The airports and train stations are generally crowded. The trains are often late. The bathrooms on the trains are not that nice. The train booking is complex. The travel by car is terrifying. Some of the drivers are okay and some are vultures. The same is true of the tuktuk drivers.
In the cities, traveling by tuktuk means being exposed to the worst of the air pollution and feeling very vulnerable in the chaotic traffic. However, it's a cheap way to get around. Walking anywhere means constantly shaking your head "no, no, no" to all the hawkers and beggars. We're used to that and don't find it to be too annoying, as long as we don't get distracted and step in any of the shit from cows, dogs, monkeys, camels, goats, pigs etc that is literally everywhere. As we've said before, we're seen as walking stacks of cash. Maybe if we're prodded enough, some will shake loose.
This is the dirtiest and most polluted country we have seen. We thought the Mekong Delta in Vietnam was polluted until we got here. We feel like we've been swimming in bacteria for 4 weeks. And the people here litter all the time. Then there's the almost constant smell of burning garbage.
The middle class Indians we've met, many of whom are tourists seeing the same sights we came to see, are generally very sincerely friendly and helpful.They're often quite knowledgeable about Canada and we all laugh at Canada's nickname of "mini Punjab" since a lot of Canadian Sikhs come from the Punjabi state to the north of Rajasthan. Some of the local culture takes some getting used to. We have never heard an Indian tourist say "please" or "thank you" to any service person. They expect service people to do their jobs without expectation of any courtesy. Line-ups in India are like line-ups in China. Every line-up is a crowd like it's last call at a bar on a wild night. People try to force their way onto trains while other people are still trying to get off. It just doesn't work very well.
In 4 weeks, we have never dealt with a woman other than flight attendants and washroom attendants. Only about 30% of Indian women work outside the home, either through tradition or fear for their safety.
Those are a lot of negative comments but unfortunately almost every foreign tourist we've met has the same opinion that we do. India is missing out on a lot of foreign tourist money by not having a better tourist friendly infrastructure. Even getting our visa was more difficult than it needed to be.
The sights we've seen are incredible. The palaces and forts in Rajasthan, Agra and Delhi are huge and elaborate. We agree that the Taj Mahal deserves its reputation as the most beautiful building in the world. We just sat and stared at it for hours. We're really glad we saw it and glad that we had a chance to interact with Indian people to see what they're like.
If we had taken a group tour, we would have probably stayed mostly in big, bland hotels like the one we're in now and rode around on tour buses talking to fellow Canadians and never meeting anyone who lives in India, other than the tour guide. That would have been much more comfortable but not nearly as interesting. We're not quite ready for that yet.
In conclusion, we're glad we've seen a little bit of India but it's doubtful that we'll ever come back. At our age, we may not be ready for the group tour but we still like a certain level of comfort and less hassle when we're traveling. As a young German traveler said to us, "You must be strong to travel in India". However, there's no question that it's been interesting.
Great post! Safe travels home!
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