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…
(5 votes, average: 3.6 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Naomi Canton on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Filed under Mumbai · Tagged backpackers, backpacking, foreigners, India, paharganj
what’s weird for me as an American born of Indian origin is backpacking around like a hippie. Indians don’t know what to think and neither do my fellow foreigners. It’s kinda neat actually. Glad you have had such an amazing experience. My wife (who is of Scottish origin but American) had a similar view to yours I think.
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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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Really awesome blog..had me transported to all those places. I have been to some of them, most notably Malana…they all seem to be a parallel world compared to our regular city lives
(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!
Of course, since I am not a gori girl I am not used to that kind of attention you got, but can understand that feeling!
The trick is to get the balance right – you are talking about statistical extremes – remote and gorgeous places like Ladakh, on one hand and 5 star hotels on the other hand. There is a middle India which most of us occupy and its wonderful!
But I do wish more Indians travelled, backpacked etc. Its not a tradition / cultural ritual for us as youngsters, as it is with most westerners. The country itself has a lot to offer and backpacking as a student in a foreign country can be a life time experience.
Cheers!
Vasu
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Proj Reply:
November 21st, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I have been following this blog for quite a while although i don’t react and respond that often and i feel like most expats, her Indian experiences or the narration of those are somewhat extreme. I fully agree with you, Vasu that the trick is to find the right balance.
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mick Reply:
November 25th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
so do I
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Naomi Reply:
November 25th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Are you an expat, then? You have an Indian-sounding name..Or are you an expat pretending to be Indian on this blog?…
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Proj Reply:
November 29th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Sorry, I don’t check this blog daily and I didn’t see this until today. I find this blog interesting to read although I disagree with some of the views and feel the need for further discussion on those. I have been sharing experiences with expatriates, both Indian and foreign for the last few years, mostly in person since I feel cross cultural communication online is very tricky and leads to unnecessary misunderstandings unless you have Vasu’s patience to reply like he did on that global Indian man article, therefore I don’t write much online.
Well, to answer your question, Naomi, I don’t see the pretense in being an Indian and retaining your originality or identity, if you will, although I have lived in different cultures in my post teen years. Granted I went to a Catholic convent school in India but being raised in an Indian home, an Indian environment and having Indian features makes me “Indian” at the end of the day. On the dance floor, white women are excited to dance with an “Indian” guy for the first time in their life and in my understanding; the excitement comes from the expectation of a different experience. When I sit in a table with a bunch of foreigners, they expect something original from me without being too disruptive rather than someone who is constantly trying to imitate them or a willing “yes” man, no wonder who’s who in the American Society pay hundreds of dollars for a Ravi Shankar or Zakir Hussain concert as opposed to Shahrukh Khan, whose audience is primarily Indian American.
Like they say in Hindi, a peacock’s plume does not turn a crow into a peacock overnight; I will always be confidently Indian and very content to be so. According to Shobhaa De, Indian Gen Y is fairly rootless, slightly confused but uber-smart kids who know their “fundas” (sort of), but are searching for something that tells them who they really are. I have to agree with her and this trend started with the Indian Americans, British Indians, if you will.
I will end with how I got my name Proj. When I was at Bschool in Michigan, I was advised by my counselor Jeanene and a couple of my American friends that I get a mono-syllabic name for myself to facilitate introduction in employment fairs and job interviews. I was told that a lot of Americans would not initiate conversation with me if they find my name difficult to pronounce. My friends suggested that I be called Peters. I decided against it and chose to be called Proj instead, the first half of my name Projjwal.
Right, Indian students do not go backpacking. You mentioned the reason yourself–the exchange rates!
It is really hard for Indians, let alone students, to travel abroad. More and more people are travelling abroad for work, but very few can afford it for just plain simple fun.
