dpb

bizzare program ( not the place ) the concept , still better than top gear I guess

Peedee

iTrader: (4)

I personally haven't been there, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like an absolute ****hole on the most part.

Turbohot

Place can also be quite bizarre to a lot of peeps.

My thoughts exactly. I was there again in 2014. Bleddy nightmare of a place to move about! I like all the palaces and monuments etc. In Jaipur but on the name of road traffic and general sense of organisation, it's just chaos! In fact, all of India is chaotic. But as Carl Jung says, “In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order” and that becomes visible to some. Jaipur is still known as the Pink City. There's nothing pink about it in the literal sense.

dpb

Well theres more people than anywhere else so that's probably why its crowded ?

id like do road trip across india one day , probably never get round to it though

Turbohot

Yes, that's one reason. Other than that, they like animals and let them wander all over on the roads. That could do your head in. Imagine a bull chasing you on a busy road or a group of monkeys moidering you for your British pop corns. Imagine when you have to swirve around a cow relaxing in the middle of the road. Imagine little beggar children coming to you for your one rupee in your front pocket. Not great all that, but you may like other things. You may develop affection for all the bulls, cows, monkeys and beggar kids, who knows. It's not all about the sheer simplicity. It's about how people can embrace simplicity as a survival mechanism in such complexity.

By the way, roads aren't well-maintained there at all, so I'm not sure if you'd enjoy the road trip across the Indiland. Too many pot holes. My brother in-law drove me mad with his driving over some quite deep pot holes there. I thought he was doing it deliberately, just to p1$$ me off, but he wasn't, bless him.

dpb

Had all the same in Zim , even dead donkey in middle the road, of course they don't worship cows and the baboons are chased away.

Far less people though !.

Children are sent to collect dollar off the white guy now

dpb

https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgu...BJoQMwhmKEIwQg





http://api.ning.com/files/NMfnGPN6nN...s2_260x173.jpg

Turbohot

Then you should do that India road trip one day. Go and see it for yourself that despite the similarities you spot how India differs from Zimbabwe. It's their 67th Republic Day today; the day they adopted their own independent constitution in 1950, after the departure of the Raj in 1947.

Turbohot

Where's that from? I can see it's from Twitter but what country?

Turbohot

LOL

dpb

Ah yes , just been reading up on it

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

Had that at one of the hill towns (forget which one) I had to throw my sons pop corn to them, troop of maybe 50 quite scary tbh, one of them spots the popcorn then they start stalking you, as you go along more and more join in, some with rather large teeth getting quite frenzied, I thought it better to just give it to them (chicken) my son wasn't impressed few metres later some old boy said to me, good decision. I get the feeling the monkeys are quite well rehearsed at intimidating unsuspecting tourists, been to some very dodgy places in my time with no bother and end up being mugged by monkeys in India.

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

I'd avoid the roads as much as possible really if I were you, especially long trips from city to city and at night, had some very scary moments and my wife and son were involved in an accident out there, no harm to them but the car they were in ended up running over a biker, and then people tried to hold them to ransom and many will "charge" you to cross barricades they make in some of the more out of the way places, in the name of "road tax", I've also had many close calls out there and seen the aftermath of their madness, they're just not right in the head when it comes to driving.

I'd do as much as possible via train it's way nicer and you still get to see the country but in a much nicer and safer environment, I can recommend toy train (narrow gauge) up in the mountains where the brits used to spend the summer back in the day, watch out for monkeys and popcorn though and take an umbrella.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

A friends wife and daughter did a 3 week train trip across India visiting all the well known sites, cities and temples. To put it politely they said they would never ever go back to India. Cows and toilets are treated better than the women!!

dpb

You havnt properly visited a country until you've experienced a village toilet

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

The toilets on the trains can be a bit nasty after an all-nighter on the business end of a few hundred curries.

I think you need to be a pretty hardy traveller to even contemplate going to somewhere like India.

