Tourist India
on Jen does Delhi with VSO (India), 20/Nov/2010 10:42, 34 days ago
Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-USX-NONEX-NONE/* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:justify; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}Tourist India is, to my mind, a bit exhausting. I recently had a colleague and friend over to visit from the UK. As the person who has travelled around the country it falls to me to be the responsible one; ensuring plans are feasible, trains are booked and boarded and nothing goes wrong. But this is India so things do go haywire occasionally. Travelling around regularly makes it a bit easier and luckily nothing went wrong. Most things aren’t too tiring apart from the struggle to communicate and the continual fight for a fair price. You see it’s theskin taxthing again. There are, generally, two tourist India’s. The five star luxury where you don’t see much of the real India at all. You pay through the nose for this and if you ventured into your hotel’s kitchen you might get the idea you weren’t in a decent hotel at all.The other India is more real but they still try to make you pay through the nose for what you get. I’m off travelling soon as my placement ends. I’ve decided to head somewhere, stay with friends I’ve met. When I need to venture further I’ll hunker down in a half decent hotel and limit the contact I have with tourist India if I can.For anyone coming here it is fun but you have that same old fight on your hands to not be seen as fair game. In fact if there weren’t so many people coming to India who allowed themselves to get ripped off it might help but in some cases it keeps families afloat so we shouldn’t begrudge. Pay over the odds sometimes to someone who needs it more than you. Don’t be the back packer or foreigner that treats everyone like crapand haggles over every rupee. I’m off soon and I’ll be the tourist again. I’m hoping the receptipon I get in Kerala will be more like Amritsar where everyone was friendly and out to help rather than Varanasi where everyone just wants your cash. After a year of working here, I’ve loved it n’ all but I really don’t wantthat tourist fight. I just want a nice little beach, a massage and a glass of chilled white wine please.