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Let me admit, I haven’t travelled even a quarter of what you travelled in India. During the student days , it was impossible as the pocket money obviously could not sponsor such trips and when we got the jobs and had money, we could not get the time or proper company. I wish if I could see those places what ppl say incredible about my country, I will someday and tht’s for sure.
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Mick Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I think thats what Naomi has been trying to tell you all for a long time.
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Hi Naomi,
Lovely read!! You asked why Indians do not take backpack trips..
A very good question. let me try to answer that.
In India, parents are very protective of their kids as kids are their insurance for old age.
So in case of boys, parents cannot dream of allowing their spoilt brat to go alone on a trip!! hell they do not allow him to go alone till the next city till he is in his mid-twenties!! even then they will insist that you call us as soon as you reach the relatives place!, call everyday till you c ome back. I have seen parents ask their newly wedded son going to honeymoon to call them everyday from there!!! so the poor chap is supposed to call up his parents everyday to discuss how they both are, what did they eat during the day and how are the things!!!!
In case of girls, they are supposed to grow up quietly in the house and then conveiently married and become the responsibility of the in-laws. Nobody will dream of allowing their girls to go backpacking!!! Hell, the girls are even escorted, when they go to college or for higher studies!!! as soonas they are married, they are supposed to ask the permission of in-laws and the husband before even stepping out of the house!!! even for grocessary shopping!!!
So in a nutshell, In india their is no culture of backpacking or skipping a school year and it is going to remain that way, if the parents have any say in that!!!!!!
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Atul Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Hey Jaya,
I would sincerely request you to NOT give this false picture of India and its culture, do some research around and not just GENERALIZE thr whole of India basis your experience.
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Jaya Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Hi Atul,
Sorry to be spoilsport but this is a true picture.. As anybody from middleclass background can vouch for.
Yes, if you are talking about upper class , then it is a different ball game alltogether!!!
In middle class home, parents are always after their kids to study hard so that they can go to good colleges and earn fancy degrees durings the kid’s teen years. If any kid says, i will skip a year and instead roam India, i can guarantee that the parents will have heart attack (real or makebelieve) and they will make the kid feel so guilty and nag him so much that he/she would not dare utter a wish like this in future!!!!!
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Atul Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
True to an extent, kids here ofcourse cannot skip school for a year but there are optimum number of breaks/leaves remember those summer vacations,that a kid can use to travel.
How far the question of Parents nagging their kids to study harder and get fancy degree, don;t you think the scenario has evolved over a period. Its more about the right upbringing now and not just academics, parents these days make sure their kids apart from being good at studies excel elsewhere too. Travelling enhances one’s personality/knowledge for sure, plus its about getting to know your/differnt country, understand their culture. I guess kids do it enough now, sometimes alone or may be through school/college trips or with parents.
I dont call it westernization but things actually are different now, and to say that “there is no culture of backpacking or skipping a school year and it is going to remain that way” will be too untrue.
PS: Btw, I feel a lil frustration coming out..I may be wrong..
Mick Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 12:51 am
No Atul they don’t skip school, there is for some reason a year between finishing general education abd uni. Due to class sturcture it takes the Uni’s a while to sort out the people they want etc, meen while said kids go backpacking, or take drugs, or get drunk oh the list is endless and it is called a right of passage and beleive me Atul this is perhaps a reason for the currant world problems basically some of them get a bit above them selves
Mick Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 12:52 am
Don’t be silly.
arindam Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Well I don’t think Jaya has put in the wrong picture Atul.If you have been from a middleclass family you would have agreed.All this talk about back packing,travelling etc etc came in after the 1990’s when the economy was unshacled before that our exposure to outside world was minimal with Doordarshan being the only source of entertainment and having a telephone was too a luxury.
Atul Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I guess I touched a few emotions there..