Mrs was a tour guide out there for many years and said it was the 25 to 35yr old wanabees that were the worst to deal with, never experienced any real hardship or un sanitary environment and just never even thought about what it might actually be like out there.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

There us no reason a country like India cannot provide decent sanitation. Just shows how backwards their civilization is when majority of population ****/**** in the street

Turbohot

What were they expecting? Taj Mahal for a toilet? Didn't they do any research before deciding to go there? Their own fault for being ignorant.




I agree, but if they decide to remain uncivilised with their $h1tty toilets and maltreating their women, they're doing it on their own land, not yours. No one forces you to go there and use their toilets. I agree that it doesn't affect your human right to slate them from where you're sitting.

Turbohot

Toilets generally are truly disgusting there, no doubt. You mention about the roads being very bad there, which is 100% true. I also had some very close shaves to death there. Once my luxury coach (Believe it or not, they do have them in India; with chiled AC and clean toilets etc.) collided with a lorry and our coach driver died. Another one was when me, Mister and my older kid were on the way to Jaipur and at about 3:00am, our luxury coach was crossed by a motorbike with 1 adult and 3 kids. Their bike was crushed and they died on the spot in front of our eyes. It was truly traumatic for us! Roads are very dangerous there. More so for a unexposed Westerners to the way of life of that sort. The locals live on the edge, but why should you. You're better off doing a train or a plane journey and come back home to Britain in one piece.

Mind you, the last local plane I was in was so shoddY that I kept looking at the door, in case it flung open during the flight! No concept of H&S there. I recently read that some airport woker at Mumbai airport got sucked in by the plane propeller and died! Christ!

dpb

It's bad tyres potholes, single track highways and eagerness to make cash in Zim , horrible road safety record
The police holds up all the ET's and coaches like mad , less so private cars
You'd hope they checking vehicle maintenance whilst in fact it's just bribe money because theyre salaries are low / missing.

Apparently taxis stops outside harare the police are deliberately smashing screens with those collapsible trunchons when there's no "cooperating" , which means next policeman Inline can do them as well !

Peedee

iTrader: (4)

Remind me never to get into any form of transport with you lol

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

I've been there a few times now and the place holds no surprises for me, though I do sometimes despair at the inequality, the people I hang with are pretty well off so I'm spared the worst of it re travel arrangements and either stay in some pretty nice houses or hotels/ former palaces of the raj (on the mogul highlights tour) my friends out there own their own tour companies amongst other things, so all the other people I meet are generally eager to please.

Despite all it's failings I think India is a fantastic country and there's nowhere on earth like it, Egypt comes a close second for heritage but the shear size and diversity to be found in India makes it the place to go if you're a serious traveller.

I love the place and would happily live there if I was a millionaire.

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

You should try Jamaica.

Turbohot

Well India might prove to be a piece of cake for you, then.

Let me tell you a story that my daughter told me when she was in India with a Western mate of hers. My brother in-law drove them from Jaipur to his place about 30 miles out in a serene village. He's not some village boy, he's a New Yorker with Delhi heritage, living in his 5* farm house with my sis and a ferocious dog, with acres of land forthe dog to loiter about. Anyway, that's really irrelevant because the interesting bit follows. While this BIL was doing his 40mph on a very busy unruly highway on that way back trip, he gently got bumped by a wreck of a van, which cracked his motor's bumper. That van took him over, so with my kid and her mate in the back of his motor, he chased that van like a revengeful hero on a mission at his 40mph and cornered its poor driver. Then he moidered him for good two hours to pay for the damage. After ample verbal with that van man and him not budging at all, my BIL rang the Jaipur mighty police! My kid and her mate were like and at all that and felt like saying to him- "It's not NY, you silly man of an uncle!" In next hour, about eight khaki clad coppers with an AK47 each turned up in a police jeep. They mediated and got that van man to pay out the dosh to my BIL. Once the van man had gone, and my BIL was about to drive off as well with his smug face at his glorious win , the police head came up to his car window and pulled his palm out, saying- "Now where's our cut? Chop, chop!" My kid and Co. were like at that! Needless to say that BIL saw his bum for parting with nearly all that money to Jaipur police but my kid and Co. got to watch a very entertaining Indian drama.

