India impressions Feb2024

India impressions Feb2024
A detailed description of my trip to India 5-27feb2024 Mumbai to New Delhi is beyond the scope of my blog, but here some impressions in alphabetic order. 

Alcohol and cigarettes
It seems alcohol is only sold in restaurants and special stores “beer and wine shop”. The few we visited were all busy. They must be thirsty!

Smoking rates in India are similar to elsewhere.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/smoking-rates-by-country
However, there is a nationwide ban of smoking in public places, which is enforced. I don't recall seeing or smelling any smoker in my three weeks in India.

Whereas in China, I have the impression that with great effort shopping malls and trains were made smoke-free, but everywhere else it's still light up for everyone. Many times I had the displeasure of being near a smoker, or in an area where smoking is frequent. That includes hallways in hotels and even hotel rooms (where I can smell smoke when I enter, but then get used to it).

Animals
Street cats in Mumbai and dogs in New Delhi looked healthy and many cats tame. Many cats and dogs had the tips of their ear clipped, probably to mark them as neutered. In this regard, what I saw, India is ahead of other countries in treating street cats and dogs. Some goats as livestock. Some camels and elephants for tourism purposes. A self-inflicted pigeon scourge, by feeding.

A lot of holy cows, but they have to scavenge for food in the garbage. Holy cow, in literal sense, doesn't mean the cow leads a good life. Sometimes they get fed, but mostly they scavenge in the garbage. I saw cows chewing on cardboard and plywood! Humans cannot process the cellulose in paper or wood, but cows can and get nutritional value out of paper or cardboard or plywood.

Economics with cows: https://broadleafpartners.com/2013/03/12/world-economy-explained-with-two-cows/

Bureaucracy
Let's say there is a palace with two museums on the palace grounds. You buy your ticket at the cashier, have it checked/clipped/scanned a meter further, and twice again at the two museum. Ferry to an island, return ticket, of course checked on the return trip as well. In hotels large books with guest's details, I measured one: pages 42 cm tall and 33 cm wide, i.e. open it's 66 cm wide. I.a. columns for place where visa was issued and validity of visa.

After purchasing a SIM card, I got a call from mobile phone operator for confirmation. I missed this call because I was out in town and had to return to the same shop to arrange a new confirmation call. If my friend wants to keep his SIM card and phone number for upcoming trips, he has to go to a shop and show his visa to prove his visa covers the validity duration of his SIM card.

Food
Throughout good and cheap food. For price and quality, India can compete with Thailand and Vietnam. Most food is vegetarian, but of such a variety, I didn't even notice there is no meat. We had one chicken dish on purpose, other than that no meat in three weeks. Good sweets, Mukhwas and tea as well. Cheapest grapes ever, various kinds, all seedless, for 100 INR/kg at the market. Only one kind of bananas (the same as we have in Germany). Good Italian, burgers and sandwiches as well.

A general problem with menus in Indian restaurants is that food names are transliterated to English. Good if you know what it means, but of little use to everyone else. Rarely do you have a menu that has English descriptions of the ingredients and way of preparation. You could argue that I know the names of various Italian dishes because I eat Italian regularly. General note: Reading a menu should be first in learning a language.

Garbage
There is no sugarcoating: it is dirty in India! They keep the world cultural heritage sites clean, but elsewhere full of garbage and shit (cowshit, dogshit, pigeonshit, used diapers). This is a typical street scene, a goat rummages for food in garbage.

Hotels
The worst value for money in all my travels in Asia. First nights in Mumbai a hotel room that was as small and similar standard and cost as much as in Hong Kong (Chungking Mansion). After that it got better, but to get a similar standard as elsewhere you would have to pay three times the price. Problems with hot water, and if hot water is difficult, what about aircon? We were traveling in spring time, can do without hot water or aircon, but I wouldn't want to go in winter or summer.

Rooms often locked with a padlock. With keyhole on the side, that means you have to get the padlock in the right orientation. And then you have to turn the key to lock. Whereas German padlocks have the keyhole on the bottom, and lock when you close the shackle.

Indochina
I used to write of my travels in SEAsia (South-East Asia), and thought I would extend that to Indochina (every place between India and China, including India and China, I thought wrongly), but now I learn that this area (Myanmar, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, Vietnam) is called Indochina. So my travels are Indochina, India and China? Or countries where Buddhism, Hinduism or Atheism / Chinese Folk Religions are the main religions? Philippines would be in my prey scheme in as well, and is on my list of places to go. How would one call this area: India, China, Philippines and every place in between?