Guys I dint say that the picture Jaya provided is wrong, all I wanted to convey was that the scenario has changed. I admit there was no culture of backpacking then, but our economy has evolved over this period and yes multiple folds. Btw, travelling has nothing to do with the “exposure to outside world” If travelling was for the rich class and people dint really know the concept of travelling as “they were unexposed to the outside world” why were there so many pilgrims from the whole of India to all the holy places all over in the country. People DID use to travel, just that the concept of travel for Luxury or for leisure was uncommon.
and to your point Mick I dont think kids do backpacking or take drugs during that period when they have their head over the shoulders to get into the right colleges of their choice, all these things start later on…
Sambuddha Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Jaya,
Mind your venomous tongue.
And oh, by the way, parents have every right to feel concerned about the future and security of the children they gave birth to and brought up.
It is my personal opinion that parents who abandon their children like the way you insinuate, shouldn’t be allowed to have children and sterilised for life.
So long….
Yours hatefully,
Sambuddha.
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Awesome article! I love traveling and am always interested in knowing about other people’s experiences. I have roamed around India quite a bit but not as much as you did. Backpacking is fun for sure. My favourite destinations in India are Kerala and Goa. The treks in himalayas are also just too good to resist.
I don’t like the idea of taking a year off in the middle of studies. I don’t understand why people do it. There’s ample time to travel while you are studying. And, of course money is always a contraint. Thankfully I got a chance to backpack across europe as an exchange student. I was in Bordeaux for 3 months but barely attended the classes. The best part of the trip was definitely the people I met while traveling. At a hostel in Amsterdam I came across an Australian who told me that he hadbeen traveling for the last 8 months and that this was his last stop before he headed home. I was stunned. A British guy I met in Switzerland in a hostel told me that he was using his savings of last 4 years to travel. He had quit his job and planned to take another one when he got done with his traveling. I met so many other people and their stories never failed to astonish me. While in Bordeaux I was sharing a flat with 2 french girls – awesome arrangement in my opinion. It was good to share their way of life for sometime. Although I always wished that I knew more french or they knew more english!
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that contrary to the popular belief, I think you can find many like minded young Indians who are as much intersted in traveling and meeting new people as you are. Even though I have started working, I still take out time once in a while to go on treks or some other exotic trips (in India or abroad) with college mates. I don’t think I am going to stop doing that ever.
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Mick Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Himalayas sound nice but I think just maybe the Rockies are nicer and more accessable
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Hi Naomi,
Interesting blog. I have my colleagues from our other offices outside India who have narrated their such experiences as well. However we would in our whole life would not be able to travel within India as you guys can do as backpackers.
Majority of us, as mentioned by Jaya are brought in the comforts provided by our parents. The dependence on our parents till about college, certainly restricts us to grow as individuals.
Secondly the whole focus is on “SECURING” everything in life in a predefined manner. The whole of middle class population which would be more than the total population of the whole of South East Asian Region is brought up with the notion of life divided in segments:
Study for a secured future till about 22 years of age
Have a secured career by taking up a job.
Get Married by 25 in case of girls and 28-29 in case of guys
Have kids
and then start teaching your kids the same things you have been brought up with.
In the above predefined life style the capacity of taking risk, exploring something unknown is usually missing in us as a trait.
As travellers Indians may be reaching out far flung places, but the basic mindset is to have “Homely Environment” even in new places. This even results in carrying along the local chef by the tour operators.
We are very rigid to try out new things especially in food.
One can always say that things are changing and people are going out on their own but still the no.s are far and few. The percentage of such people may not be even .01% seeing the size of our population.
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Mick Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Vineet are you a girl or a boy? THIS IS OK to ask Naomi?
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that was a really fun read.
you surely are an adventuruous and brave girl backpacking in kashmir in the early 1990’s.being a white girl you would not only have been conspicuous but fairly vulnerable as well(not just in kashmir but elsewhere as well),no
doubt your folks flipped.
personally I really dont think it is a good Idea for a single european woman to backpack unchaperoned in a place like India (cant say about south america coz I have never been there)..there have been quite a few incidents in places like pushkar and various other touristy places.
