Hindustan Times
Backpacking as a foreigner in India in the 90s
When I was 19, in the 1990s I dated this English guy who had had been to India.
Up to that point I had travelled to Europe and the US, but had not been anywhere considered ‘exotic’.
Yet, on our dates, he used to keep me riveted with his tales of India, wandering around in a lungi, living in a hut in the Himalayas and in a guest house in Paharganj.
So, after splitting up, with him, I was determined to visit this land. I didn’t know much about India as it hadn’t featured in a single lesson at school. The Freedom Struggle and British colonisation had never been mentioned in history classes. Instead we had studied WWI and II, and the Cold War.
India was once mentioned in my geography lesson when we were studying the concept of migration from villages to cities and that was it.
My parents were dead against the trip, as they considered it dangerous, yet backpacking was very much in fashion them.
Then, as now, in one’s gap year or summer holidays, English teenagers would take off to some far flung place and backpack. India and south America were the ‘in’ places at that time.
We would fund it with student loans, handed out by the government, or part-time jobs we took as a student.
Flights to these places were fairly cheap (Rs 25,000) and since the exchange rates favoured the pound back then, we could take very little spending money and live the life of a king upon arrival.
(Indian students do not seem to be as into backpacking as European students….they appear to remain in India during their holidays and don’t take gap years. I wonder why this is? Correct me if I am wrong….)
I remember I brought 500 pounds (Rs 38,000) to India for nine weeks travelling back then, which covered my hotels, transport, food, shopping and socialising.
I spent twice that in one week in Rajasthan last year.
So, back then, my mum put me up in the Holiday Inn in Delhi for the first three days. After that I had to fend for myself.
During that time I managed to get ripped off buying a drum for about Rs 500 rupees, and meet lots of less than salubrious backpacker characters.
Paharganj was full of long-haired westerners then, many had been in India for months or years, some were completely drugged out. The streets were littered with ‘holy men’ but as I discovered, when I accompanied one to his so-called temple, all they did was smoke charas in chillums…
These sadhus promised to tell me my future and reveal the meaning of life, all things I had come to India from the west to discover.
The road from the airport was, I recall, like the way roads had been described in the Old Testament – animal, carts, horse and carriages, donkeys, cows, and rickshaws all jostled with each other…Sadhus in orange lungis were even sat in the middle of the road.
Once my time at Holiday Inn was up, I shifted to Ringo’s guest house.
Even though I could afford something better, there was a sense that the cheaper and more disgusting the place you stayed, the more ‘authentic your experience would be.
I never went near five stars then (unlike now.) I remember walking past a five-star hotel once in Delhi and seeing a glimpse of tourists, American probably, and they all looked clean and normal and I felt sorry for them – they were not experiencing the real India that I was, I thought..
The only posh standalone restaurants in Delhi then were Nirula’s and McDonald’s. Both had security guards at the entrance and many Indians were not allowed inside.
I wandered around and everyone wanted to talk me. “Hello Madam, which country? Are you married? My friend wants to marry you,” etc.
I loved this part. (It was quite different to the UK where I was ignored wherever I went).
Every single Kashmiri would invite me for tea inside his chai shop – and I would go. We would sit and discuss my travel plans, the meaning of life, and India.
His brother and cousin would also show up.
One Kahsmiri even took me to the cinema. But they always ended up trying to persuade me to take a house boat in Dal Lake – the one place my parents had told me not to visit before coming – so sure enough that was the first place on my destination.
I took the bus there and in Jammu, where I spent one night, stayed awake all night scared of the geckos climbing up and down the wall.
There were thousands of army vehicles everywhere en route. Sometimes the bus broke down and we all had to push it. Sometime the vehicle in front broke down and then we just drank tea and waited.
Upon arrival I was swamped by about 200 people trying to take my bags and put me in their vehicle.
I reached Dal Lake and stepped into a house boat with some other travellers. It felt so tranquil.
There I had nothing to do, slept and sunbathed and went for rides on the lake. It was paradise…I was so happy. The backdrop was beautiful. We weren’t sure if a war was happening. We were the only people on the lake and managed to negotiate a good price.
Next we went to Ladakh overland…I fell ill from altitude at first. Here we stayed with a family in their spare room to save money.
They wore the most gorgeous costumes and looked like Tibetans. Next was Manali…Here I met loads of hippies living in India permanently, or so it seemed. They all appeared to have screwed up in their home countries somehow or other and were doing nothing here…They would sit around, play pool or card games and discuss the meaning of life.
I trekked in a group up to a place called Malana, that was an eight hour trek up a steep mountaineous path…We passed sitting sadhus and odd snack stalls and when we arrived there were people in different tribal dresses dancing.
In Pushkar, I met a bunch of Israelis. Every night they played the guitar and we sang by the pool. I did a camel trek in Jaisalmer for three days with a French man. One guy lost his contact lenses in the middle of the dessert.
At night the camel riders got out photo albums of European girls with hand written love letters stuck next to them, claiming they had all had these western girlfriends asking me to be to be one too.
I loved the yellowness of the place. It was also so relaxing. In Jaipur, I nearly got roped into a gems scam, whereby a man tried to persuade me to carry a load of jewels to London, but wanted a deposit of Rs 25,000. (The jewels, I later discovered, were worthless.)
I loved the train journeys around Rajasthan: I would always take second class and sleep on the top row as we went through various stations.
Hawkers would offer us coconut slices, and other fruits and foods, all the time through the windows. Chaiwallahs constantly walked up and down.
When I got back to the UK, I was shocked at how grey and empty the streets were and how noone said ‘Hello’ to me as I walked around..everyting was predictable and the same..Now I spend half my time in five star hotels, avoid local trains where possible and don’t go near backpackers.
Noone says ‘Hello Madam’ to me, and I haven’t laid eyes on a single sadhu. But I think I see more people sleeping on the streets now, than I did then, and more beggars……There are seem to be less snack stalls dotted around too, which were most convenient. You don’t get fresh coconut slices on train journeys either.
I don’t know if it is because I am in Mumbai. I wonder if, if I were to backpack again, whether these experiences would be the same, or if it has all changed…
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(Did you know that people from Malana consider themselves as a parallel, independent republic that cites greek roots?) I tell you, we have it all in India!
Mick Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Some could say India is like marmite you either love it or hate it. For the lovers it’s the wonderful street life full of vibrant colours, smells excitement and Indian people. The haters just can’t cope with this.
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