Infrastructure
Previous low-point in infrastructure was Cambodia. Now I would give that title to India. Roads and sidewalks in towns are a bit worse than in Cambodia, out of town a bit better than in Cambodia. More electricity cuts than in Cambodia. Mobile data and WiFi worse than in Cambodia. Few convenience stores, supermarkets, malls.

Language
Many Indians speak good English, and with taxi drivers or at market can get along in English as well. Level of English better than elsewhere.

Money
1 EUR = 89 INR (Indian Rupee), 1 GBP = 105 INR, 1 USD = 83 INR, 1 THB = 2.30 INR. ATMs dispense a max of 10,000 INR at a fee of 200 INR. That's 2% loss for ATM fee! Money can be changed at banks (bureaucratic and slow process) or money changers (rarely exchange rates posted, usually have to ask, but good exchange rates). The ATM dispenses 500 INR notes, and you have to do “money management” to spend those at places where you can expect to get change, so you can pay exact amount at places where getting change is difficult. Both banknotes and coins in circulation, but you can do most transactions with banknotes. From a money point of view (ATM low limit, difficulties with change) the worst. You are not allowed to take INR out of the country, however getting INR in Bangkok and taking my leftover out was not a problem.

Noise
A lot of honking on the roads, in addition to combustion engine noise. Compared to India, traffic in Thailand is quiet! And what a delight China is in comparison, with all (?) motorbikes electric and most cars electric. Hotels thin walls and windows, can hear what's going on in hallway and on road.

People
People everywhere! Touristy sites not just locals, foreigners as well. The usual scams and beggars. Everyone wants to sell you goods or services. I met beggars, after I shake my head or say "no", they would tip me with their finger to get my attention once more. That would be inconceivable elsewhere!

Railway
The widest railway tracks in the world at 1676 mm. Trains run much smoother than in Thailand 1000 mm. I enjoyed all our train rides (second class window). Trains book out, my friend booked all our tickets months in advance. Trains are wider (picture, 3+3 seats), higher and longer than elsewhere. In satellite image, there are trains 450 m long, platforms 650 m, and another platform shifted, ends are 900 m apart.

Sightseeing
World-class forts, palaces, temples and other attractions. In English there is just “castle”, but in German we distinguish “Schloss” (a castle for representative purpose) and “Burg” (a castle for military purpose). We did the traditional North-Western tour: Mumbai, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Pushkar, Jaipur, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, New Delhi.

Smell
Some friends have the misconception that India or Indians smell. That was not my experience. In crowds no body odor smell. No tobacco smell. Despite all the garbage, shit, half-open sewers no smell except when near public lavatories.

Travel with friends
Most of my trips I go alone. Some trips I go with friends and I do the planning and organization. This trip is an exception, a friend from Germany did all the planning and organization and I tagged along. From his previous trips I know we have a large overlap in interest and similar ideas about hotels and food. A test run in Brünn/Brno last year went well, and this trip went well too.

You don't really know someone until you travel with them. Travel brings out the worst in people. In this case, all went fine. But I have friends with who it's difficult to travel.

I estimate my friend spent 2 hour of preparation per day of traveling, that's 40 hours or a week of work. This time would have been lost for me, as I don't intend to go to India again, but my friend does and can use this experience to make future preparations faster. The downside for me is that I don't know where exactly I have been, have to check in my pictures, notes, on map.

Alone I would have gone to a few mountains for hiking. But alone I would probably never have made it to India.

Visa
Single entry tourist visa for 25 USD. However, as in entry “Bureaucracy” it's not easy to get to that information and to get the visa. Online visa took me one hour to practice, and then come back with the missing information and spend another hour to get through with visa application. The most difficult visa application process I have encountered. Countries I have visited in the last 10 (!!!) years.

Summary
A friend who used to live in India says: If you can make it there (India), you can make it everywhere. My loyal reader vinapu says, if you can travel only one country, go to India. I disagree.

You could classify people by time they survive in India. Two friends reject the idea of traveling to India based on what they read on the internet. One friend cut his trip short after a few days and will never return. Two friends occasionally go to India for a few days. Two friends used to live in India. I survived the whole three weeks, but if the trip hadn't been planned and if I hadn't had the return flight, I would have cut it short.

For me, the negatives (hotels, garbage, noise, too many people) outweigh the positives (food, railway, sightseeing), or rather you can get the good elsewhere without the bad. No further trips to India planned for the future.

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