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Mick Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 12:40 am
No she wouldn’t she as i did would have soon picked up on the vibe that we were untouthable cause you touh me and if i did’ny kill you the police would. sorry but it might as well be on the bill boards.
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Hey Naomi.
A well written piece giving a glimpse of India.
The backpacking culture is absent in India because we travelling was never a priority but was seen as a luxury.For example if i were to talk about my parents for them in an India 30 years ago it was about survival.It was all about how to keep your head above the water.Travelling to exotic places inside india was for the elite not to be pursued by a middle class family.Thankfully for that attitude we are where we are now.Now atleast i don’t have to think twice before oing out because i know my dad is there to foot my bills which may be a small amount or a huge amount it doesn’t matter,but my dad didn’t have that opportunity.Now Indians are discovering backpacking but it is still in infancy.
Moreover in India if someone takes a break either from studies or from job for travelling then finding a future college or a job chances come down considerably because employers as well as educational institutes find it hard to believe for travelling one can abandon the work one is doing.
Also the student loans which you mentioned..sadly isn’t easily available in india and Indians in general loathe loans.
Also to add to all other things is the places which you had visited for many of us its not exotic but daily life.So we tend to aim for better things.And for us to go to Europe for backpacking it would cost upwards of a Lakh rupees which to 90% of indians is still quite a huge amount.
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Mick Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Arindam, have you ever been on and Indian trains, luxury. You must have been poor because Indian trains post Raj seemed to exist to move the masses cheeply and they did it even though time tends to expand and dilate so all things being equal arrived more or less on time but it works in my life time there have been famines in Bengal/Bihar now look at you. You cool or what, so get on with it while the lotus eaters score points.
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arindam Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 11:06 am
well Mick I don’t know where you live and what you do and frankly I don’t care.Your writing to me is incoherent and doesnt make much sense.But whatever sense it has made to me i’ll reply.Yes I have been on trains and for that matter on all kinds of trains in India right from the luxury trains to the overcrowded local trains.The famines which you are talking about are part of history and yes India has lots of poor people here and yes there have been deaths due to hunger.But who are you to tell me to set my house in order?We are doing whatever we can do and trying to increse the efficiency with which we work.Things take time to develop and more so when you are left with nothing at the time of independentce.Now other countries are siiting up and taking notice that India has risen from the ashes and not so far in the distant future will be THE force to reckon with.
Don’t let our appearances fool you buddy.
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Mick Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Actually in there (my comment) the was a big complement to India and it’s efforts to modernise, it’s just that my English is English as it is spoken here. I’m sure the trains are now run in such a way that there are seats for all, and no overcrowding, vast queues at the stations etc. But sorry if you misunderstood me. This is something both Naomi and i sometimes feel happens, when we add a slight touch of humour to our comments once again sorry
arindam Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
I am sorry if you didn’t mean that way.A bit of humour is fine with me but i feel you could have avoided the stuff about famines .Humour is never bad .See whatever our systems are it is something we are improving .Yes we don’t have the rail services comparable to europe but you got to put things in perspective the huge population and the lack of money.And its a blog you are free to put in your comments I have no issues whatsoever because thats what blogs are meant for a steady exchange of thoughts and views
Proj Reply:
November 21st, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Well, India does not have posh looking infrastructure, agreed but half the country’s citizens are not drowning in debt like America. India is outwardly less glamorous than the west, thanks to restrained spending and consumption but from my personal understanding of economics and finance, the economic fundamentals of Indians (maybe not the republic) are on a more solid base than the average American (not sure of Europe)
Naomi Reply:
November 30th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
“Things take time to develop and more so when you are left with nothing at the time of independentce.” I do like this point”:) One often forgets and should not forget that India only obtained its independence in 1947, which makes India all of 63 years old. Hence it is a far younger country than the UK or any other European nation – and we have no idea what state the British left it in when they left and whether the Brits stole half the country’s wealth and took it back to England, and storied it inside one of London’s museum, or whether part of India’s jewels and heritage now makes up part of the Crown jewels in the UK. If true, then India has done remarkably well to get where it is now in the space of 63 years. I mean it is not as if Japan was invaded and colonised by the British, – all they had to do was to rebuild themselves after WWII.India is doing extremely well getting back on track. In 63 years time we cannnt ask why Iraq isnt as modern as the UK as we all know the reason. Same applies to Afghanistan…
Good read Naomi..Refreshes the memories of the trips I have had so far, not essentially backpacking types but a lot like it. I truely admit that the culture of backpacking is or rather was not prevalent in India back then in 1990s but things have changed tremendously. The reason it was not that popular back then was ofcourse as someone mentioned “The Xchange rates”, none xcept for the super rich would have afford to have a trip to europe or to US for that matter, parents being too protective of their children was just a part of it.
