Incredible India

At Delhi Red Fort, I was interviewed by a student about the tourism campaign "Incredible India". The question that stood out was "do you think the Incredible India campaign is a true reflexion of India?" Here and in the next few entries is my answer.

First, Indian food was a good surprise. Not in the sense that I did not know Indian food at all, but more in the sense that it was very tasty, very spicy and yet not burning hot. The variety of the food was impressive - ok, let me rephrase that, the variety of the tastes was impressive. There is only three types of meat you can get - chicken, lamb/sheep, and fish/shrimps. No need to look for beef, pork, duck or horsemeat. Even McDonalds serves only chicken.

The freshest food we enjoyed was on the boat trip. We stopped in a small village and picked the fresh shrimps, caught earlier in the day. What a treat!

We even tasted the food on the train. And not once during our trip did we get stomac problems. Well done then. And to get back to the sauces, I think my favourite one is "kadhai" style. Many others were excellent, like "butter", "korma", "tikka masala", "secret of the house", . We now bought the spices and have to try it at home. Watch this space to get an invite for a curry evening!

Taste is not only reserved to food but also to drinks. Yes, even to tea! Both the normal tea and the chai with masala have a special touch, that is so far elusive to emulate. We'll try again.

Moving on (joke intended), let's talk about transport and traffic and let's be blunt: what a nightmare. Of the 60 countries I visited, India has to rank bottom in terms of driving attitude. This became obvious from the very first minutes that we got picked up by a taxi at our arrival at the airport. Honking and hooting is indispensable, as is an acute sense of your safety space. Many many many times we heard us say "oh my word, oh my word" and yet, no accident... It definitely makes sense that local car rental companies do not allow westerners to rent a car.

There is not only the other cars, tuk-tuks/autos, buses, trucks, pedestrians that you have to watch out for, but also the odd animals. Cows roaming around are still fairly common in many cities in Rajasthan.

Elephants can also be encountered, like this one in the main street of Jodhpur, a city of more than a million people.

To finish with animals, monkeys are also quite common, especially in Jaipur. There colonies of monkeys freely hop from one townhouse to the next - hopefully, people closed their windows to avoid being robbed.

Spending two of the main western/Christian holidays in India (Christmas and New Year), it was interesting to see if and how these would be celebrated. Maybe an indication of how globalisation was spreading western standards are the globe. Well, spending Christmas in Kochi/Kerala is almost like anywhere else. The main roads of the city are decorated (see above), as are the many many churches. At the commercial center, there is a big Christmas tree, a creche and a few Father Christmas to take pictures with. It is a public holiday in the state, possibly reflecting the significant proportion of Christians. 

Celebrating the New Year in Jodhpur was another adventure altogether. We asked quite a few locals if there would be an outdoor celebration, possibly in the main squares of the town. From their looks and replies, we gathered that we were not making sense. So, we first headed to a very nice and tasty restaurant, with a beautiful outdoor space. But the restaurant was to close at 11pm. So, we decided to get a tuk-tuk and head to the center of town. Everything was closed down and the streets were empty. We then decided to go to a bar in a hotel. There one of the barman signaled to us that it was not a place for a lady. We asked if it was forbidden, to which he answered, "no, but it is not a place for a lady". Indeed, inside there were only guys. We sat down for a couple of drinks, and the bar rapidly emptied itself. Conclusions: (1) New Year does not register as a milestone, and (2) in everyday life, there is still a long way for men and women to truly share common spaces. The most obvious moment was in the Delhi metro, where there are sections of the metro clearly indicated as reserved for ladies. It gives an uncomfortable sense of gender-based apartheid.

India is also rich of different cultures. We can discuss about the Punjabi pop songs that our taxi driver was playing in the car, with the two popular songs of "you are beautifuuuuul" (try it with the accent) and "party all night" mixing English and Punjabi/Hindi words. In Rajasthan, we got to see some traditional dances (always performed by ladies) and music (always performed by men). In that dance, she is bending over backward to pick up a banknote. Which allows me to make a quick transition about money and bargaining. It is almost a constant: you have to spend time and energy arguing about the price of shrimps, of a haircut, of a ride in a tuk-tuk, of souvenirs, of spices. It is tiring to argue, argue, and argue again. Sometimes, a taxi driver would ask us for 500 rupees, when we were told the price would be 120-150 rupees. I ask myself what is the motivation for the taxi driver to ask for such an inflated price: is he looking forward to spending time bargaining down the price? is he hoping to make quick money on the back of gullible tourists? is he charging the "right price" to us to compensate for the low price he charges for Indians? is he providing us with a much better service (i.e., driving less recklessly) than to Indians?

Another expression of culture is kathakali. In this theater, we got to see the main actors getting ready for the performance by painting their face. Then the musicians and singer took the stage to narrate an ancient history. The actors are communicating their expression, feelings, thoughts mostly through their facial expression, in particular their eyes! It is a universal language.



I did not think that I would get to see this but there is was: a snake charmer. Quite impressive, until our guide told us that this snake was not a real cobra.

In Jaisalmer, we stayed in these so-called "Swiss" tents. So the question: "what is Swiss about these tents"? I suspect that it might be because of tents put up by the Red Cross during emergencies in India. As usual, people might have mixed up the Red Cross for the Swiss flag. If anyone has a better explanation, feel free to let me know.