Recent stuff (3.4.2011)

So far, India has offered me a lot. And by this I mean, once one gets to experience India, one will start to appreciate more and more her own (western) country. I have to stress this is only my own opinion, but I appreciate (as an engineer) when things are done properly, clearly and with honest heart. I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy situations, which do not involve any background thoughts related to money. Believe me, they have been extremely rare down here. This is not to say India is bad, it is just that as a tourist I have been forced to witness how far people have gone and will go to get money squeezed out from us westerners.

I am now in Jaipur in this fancy hotel called Amer View, which is located near to the fort called Amber Fort (pronounced “Amer”). Too fancy to my taste. It feels like a place for some helpless tourists who want to pay extra for having commodities such as good view, functional A/C, toilet with toilet paper, and so on. The reason I am staying in this place is because I made a packet deal with a (compared to many many other Indian salespersons) good guy called Shafi, to whom I was introduced in Delhi’s Paharganj Bazaar street. As usual, some guy stopped me while strolling in the crowded bazaar and asked me to “come inside and have a look at X”. So I stayed downstairs and gave him (this is rare for me) a chance to tell me what he has got. So after a while I was sure the guy did not have anything new to offer me, I was ready to continue my walk. He then proposed I should translate some texts from Finnish to English, which his friend had. I reluctantly agreed for this was a new kind of trick for me and I thought there might really be something funny in the texts. I ended up to this room with Shafi and a German girl (tourist as well) called Maria. I was unsure what the situation was about but I sat down and read some texts out aloud. After a while of listening what Shafi and Maria had been talking, I got semi-interested: they were talking about a trip to Jammu, or actually to Srinagar (more north), or somewhere there nearby, for a week long hiking trip at the Himalayas with gypsies, ponies, tents, food, everything one could possibly need taken care of. Plus Shafi would personally travel with us. In addition some lake 1.5 km above ground would offer us some great landscape and views to explore from an overnight boat at the lake. This sounded good, since I originally always wanted to go up north, but so far had been indecisive since it was so far from my planned route. Shafi as a witty businessman was able to make my doubts regarding the original timetable for the India trip go away by making a day-to-day-schedule for the rest of the trip for me. He was able to show that I could do my trip completely in April even though this week-long hiking was included. Okay, I don’t get to see Kolkata, but frankly speaking I feel Delhi is enough for me of the major cities in India, and I hear Kolkata is even more poor than Delhi, i.e. no thank you. I don’t mean to back out Kolkata just because they are poor but because I know I would not get anything new from there. I already know about the poverty in India, do I need to end up my trip with making myself feel down? Oh yes, the reason why I’m in this expensive hotel is because I was a bit too careless about arranging things with Shafi. You see, he agreed he would also arrange my transportation from (I had already bought a train ticket to Jaipur) and accommodation in Jaipur. I did not ask what they were like, since we negotiated a “lowered price” for the whole hiking thing beforehand and I thought he would give my some low-end stuff anyways. I was surprised to notice I got all this high-end stuff. Still, I’d prefer more simpler environment (or train, it is first class)since I don’t feel I fit in plus the prices are much more higher than in more basic lodgings. In addition this hotel is not in Jaipur, so I’m kinda cut off from the city if I wanted to find some cheap place e.g. for eating. That’s why I eat simply here – to cut the costs . I could not actually eat anything more than simple stuff, since I have been having the infamous delhi belly. Little by little I feel better, and I hope to get better when we fly to Shrinagar on Tuesday (from delhi). Today I went to have an ayurvedic massage and ayurvedic consultation, which was completely good shit and how I would want to spend my money here, if anything; best of it was this consult gave me some ayurvedic drugs for treating my brown liquid problem. I’m confident the will work. If not, well they were cheap as hell. Tomorrow I’ll go to another clinic to get a more extensive massage before setting my direction towards Delhi.

A loot of scammers here admittedly, but I always find it very cheerful when the Indian people smile at me. Even the scammers get happy and lower themselves down mentally when I talk to them about cricket or something as interesting for them. Yesterday India won the world championships in cricket, which I by the way watched, or at least the end of it (it was a basic 9 hour game at least). Man I heard a lot of firecrackers and fireworks when India sealed the deal with an awesome swing by one of the Indian players. I hope this somehow unifies India more and makes them feel better about themselves, to enable them to do things more conscientiously and with a pride of what they are capable of doing.

Indian women are small but beautiful. No denying there. They all dress themselves up like some queens or princesses. Men are short and are sure to glance me at least two times before looking somewhere else. The young boys in India are eager to talk to me and, of course, they want to be in the picture with me . As all the Indians, they talk to me with a “sir” and always shake hands and smile. It’s good. I give faces to Indian babies or adolescents, and they give me back one with a smile.

I arrived to Jaipur yesterday. The first thing I saw when I stepped down from my Shabatadi Express train was my pick-up guy, who had written my name, “Shuha” or “Shufa”, down. The next thing I saw was the another face of India: naked, all bones and skin, old man with a dirty look lying on the train platform and no one seemed to care. His privates was fully open for the public to admire or pity or whatever…

Today I saw practically everything Jaipur has to offer for tourists. The guy who picked me up from the railway station was showing me the city and gave me a lot of info about stuff. He was basically a good man with good intentions, but as we all, he too was after money. Not directly, but I could tell it by observing where he took me to eat, the fact he did not accompany me in any place which costs nor did he eat in the same place as I did, he insisted me to drink tee at one place, and they even brought me the tee in front of me after saying no thanks.. So, one just has to be firm and say no. That’s what I did, and he did get the message I think. These guys get commissions for bringing tourists to certain places so it’s no wonder he did what he did. Unfortunate, but it seems to be the name of the game. Good side was that I could be transported effortlessly to various monuments and sites with the luxury of a car. This was good, since in Jaipur the weather is smoking hot at this time. Over 40 at least. I did enough walking in Delhi.
I feel I will not have any more of these prearranged things. Now I see why most of the tourists consider travelling and tourism in general so expensive. They are guided by these “good men”, who are your friends and want what is best for you. Yeah, right. The problem always is, one never knows what is a reasonable price level since everything is up for bargaining, and one does not know what is the gap between the asked price and the real base level. That is what it is based on. We tourists pay incredibly big amounts of money for anything here, compared to the locals. In western countries it’s easier to compare prices as they are fixed. I’m not sure if the prices here are fixed for locals as well, or can they bargain also. I hope not… Otherwise their lives would be all bargaining and quarreling over few rupees.

Anyways, above I have written something what I’ve been thinking and doing here. I think it is mentally straining to stay here in India, or at least in the tourist areas, if one wants to keep some kind of reasonable budget. Also, the difference in the culture, climate, behavior, way of doing business, everything is just so completely the opposite to western cultures that I feel once I have completed my travels here in India for now, I will have learnt something valuable, something one cannot learn otherwise than by experiencing it. I think of this trip as a challenge, and as a chance to learn and appreciate our two very different cultures.

But now I know what my friend in Finland meant when he came from the exchange study trip in India. I feel your pain. Oh well, time to order some hotel food! Money comes, money goes. Money truly is just money – money cannot buy experience, at least not directly.