I feel its a little carelessness of Indians that more than half of them have not been to places in their own country or know little about them. Europeans and “hippies” find it an amazing experience because they dont get to see such things as cows/sadhus on streets there and hence they prefer to chose locations like these in India. we on the other hand get to see these things on mundane basis and everywhere, we feel these places being the part of India can be visited anytime of their lives and its no fantacy to visit those places and hence we (almost everyone) have fantasy to go and spend time in Switzerland and other heavinly places.
But a lot has changed, nowadays youngsters are more open to explore new places and go backpacking to the remotest of places. Travel for leisure and knowledge about their country has become more popular now, I do a lot of it and have been to most places in north as I spent most of my 20 years of life there and now I am trying to visit and explore places in south.
How far the question of not seeing cows and sadhus on streets these days is purely because of the laws prevailing. Its not allowed to any household to keep livestock at their homes (some still do it illegally) and sadhus make more money otherwise.
Keep writing about such experiences of yours, they are for sure fun to read.
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Mick Reply:
November 20th, 2009 at 12:28 am
I was a hippy still am in fact that’s why i want to spend what is about double on a month next year as I spent in 3mths but if i add the fares in this time 505 more. So i/we could do 10 days in a 5*/3* in Naomi’s case. what do you people want £2500 on the street, or in the hands of multi-nationals call this number, watch this space that girl has a big heart but she feels guilty about the raj etc. I don’t think that’s right, she as I did didn’t know what we were going to find but it was love at first sight, and we sure as **** didn’t do anything, leave anything in fact no one remembers us we left nothing, you wonderful people left everything with us, thank you.
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Naomi Reply:
November 30th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
“Sadhus make more money otherwise” Doing what exactly???Sounds intriguing. The ones I met in the 1990s , or at least the “fake ones” I met who appeared to just prey on vuknerable foreigners like me, in Paharaganj, appeared to be close to drug dealers…
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Oh Naomi I’ve got as far as I took £500 this was in the 90’s 82/3 3mths India/sri Lanka £1260 door to door, I shall read further poor girl you must have staved the above seemed about what everone you met was spending admitedly I only met 2 other English people and one Irish guy.
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Sorry Babe but what the **** where you doing somewhere along the line did you get stupid?
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Well a budding report of India as she appeared to both of us.
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So OK that’s India whats not to love about it. Perhaps a bit pf poetic license but apart from the silly bit could have walked hand in hand with me. India the timeless beauty ….. “I really don’t have words big enough to describe India”, when I heard those words words to describe some where else and thought ” You ain’t been to India” One thing Naomi doesn’t mention she was never scared. I felt so safe there. The first Asian/Indian different person I saw was wearing a turban and I didn’t know he was a Sikh and really nice this man formed my opinion now he was Indian and I am as I’m sure Naomi is happy to put up with Indian idiosyncrasies. But i think for me spending a bit of money in the real Indian economy iust mixing smiling enjoying is what gets us English through India OK the empire and all that but even Kipling had the same thing as we have and the fact that we could travel the length and breath of India and between us only buy a doggy drum. What Else can i say but she was a silly girl at one point but poetic licence, and a teller of tales.
