India Review - Otherworldly Vacation

For the past few years I have really wanted to go to India, but nobody would go with me.  It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.  I got impatient, and I wanted to go before important parts of my body became unreliable.  My friends often use Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) because they offer attractive singles rates, and they limit their groups to 16 travelers.  So I made the commitment for one of the OAT 2009 October departures.   My own personal grapevine was working, because soon afterward my friend from Maryland, Barbara, asked if she could be my roommate.   It’s better to travel to exotic places with a trusted friend.
 
India is a big piece of real estate.  OAT offers several different itineraries in India, with extension trips to Bhutan.  The trip I selected focused on northern India, because that’s the location of The-Mother-of-All-Bucket-List destinations, the Taj Mahal. 
 
I’m writing a few months after my return and am now operating from impressionistic memories of an experience that I can only describe as otherworldly.  It was times more than I was expecting, but it wasn't an easy trip.  
 
India travel requires some preparation. There’s a visa to get, as well as supplies to protect from bugs and dust.  I also went to my primary care physician carrying a print-out of the Center for Disease Control webpage that warns of world epidemics and recommend immunizations.  I am a health care minimalist, and expected my robust constitution to trump all the CDCs recommendations.  Turns out I didn’t hold the trump card. My PCP read every word from the CDC and promptly gave me two shots in one arm and a third in the other, plus prophylactic malaria pills to be taken over the course of 6 weeks.  She also gave me antibiotics to have on hand in the case of a hostile takeover of my GI tract and 20 Ambien tablets to help me deal with a stubborn circadian calendar.  I never needed the former, but the latter proved to be invaluable, even for the jet lag that lingered I got home.
 
Next time I go to the other side of the world I’ll take a few minutes in advance to read my digital camera directions or take a one-night course at the community college.  I generally don’t like electronics much, but threw my basic digital camera into my backpack with a large pack of AA batteries. (I still needed to buy more in India).   I have included some of my first efforts with my pixel machine.  My comrades were better prepared and equipped.  However, my lack of concern with photographic gear left me freer to imprint images in my mind.  

India is a long ways away.  I left Chicago at 3 in the afternoon on a Sunday and arrived in New Delhi on Monday just before midnight.  That’s a lot of time sitting in 10 cubic feet of assigned space and breathing airplane air.  The tourist class section was packed with people from every continent, and babies crying in many languages.  Next time I will pay for an upgrade! In my estimation, the plane travel is the only real low point we had to during the entire 17 day trip.
 
As advertised, there were 16 travelers in my OAT group.  This included a mother and adult daughter team, two retired dentists and their wives, a 70-something German-American couple, a quirky 80-something engineer widower, an 70-something PhD economist single fella, a few 50-something single women, and some girlfriends like Barbara and me.  Travelers on this type of trip really come to learn.  They might be able to afford to sit with toddy by the pool of a 5-star hotel, but they aren’t interested in doing that.  These are experienced world travelers that have the right equipment, they’re hardy, and they know how to get along with one another.

Our OAT teacher/leader was a man about 30 years of age who stayed with us for 16 days pretty well day and night and taught us everything he could about India.  He was an MBA who chose tourism as his career, even though it took him away from his wife and daughter for many weeks of the year.  Sameer showed us the good, the bad and the ugly of India.  He was always in good humor, and never stopped teaching us. Clearly he loves his country. His lessons included Indian culture, religions, moral codes, industry, agriculture, family life (including arranged marriages), castes, government corruption, history, public health, the arts, women's movement, education, etc.  

We spent several days in some of India’s biggest cities: Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, and Varanasi.  We also spent several days in villages, farm country, and national parks.
 
We arrived in Delhi where we recovered from the plane ride and got our bearings.  Delhi has many wonderful religious and historic sites to see such as Gandhi’s tomb. There were city sights I could never have imagined that we saw from a bicycle rickshaw. The big cities have Western-style malls where women wore jeans, shopped at Benetton and The Gap, and paid the same prices we do in Chicago.  Outside of the walls of those malls, almost all the other women wore neon-bright, sequined saris.  The vast majority of people lives below the poverty level and shop at street vendors. Street vendors included dentists, barbers, and greengrocers. Even though there is poverty, starvation was not evident, and the cultural values keep violent crimes rare. 
 
In cities and villages, bicycle rickshaws, trucks, camel carts, motorbikes carrying up to 4 passengers, and 3-wheeled taxis compete for space with freely roaming cows, dogs, and pigs. We played hop scotch around many cow pies. Cows, though not really considered sacred, are revered for giving mankind milk.  Each goes home each night to her owner to be milked. Pigs are welcome as feral street cleaners.  For the first time in my life I couldn’t read most of road signs and the maps.  Sameer even cautioned us not to cross the busy streets, since India has its own rules of the road. “Cross walks”, he said, “were strictly for decoration.”  We were really dependent on Sameer, even to cross the streets.
 
