Good morning! (–> Text übersetzen in Deutsch)
started in Jordan, after almost 2 months of driving through Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, we arrived in the next major country that we wanted to visit: India!
Honestly that was a huge effort to arrive here. That was hard 5.000 Km of driving :-0 But we made it! Our expectations about India became diverse during the weeks before arriving in that exotic country of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Curry, Chai, a lot of traffic, poverty, garbage problems etc. We talked to a lot of other travellers who often warned us because ‘so many people, so awful traffic and a country full of very (very!) curious people’ who are all willing to find out what (the hell) a traveller from Europe wants to find in India. So, we were expecting a very vital passage of our world trip, still being very enthusiastic about finally seeing India.
And what did we find out since now? As so often: expectations and judgement about a country or its people a very (very!) subjective. Of course, all the time people are coming to the truck asking, ‘where are you from!?’ or ‘how do you like India!?’ Usually, it does not take even 5 minutes until the first Indian stands at the truck, sometimes only watching, only investigating what that big, strange vehicle is doing there. And when there is one Indian it only takes minutes, and the crowd grew to ten or twenty fellows. It is difficult not to be alone in India. The question is: how do you get the privacy that every person needs? How does a person from Europe can stand this!? Since we were a kind of prepared towards the very curious and non-shy Indians we quickly found our way of saying ‘sorry, we are busy right now’ or ‘thank you, now I need a rest’. And it worked nicely! We found a good way of communication with the locals. We were having nice conversations but also pointed out (in a friendly, respectful but clear way) when it’s enough. A gentle ‘no, that’s it for the moment, …please leave now’ works well, and everybody is happy. Handling that kind of situation is another big learning from our world trip. In addition, we must say that it is a very good thing to travel in a big truck because you just can close the door and shut the blinds, …then you are invisible and usually nobody bothers you.
Our trip started in Amritsar, in the north-north-west of India, arriving from Pakistan. New Delhi and the region of Rajasthan (Jaipur, Udaipur, Pushkar) where the first areas where we travelled. Unfortunately, in February Heike had to fly back to Germany/ Kassel for a while to take care of some family business. So, Carsten started to be a part-time-solo-traveller 😉
Enjoy the pictures 🙂
Best wishes from
Heike and Carsten