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Naomi Reply:
November 30th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
You are angry I bought the drum, or what exactly? By the way many parts of India are still as they were then…I visited Pushkar recently and it is still full of hippies, and hippy hangouts…The menus include “special lassis” (don’t ask) – and there are all these amazingly chilled places to go..
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India has changed so much, when in 90s we had not so much traffic and we played cricket in the gallis , we did have considerable greenery than ( I talk abt Pune),well now I really feel sorry for the generation of kids, you know I do see them dodge the traffic just as we adults do, it will get harder surely for kids to be kids here. As for vacations, I guess for most this is a luxury, but we did travel across Europe when we could afford on our own..though it was not till late twenties.
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I would like to put Naomi’s travels in perspective, by the time she did it, the route etc was well established, there were/are hotels to suit all pockets etc. In the early 60’s an Irish lady rode a bicycle from Ireland to India on what was to become the overland route via Europe, Turkey, Iraq Afghanistan and down to Delhi she WAS brave the book she wrote about that journey is called “Full tilt” and is worth reading as are her other travel books. She did the same journey with her 9yr old daughter and one passage stands out in my memory. She and daughter were up the side of a mountain in the Hindu Kush on a very narrow track when said daughter asked the following question ” Mum, exactly how does a nuclear reactor work” loverly books by someone who has the same feeling for India as we do.
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@ Mick– Its really been difficult to read you comments bud. Of course No offences meant but really you jumble up the words and their meaning. At least what I could figure out on first read is Zilch. Please write like you are speaking to a child, it will help
. And please don’t feel offended.. I wud really like know what are you trying to say..
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Mick Reply:
November 21st, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Sharat
I’m sorry if it appears jumbled but I try to keep it short, I’m sure Naomi understood it. But basically a journalist is a story teller and as such away from the paper she can use words to make it more entertaining, as some one once suggested she should spice it up. That’s the same thing. I meant that by the 90’s there route around India for backpackers was well worn, and frankly having spent 3mths there in the early 80’s when we had Thatcher and the beginning of all that. I spent £1260 pounds this was from Norwich England and back if you take off the airfare I spent £900 on the 3mths. So to me it looks almost impossible 10yrs later to do what she did on £500.
In 1963 an Irish lady called Dervala Murhpy rode an old fashioned bicycle all the way from Dublin to Delhi following what was then the overland route followed by the predecessors of today’s backpackers. This of course was before it became fashionable to have civil wars other sorts of wars and the rise of radical Islam. She enjoyed this trip so much that she did others, and when her daughter was old enough she took her on the same first journey. I quoted a passage that stuck in my mind, she is a natural writer and if you would like to read an impression of your wonderful country and surprisingly your neighbours hospitality to an Irish woman wandering the Hindu Kush and other mountains.
Sorry for any confusion but I have had a funny week and haven’t quite recovered from quite a shock.
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Sharat Reply:
December 3rd, 2009 at 5:51 am
Thanks, see it was wonderful to read
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Lets put backpacking in India in perspective shall we. I shall try to write so that you all can follow this.
Backpacking became something to do in the early 60’s with the advent of Ganja in the west. After 67 it became almost a rite of passage for some. I could have gone on the first wave after I “Did” Europe in 65 but to tell the truth I didn’t feel mature enough, 10yrs later my then partner wanted us to decamp to India with a 6mth old child. I didn’t feel ready for it till the early 80’s. By then I had read travel guides, lonely Planet etc and realised that the standard circuit including the Himalayas, ladakh etc was basically made up of some places that people went simply because they were difficult to get to. I had this brought home to me in Varanasi in a hotel having a meal with an Aussie, a guy sat down at our table with betel stained teeth wearing a dhoti he was western. he got a marmite jar out of his bag that had Ladakh scratched into the lid and proceeded to tell us how you needed marmite to survive at altitude. It seemed to us that he had only gained the fact that he had been there nothing else whatsoever. I met french guys in Paharganj who had been there 9mths and done nothing but sell smack and hustle. Simply waiting a few years allowed me to avoid all of this and the illnesses caused by stupidity.