That's India for you.

Turbohot

Having born and brought up there and now visiting it when I can, I'm brutally critical to its shortcomings and honestly appreciative of its positives. I choose to move about among the pretentious rich, the middle and the poor there, and the best people I find are the middle and the poor ones. I'm not talking about the beggars, I'm talking about the hard core farmers and hand-to-mouth workers. Despite their poverty, their hearts are as big as entire India, their pride is taller than Qutub Minar, their hospitality in beyond words and their humility is so very humbling! I simply love them.

Beggars are just in a mindset that even their begging is a job.

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

Totally agree with your sentiments.
First time I was there I had a rickshaw driver that was great for about 10days, cheap, never tried anything on always waited for me etc, etc (mostly because he was my wifes driver and organiser of rickshaws for her trips for her groups for a few years) one day his rickshaw wouldn't start, so after some deliberation it was discovered that it needed a new spark plug, which was going to wipe out his earnings for the week, (not his rickshaw he was just the driver) needless to say I bought him the spark plug, after that he was insistant that I come to his place for dinner and to meet his family, 5 of them living in a place the size of your average garage in the uk (as i'm sure you know he was doing pretty good) so with his wife in her best sari and all her wedding dowry jewelry on cooking chapaties outside we were inside with mice all over the place (he's doing real good because even the mice like it there) he has one sick child and his other job is church groundsman / security hence the garage sized one room apartment, which I think was a garage once upon a time, how happy he was and what an honour it was for him just to have us there.

People on this side of the world have no idea just how lucky they are, just for being born in the UK.

I'll never forget him.

Turbohot

Ditch, I lost my iPhone5 three times in India at some very crowded shops. Every of those times, the poor shopkeeper ran after me to give it to me. Yes, they were poor arts n' crafts shops with some gorgeous merchandise, but the sellers were still hand-to-mouth. They still didn't want my phone. Saying that, they do prefer Androids there.

About people here not knowing how lucky they are, I believe that a lot of times, happiness is in being happy with what you have. People here are more for the glass half empty. No wonder some of them feel so unhappy and empty and never satisfied! Also, the collective nature of the society and the shared belief in the Almighty also keep people going there.

On monkeys, my younger nearly got kidnapped by one through the train window when she was about 2. There were lot of tears and hoo haa from her, then. Now the potential she-Mougli as an adult is ok with them. She was telling me that one hotel she stayed in had a metal pot full of little pebbles and a catapult supplied on the roof as a weapon, in order to deter moidering monkeys. The command was just to aim at them to scare them, but not really hit them with one. She was well against that practice. To her, either don't go on the roof or go up with some British pop corns for the monkeys. Make them happy, basically.

dpb

apple isn't making way in Africa as far as I could make out - too pricey in every way ( not thatll worry them )

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

ooooooh you just hit on another one of my collecting fettishes, trinkets from around the world got loads of, for want of a better word, tat from india the amount of time I've spent in those little shops you mention some of it quality most of it crap but I love bartering with the locals and then paying way over the odds although that said one woman did ask me if I was a jew

Turbohot

LOL.

I have tonnes of ornaments from around the world from my travels. Nothing tat, all intricate and stable. I'm sick to death of the Indian handicraft (although I'm a fan of the top quality artistry behind them) and my favourite ones are African old stuff I have, although not as intricate as the Indian ornaments. I have some awesome African tribal masks.

On your rickshaw wallah's experience, you'd never get hospitality like that here. If you buy a spark plug for some taxi man here, maximum he'd do is that he'd promise to buy you a pint sometimes! But when you clock him in the pub, he'll either ignore you or say- "Hi mate, do I know you??" Or "Cheers for that spark plug mate, I owe you one " and that's it!

In UK weddings, they call you to make them feel special on their special occasion but expect you to take a gift as a rule, of their choice. You go out, everyone goes either Dutch or keeps it all calculated with 'turns'. Most people like to live behind closed doors and don't trust one another. Despite the dirty toilets and all the chaos, human-to-human bond is stronger in India.