Between cities, we spent a lot of time in transit, watching in comfort as the country passed by.  For several days we were passengers in a tour bus, and each of us had plenty of room to stretch out. Sameer taught almost continuously from his front seat, pointing out anything of interest. Buses seem to travel at a maximum speed of 40 mph on the best roads.  We saw public intercity passenger buses filled to the max, with the overflow riders sitting on the roof.  With various cattle traveling on the same road, seriously flawed pavement, and safety hazards we don’t see in the USA, we came upon a few grizzly accidents.  The roadway system was an unforgettable experience in its own right. We had a dedicated bus driver who had a helper who hopped off the bus from time to time to hold up a river of pedestrian traffic or clear cattle from the road. The helper bought us bananas at roadside produce stands, and guided the bus through tight spots.  He also made sure we had plenty of bottled water each day.  Sameer often asked the driver to stop the bus when he spied a teaching opportunity.  For example, we stopped at a gypsy village where the men were snake charmers, and at a primary school attended by farm children.   
 
Agra is the home of the Taj Mahal.  Yes, it is beautiful, and India guards it as the national treasure it is.  Vehicles must burn cleaner fuel in Agra to help keep the white marble clean. The Taj Mahal is a tomb flanked by twin mosques, a reminder that the country, now so completely dominated by Hindus, has a more diverse history.
 
The Taj Mahal is magnificent, but experiencing the day-to-day life in India is more interesting.  In our comfortable hotels I enjoyed watching TV, even if I couldn’t understand the words.  I saw soap operas with many evil mothers-in-law, apparently a common theme in a country where arranged marriages are common, and young women’s fathers pay dowries to a bride’s new family.   I saw commercials for products that illustrated modern cultural values, such as “Fair and Handsome”, the skin lightening cream for men, and “Emergency 72”, a morning after pill. 
 
OAT selected a 4-hour first class train ride for us when we left Agra, probably more for the experience than the transportation efficiency. It was at the Agra train station that the word “otherworldly” first came to me.  Surrounding the train station were neighborhoods constructed of make-shift materials where thousands lived without running water or other domestic comforts.

On entering the station we passed by trinket hawkers and many beggars, including cute children, many of whom probably lived in the nooks and crannies of the station.  People with profound physical handicaps were moving skillfully through the station and across the tracks on their hands.  The second class trains we saw come and go were filled to capacity.      
 
The OAT travelers each had our own leatherette seats on a first class train.  However, the windows were so covered with road dirt that we did not see much from the small windows.  After the 4-hour train ride we were once again transported by bus for several days through countryside and villages.  We stayed at several comfortable hotels.  In addition, OAT has established what they call a campground, although a luxurious one, in an area where hotels are not available. We saw working farms, rode on the camels, and visited hotels that were the converted palaces of maharajas that lived hundreds of years ago.  
 
A few words about the food and drink on our trip. I love going to restaurants in Indiatown on Devon St.  I love hot curries and naan.  OAT took us to very nice restaurants and offered a wide variety of choices.  However, there’s no beef or pork served in India, even at the many McDonalds we saw.  We were offered some chicken, lamb, and fish. Safe snacks included bananas, but the potato and vegetable chips were 4-star hot. Within a few days, our group members began to eat eggs enthusiastically in the morning to get protein, and hot curries had lost some of their appeal.  At one point one of our group members broke out her stash of peanut M&Ms and passed them around.  They never tasted so good! All this being said, there was not a single incident of GI distress among us, thanks to hand sanitizer and bottled water.  Wine was uneven in quality and heavily taxed, making it expensive, but the Indian beer was tasty and reasonably priced.  Note to future India travelers: bring plenty of trail mix and M&Ms and leave your taste for wine at home.
 
Our final destination was the sacred city of Varanasi, on the Ganges River.  In Varanasi, the northwest river bank is actually miles of steps, or ghats, that lead up to houses, apartments, and hundreds of Hindu temples.  The ghats are always busy with people coming to and going from the sacred river.  OAT took us by boat on the Ganges at night to see the traditional Hindu funeral pyres that burn 12/7, and in the morning to see a sort of Mother’s Day bathing ceremony.  Women slept on the steps all night so that they could immerse themselves in the Ganges at sunrise to bring blessings on the family.

Women in the villages and countryside are less visible than in the big cities.  I didn’t see women driving motorbikes; they were passengers behind their husbands. They weren’t in cafes.  They weren’t bathing at the public water spigots, as men were.  However, they did walk along roads and worksites carrying loads on their heads, such as construction materials or huge loads of sticks. They do much of the manual field work on farms.   The schools we saw in the countryside have a disproportionately low percentage of girls. Many village women kept their faces partially or completely veiled. There was a huge difference in the appearance and behavior of women we saw in the Western malls in the city, and the country women.  Gandhi would want Indian women to keep pushing ahead.
 
I have not mentioned the ubiquitous evidence of Hinduism.  Surrealistic pictures of the god characters are everywhere.  Though temple worship is not required and worship services lead by clergy are not routine, the Hindu temples are busy places.  The Baghavad Gita was in the hotel drawer right next to the Gideon’s Bible. There are many sign posted by yogis who are recruiting for disciples.
 
Since the journey home from the east side of India was even longer than the initial flight, I was certainly glad to arrive in Chicago safe and sound. Yes, the jet lag continued for a few days.  But anyone who has ever traveled to a place and loved it knows the feeling of loss when you can’t have it anymore.  If you want to experience the word “otherworldly”, you will find it in India.

Photos by Peggy Reineking 
 

Published on Jan 03, 2010