I think Naomi falls into the category of the must do it rite of passage group, and if I may say so with or without embellishment she was pretty stupid and the gloss on some of the passages is just that.
Sorry Naomi but I think you would have enjoyed India a lot more and understood things a bit better if you had waited another 10yrs not to mention the safety net she could have built.
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Hi!
I did not find anything new in the article. Read any article by an expat & you’ll find the same description of India & its streets & rail trips which is very normal for us “desis”. In fact we would like to improve on all those counts. The palpable poverty, abused animals and chaotic roads need to be addressed by the concerned govt departments. People need to inculcate better civic sense.
The Backpacking or the lack of it amongst indian students is probably due to the fact that studies are taken very seriously by most people and also the intelligentsia. We should learn to combine studies with pleasure which is now increasing being done by many indian students & institutions. Soon we might see more indian backpackers in the streets of downtown London or New York blogging about their journey la Naomi.
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Indians are partially responsible for being stereotyped in the West.we could have had changed this in the last 30 years but it didnt happen. anyways wasterners want India to be place of their fantasies thats really not an advanced country
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Naomi Reply:
November 30th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Very smart point. Even I get fed up meeting backpackers and foreigners who come here to “find” “magical India.” The reality iof India s what I experience every day – in my life of getting up and going for work. It isnt magical. it’s just normal life, with bits of stress, not magic.
They (the annoying foreigners seeking magic) come here for a two week holiday and spend all their time doing yoga, learning the sitar, browsing stalls at Chor Bazaar, shopping for saris, or at he Osho ashram and stuff and think that that experience is India and all Indians live like that doing that.
I met this hippy living in Rishikesh once (when he was in Mumbai) and he was telling me how he “loves the chaos on the roads in India as that was the beauty of India.” I swear he had smoked too much dope. There is no beauty in the chaos. The chaos is dangerous and risky and needs to be sorted. These types of foreigners do my head in. Likewise I took an auto rickshaw across crowded polluted Mumbai to meet an expat for lunch and he sent me a text as I was en route saying : “Enjoy the beautiful chaos of Mumbai as you travel in your rickshaw” – and he wasn’t being sarcastic,m he MEANT it. He of course had travelled in an A/C car with his driver from his five star hotel to meet me. These people annoy me., . They have no idea what life is like for the masses here. Then they go on about the beauty of the chaos from their five star hotel rooms , after swimming in the five star pool and having a spa. There are many things that are beautiful about India but the chaos is NOT one of them. People who speak like this are clearly here to stay at an ashram or on some short-term trip, or living a five star existence gazing at Indir from their 15th floor room. My expat friend who lives in Bandra was dating a girl wo kept banging on about magical India and in the end he dumped her as it irritated him as well. We both live here, work here, pay taxes,and travel in autos and do not find it “magical.” Yes, we might find it magical istening to Taufiq Qureshi at the Blue Frog or we might find the Himalayas magical; or dinner at Olive magical, or the sunset on Bandstand magical, BUT Not taking an auto rickshaw anywhere. Nor is the chaos, pollution or traffic magical. Ever.
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Naomi Reply:
November 30th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
What I was trying to say is that you are correct in saying that some foreigners like to continue to think of India as magical and spiritual etc and stereotype it in that way “as a place of fantasies” and not “as an advanced country.”..These people exist and they annoy me as well. Usually their experience of India is highly limited. The fact the British media does inadequate reporting on the real state of India is also to blame. I have noticed that the modernity of India is rarely reported in the British press, instead it prefers to focus on earthquakes and droughts. This is terrible and always shocks me when I go back there…
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