Hello!
after almost half a year of overlanding in India and shortly before we cross the border back to Pakistan it is a good moment to reflect and ask: How was that!? How was India, for us as overlander!?
Maybe the best is to start and say „It was a very good decision to visit India for such a long time!“ But how can one evaluate a country, especially such a big one like India? India is built of 28 states, more than 50 cities with + 1 million inhabitants, all together it is more than 1,4 billion residents in whole India, speaking hundreds of languages. You will find all major religions, mostly Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, but also Christianity and Judaism and much more. The country is so divers that you cannot honestly say „one country“. This would be like saying „Europe is one country“. So that means there was very much to see and experience in India. That is the main reason that it was absolutely worth it to come here and investigate by ourselves. But – to be honest – to be able to get a real impression it would take years to really experience the country completely.
Greetings from
Heike and Carsten
(–> Text übersetzen in Deutsch)
But there is much more to say about our trip in India!
Obviously positive is the rich culture that India has in all its states. This mostly becomes obvious wherever the spirituality of Hinduism, Islam etc. becomes visible. It often is the religious monuments and habits that showed us the culture: temples, statues, clothes, rituals and behaviours were just impressive. India is a different world! That not always was fun for us since differences are differences (to the western lifestyle). Indians e.g. do have a different way to get around with each other: they (physically) reach out much closer to other human beings what sometimes makes you (as a Westener) feel uncomfortable. Indians often (without knowing that it is not usual for us Westeners) sneak into your comfort zone. In the western world people are much more distant. And Indians are very much (!) willing to get in contact with foreigners, they are (positively) curious. So wherever we arrived with Wischnewski it took not more than 5 minutes that the first Indian shows up asking where we are coming from etc. We met very many very friendly people wherever we touched down. And they all (I mean it!) want to make a selfie with us. Especially the men are highly motivated to take a picture with us, especially with Heike (sometimes coming a step to close for my taste). A „white woman“ with blond hair is a big curiosity here. But positive was that it was very easy to get in contact with locals, so we met a lot of wonderful people and families. A bit irritating was that you see plenty of little groups of (young) men rushing around. Maybe the women have to stay at home busy with the household and the kids… The disparity of men and women that we saw not always gave us a comfortable feeling. For Westeners it feels strange if women are not always part of all that social interactions (they sometimes are, but it is clearly despair). Of course we were very happy to meet people but it sometimes was just too much, they are everywhere. And if Indians (sometimes up to 20 standing around our truck) do not talk to you because of language barriers, they are able just to stand there and watch (stare), …they are able to do this for hours. When Wischnewski arrives, it always was topic number one for that village (so everybody came looking). So it was difficult to find a place to relax in all India and that became a bit of stressful for us at the end.
What really was difficult to stand was the traffic in Indias cities (incredible, really!). A pure chaos that can make you mad: trucks, cars, rickshas, motorcycles, bikes, pedestrians and even bicycles driving around like crazy, ignoring all rules, driving maximal risky. And in between there is always a bunch of cows strolling over the streets or just laying there relaxing. All (!!) vehicles in the traffic are honking the horn all (!) the time (like crazy) even if there is nothing to horn at (that really made us mad!). It is almost impossible to drive on Indian roads without having (little) accidents (we so far had 3 little ones, all provoked through ridiculous Indian drivers). Using the highways is another annoying thing: it is almost impossible to get a „Fastag“ (the toll token for Indian toll routs). You have to trick the whole time to get around, so every 25 km you can expect to get discussions concerning the toll you have to pay. After a day of driving on Indian roads you really feel leached (and need at least one snaps, maybe more). The traffic is the reason why we would definitely not come again to India by vehicle. The good thing is that there almost is no police visible, and if there is one you don’t have to take it too serious. Best to do is greeting them with an honest „Namaste!“ and go on driving. We never had a problem with that approach…
At the end, India was too loud, too busy and to hectic for us (when you are travelling in your own vehicle). When you are not able to find a moment of rest during months you are getting stressed. Depending on where you are there still is a lot of garbage on the streets (but this is the same to a lot of other countries where we travelled so far). Remarkable is the hygienic situation that we often faced, e.g. when you go to a restaurant or whatever other place. The hygienic standard in India is much lower than in Europe what is not great when you want to reach out to have some tasty puri or some nice chapati (the Indian breads). We often had that unpleasant feeling that „uuuh, hopefully we do not find ourselves on the toilet in some hours“. The best thing to do is not to have a look at the restaurant kitchen and not to use their toilette . Also there is a lot of spitting (from betel chewing), that also we could no enjoy… And it does not make it better that the Indian men have no problem with urinating wherever they go. We saw so many men peeing somewhere on the streets with no feeling of shame. Also too many very smelly, highly polluted rivers. Really irritating it is when you walk along a beautiful beach early in the morning wondering where all the shit piles come from that you have to circle around. Some (old school) fishermen still follow the morning ritual laying a relaxing ‚egg‘ early in the morning at the beach, into the waves, while having a relaxing smoke. they just honker down and blob-blob, done! The waves do the rest… I was shocked when I saw this the first time ‚happening‘. Another thing that is especially visible in the bigger cities is the poverty. Begging peoples sometimes really come very close to you asking for money, sometimes even touching us. That is not great if you are looking for a nice time. Compared to our first visit in India the situation of poverty and garbage has significantly improved, but still not close to European standard. Especially in the north of India, in winter the smog makes you ask yourself „Where is a relaxed place for us to go!?“ Maybe we just were not able to find the right places, but for us it was almost impossible to find the expected spiritual places that we were hoping to find in India. Yes of course, there are temples and ceremonies everywhere, but in the middle of garbage, begging people and all that noise and chaos it was impossible (for us) to find spirituality and peace. The high temperatures and high humidity in many parts of India did not make that better.
Sightseeing is a good thing to do in India: The well-known Taj Mahal, Delhi, Varanasi, Jaipur, Udaipur, Pushkar etc. are great places to visit, there is a lot to see. With a little luck you can also see tigers and other beautiful wildlife in the multiple national forests.
It is a bid sad that the multiple positive things that India has to offer too often are overlapped by the negative aspects. But things are progressing, but that needs more time. The cultural differences are sometimes too big to be ignored, so that the pleasure cannot break through.
One big hope for us was „the Indian food“. Honestly speaking that was one of the big arguments why we decided to drive all the way to India. For me, Carsten, that experience was okay since I have a very good stomach so that I can eat everything and in almost every kind of restaurant. For Heike it was more difficult since her stomach was not completely ready for that Indian hygienic situation. So we were limited to experience the local food. And the variety of food we could get was not so big as expected. It often got back to „a gravy kind of curry dish“ accompanied by one of the (wonderful) breads: puri, nan, chapati & co. This is all good but after 5 month you like to have different stuff. Since shopping (oft western products) was very difficult, we really sometimes run out of food: no cheese, no sliced sausages, no pork, no beef, …India became a diet for us at the end. We lost 5-10 kg each.
So finally we can recommend to go to India for other overlander, but don’t expect to have a honeymoon trip. We are very thankful that we have been there, really, but – with a vehicle – we will not come again. It is the first of the 19 countries that we visited, where we came to that conclusion.
Best wishes from
Heike & Carsten
…and hereby some more pictures for you 🙂
