Something different

Goodmorning, afternoon or evening everybody,

At the moment we are sitting in a local bus form Varanasi to Nepal. We, a German couple from Frankfurt Rutger and I. If I look around I only see peole sitting from small villages of the country side and I feel writing about India. I tell you later something about our stay in Varanasi.

What I want to tell you is just about the way people are living in India. Everything you here back home is true, the difference with home can’t be greater. I’ve never been in a country with such big differences. Everything you hear is true the cities are overcrowded, it stinks everywhere, povertie is all around and it looks like you can trust nobody….. But there is much more to see and if you’re willing to listen to the people and you go away from the tourist path you will see that besides the big differences even the poor can enjoy there live here.

You can compare India with Europe about a couple of hundred years ago, more or less there are still different levels in the society. You start as a man who will push a car and you try to work your way up to a bike riksja and if you are very lucky you will be able to rent a motor riksja for 125 rupee a day to make a living. Some of them really enjoy it to drive the tourists around and then you don’t mind paying them a bit extra for there work. Of course some are there just to earn as much as they can and then you try to bargain the price as far as you can.

A small lesson of bargaining ;-)what I really like to do, it’s like a game. Here we go; If they say a price, for example 150 rupee per person you will say 40 for everybody. Then they will say 150 for everybody and you just make fun of them, you will say that he knows it’s not a good price and you start walking away. He will give you a new price, lets say 80 rupee. Than you change your price and say it’s your last best price, you say 50 rupee, he wil say no and you start walking away without turning your head. He will say a new price and still you say no. After that he starts his riksja and follows you and will say okay to your price of 50 rupee. But this is just the price for the ride. You know 50 rupee is only 0,90 euro cent so you can say to him that if his service is good you will pay him some extra. Some really try to their best to give a gpod service others can’t be bothered by it.

So far I didn’t mention the women in India and that is true, the women are nothing in India. They just have to listen to the men and when you walk around the change you will see a group of women walking is very small, even a group of young women. But it’s changing, in the metro in India for example there a seats reserved for the women and at some places ther are split cues for men and women.

I think India will need a long time to come where Europe is now but they will do it faster than Europe. The moment India will invent a garbage can and they can change the mentallity of people of throwing garbage in a bin instead of on the street and they start going to a toilet instead doing it just someweher on the street the first steps will be made. I think, we tourist can help them with that by just talking with them and beeing an example, and not only in the cities but outside the cities as well. They look up at the life style of the western people, but India has so much to offer that they must look around before looking over the boarder.

Last night Rutger and I went to a gath ( try to explain that in my story about Varanasi) and we met a few young guys, between the age of 20 and 22, and started talking about our lives but as wel about there’s and how they think about India and women. It was very nice and fun, maybe they let it sound better for us then the realllity is but still we could talk with them about women and what there plans where. They were surprised that we weren’t married because in India you must have a girlfriend when you are 22 and be married with your 25. One of the guys told us that he didn’t like women and we could openly discuss that.

The time that Rutger and I were staying outside of the cities really showed us that it’s not all about earning money but that they are really interested as well. We could talk about a lot of things with them.

So as you can read India is still far away to be a very inviting country to go for a lot of people and they still need a long way to change there way of thinking. The moment they know everybody is the same ( and sometimes the Hindi say it’s like that) and they will treat women, childeren, poor and rich as equals I think this country will be a a great place to visit for everybody.

Greets,
Tom

Ps At the moment we are in Pokhara, Nepal the scenery is amazing and the people are very friendly.