- The sidewalk is a mountain of garbage, besides the sewage?
- The traffic noise is unbearable, it’s death by exhaust fumes?
- The room is filthy, there is no running water?
- People don’t leave you alone and sell for tourist prices?
What has annoyed me earlier, is now well below my threshold of tolerance.
I have been to India!
Translated for India virgins:
I have experienced the shitty misery
Traffic? Which traffic? - Mensch, ärgere dich nicht!
When I think, nothing can shock me anymore, then a Hindu mobile drives by noisily. In the front sits the guru and in the back stands a “particularly” sacred cow on 2 front legs and 4 hind legs. Both udders dangle through the turn.
When I think, even India has become part of everyday life, then my path in the narrow lanes of Varanasi is blocked by a cow. When squeezing by, it turns out that she’s also afraid of me. She pisses on my shoe, with great pressure.
Cow in Varanasi
He has not lost his composure. He embraced me from human to human, because I have refused him a handshake earlier. After all, he has a right to my hand shake, to my opinion, to my time. He knows no privacy, no silence, no No.
I am the foreigner, and my attention belongs to the 1.2 billion Indians!
We want your attention!
You broke my heart.
My anticipation for you was very high, despite all the stories. But you had other plans. After a few days I only wanted to get away from you. Was it my fault?
The 4 friends of India, who recommended me to visit, were supposed to help me by email from Germany:
- gives me a list of ashrams for meditation
- had booked a beach holiday in the hotel
- tells me where I get hash
- is a vegetarian
India, my India!
Are you only suitable for the spiritual, the beach vacationers, the potheads and the granivores?
Beach vacation in India, is possible without seeing any Indians
- I wanted to have challenging experiences?
- I wanted to get out of my comfort zone?
- I wanted to see the world in its entirety?
On the subcontinent the world rears its ugly head.
The ugliness of human nature is always in the spotlight, too:
- shoving, yelling, pissing, shitting
- superstition, illiteracy, lack of motivation, poverty
That’s what I wanted to see. Or isn’t it, perhaps?
Homeless family in Mumbai
In Asia’s largest slum, in Mumbai, I ask an Indian for directions to the slum. How do I know, that I am already right in the middle of the Dharavi slum? This shit hole is no different than the other shit holes, I have passed through for 2 months.
The whole damn country is a shit hole, with very few exceptions.
Dharavi slum in Mumbai
- crowded
- gaudy
- unclean
- attention-craving
- 5% signal, 95% noise
Even on a *blink blink* advertising page, you sometimes find a sparkling gold piece, rarely even a brilliant diamond. But the search is no fun. And trying to understand India is even less fun.
It’s endlessly hopeless!
Everything is public, nothing is ever private
Everyone experiences India differently.
India is a gigantic mirror
One thing is certain:
You have to experience India!
All over India
Stories:
- India is annoying
- Kiosk business idea – India is annoying
- Queuing – India is annoying
- On the street – India is annoying
- Cows are sacred in India – applied religion
- Indian Bollywood Pop Song
Pictures:
- At the Beach in India
- Darjeeling Singalila Trek
- Designer cafe with cheesecake in India
- Women sarees in Nepal, India and Bangladesh
- India tour pictures
- India tour pictures #2
- India tour #2 Pictures
Mumbai, Maharashtra, Indien 
Text und Fotos sind klasse!
Respect your views. Only just think you saw the India you wanted to see!!!
The script ran in your head and the story telling only became better as it got along :)
I have travelled around the world and in its rawness, its clamour and dust is a certain freedom I have failed to see anywhere else in the world. In a world of natural selection and Darwin’s theory of evolution have you ever wondered why more than a billion choose to call this home, and happily beget life. And when most other geographies lose fertility! It is a different sense of freedom and Hope that each day can only be better that drive this human race. And you would need to go under the skin or be an Indian to experience this.
Not to say I did not love your narrative, only felt cheated that it lacked more depth. All the best with you future travels
correction I meant billion!!
And most other geographies seem to be losing fertility ( A UN term to explain that people are having fewer children)
hahahahahah i bursted into laughter just reading ur experiences in India :D hahahahha
@Chetan:
Do you actually disagree with my account? Doesn’t seem like you do?
But I strongly disagree, that:
1. you can choose, where you live
2. “fertility” is in itself a good thing
3. most Indians have anything like “hope” or even “drive”
Adding insult to injury, I saw a sign in a Sikh temple in BKK today, which states:
–
Sikhs contribute:
* 33% of total income tax
* 67% of total charities
* 45% of Indian Army
* 59,000 Gurudwaras serve LANGAR to 5,900,000 people everyday &
All this when THEY make only 1.4% of the total INDIAN POPULATION
–
I know Hinduism is fucked up, alright. But if these data points are even remotely true, I’m losing my faith! (pun intended)
One Year World Tour ? Floc, please rethink your decision, anything goes according to this “Spiegel” article (in german):
http://www.spiegel.de/reise/fernweh/0,1518,811744,00.html
Tldr: 27+ year globetrotters ;)
@Nebu:
27 years is excessive!
I will of course hit home every 5 years (-;
Hey Floc, ich bin wieder am Start. Ich les die kommenden Tage mal von unten nach oben, ich fürchte, ich hab ne Menge verpasst…
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