Aight, here’s an India datasheet.
A lot of conventional advice tends to veer towards “Don’t go, its hell, it’s a shithole, you’ll get sick, you’ll get ripped off, people are weird, its corrupt” etc, and to an extent I agree. There are a TON of problems in the country, and especially if you’ve never been outside the Western world, it may be a MASSIVE culture shock. In the west, we tend to thrive on a certain sense of order, control, personal space and sanitation. This is why the complete chaos, absence of personal space, prevalence of communicable diseases and general squalor stand out in stark, and sometimes, chilling contrast. However, if you take a few precautions, you can negate most of the problems first time travelers often encounter.
Who I am and why you should listen to me
I’m half Indian (My dad’s Indian), I lived in the country for slightly over two years (Mid 2012 through 2014) and had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the country for job related reasons. I’ve lived in all the major metropolises, and spent most of my vacations off the beaten path, away from the cities. That being said, I’m a proud American and was raised in the west, so share a lot of the same experiences and value systems that members on the forum have. Maybe I’ll write about some of my experiences later on in the thread, if people are interested, but briefly –
1. Spent a night in Jail in Uttar Pradesh after the cops raided a hookah lounge for political reasons. Was let go when they realized I wasn’t part of the group they were targeting.
2. Got lost in the mountains of Sikkim with a group of friends in freezing weather with no network communication when the only cell phone we had, which doubled as a navigation device, was stolen.
3. Had my first psychedelic experience in a village in western India, in a thatched hut lit up by an animal dung fireplace during the local monsoon season.
4. Converted from Christianity to Hinduism.
5. Became semi-fluent in two local languages, and was “accepted” into a group of local thug enforcers affiliated to the reigning political party because I was foreign, spoke the language, and had a distant relative who was a member.
Why you should plan on visiting once in your lifetime –
1.Getting out of your comfort zone-
For reasons mentioned above, traveling to India is phenomenally rewarding and often comes as a major culture shock for the western traveler. I guarantee that once you spend some time in the country, you will come to reevaluate some of your beliefs regarding ethics, morality, the nature of humanity, dealing with change and learn to thrive in chaos.
2. Cultural experiences-
India is the birthplace of religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism (although I’d say all of them have evolved from Hinduism and have certain common aspects). The country has a very rich and colorful history – the Dravidians in the South with their ancient languages to the fair skinned Aryans in the North, the small Jewish and Parsi communities concentrated in the West, the Persian and Islamic influences from the Mughal era, the rise and fall of the Maratha empire in the West – and their greatest leader Bajirao who never lost a battle in his life, and Shivaji whose image has been adopted by radical Hindus to engage in grassroots politics and violence in the last couple of decades, the even more ancient Hindu rulers of the North, their eventual acceptance of Buddhism and its spread to the Far-East and South-East Asia due to these rulers, to the more recent British colonial influence and the country’s eventual rise as an independent nation and the changes that it has wrought. All of these different historical events have shaped the culture, the rituals, the architecture, the people and the land itself.
Also: The Caste Structure and ancient Indian Horoscope that to this day affects the local populace’s occupation, status in society, love prospects etc. The country is a living library of some of the most interesting events in history and even if you were dropped in the middle of nowhere and travel a 100 miles in any direction, you’d be able to discover something completely new.
3. Language immersion - Disclaimer: Im not a language expert and an amateur language enthusiast at best, so this is far from perfect but should suffice generally - North, Central, Western and to an extent eastern India has a set of languages (and over 150 dialects: India has a Hindu belt in the West-Center-North not unlike the Bible belt in the States) seemingly evolved from Indo-Aryan languages (the ancient languages in these regions such as Pali have long since become extinct). Although many of these languages have their own scripts and alphabets, most of them seem to have evolved from the Sanskrit – Devanagri script (Kind of like how English and Russian have similar scripts). Exceptions being Urdu and Arabic, which the local Muslim populace use. The South has its own set of languages and scripts, evolved separately from Sanskrit and mostly unchanged for over 3000 years. The North-East has its own set of languages evolved from the local tribal populace.
Precautions you should take –
1. Drink bottled water / soda at all times, unless you plan on living for over 2 months.
2. Try and eat in the high end / clean restaurants, or get a cook (***highly recommended***).
3. Always carry hand sanitizer, use it at profusely.
4. Carry a face mask if you plan on staying in one of the crowded cities for a week or two.
5. Avoid using public transport. Auto-rickshaws are fine, but avoid buses and trains as a general rule. The South has better public transport, but just avoid it and hire a vehicle (and driver?) instead. (If you enjoy riding bikes, hire a motor scooter or motorcycle ***ROYAL ENFIELD BULLETS are highly recommended for swag value (unless you’re a sub 120 pound pussy – just stick to auto-gear motor scooters then)***
6. ***Extremely highly recommended*** Get a friend on the ground, preferably a local. If you have a contact on ground, get in touch with them. If not, use social media to get reliable pen-pals / travelers / locals ahead of time. The difference between doing your own thing and having someone show you the ropes is vast, and your experience in the country, whether long or short, will be significantly more rewarding. Avoid agencies and touts, they will almost always rip you off. I had some familial connections that helped me get set up and pulled me out of trouble a couple of times since I have a tendency to rush into new experiences with a general disregard for risks (pretty sure I'd have gotten fired for those things if the fam hadn't used their local clout).
A local friend will show you the best places to go, the best food to eat, help you grease the right palms, keep you away from the cops, and prevent you from getting ripped off. Just trust me on this. Research, develop your friend network, and then go. Do not just book a one way flight into the country on a whim.
7. Be prepared to haggle in shops (exception: restaurants). When the local people see a clueless foreigner, they tend to jack prices up 10X or more. I don’t blame them, since one sale to a clueless foreigner could hypothetically feed a family for a week, but just be comfortable with haggling. Initially, I would get an item for a quarter of the price asked, and proudly brag about my haggling skills to local friends, only for them to facepalm or double down in fits of laughter.
Okay this turned out to be a much larger post than intended. The country is very diverse and I doubt it can be covered in detail in one or two posts, so I decided to make a thread about it and will try to add to the thread as and when time permits.
Tomorrow's post - Broad opinions on major cities, places to visit, local cultural differences, current political climate.
***This is not intended to be a thread on getting laid in India.***
I'll add some information on getting laid eventually, but tend to agree with the general forum sentiment that you should not visit the country if your primary objective is to get laid for a vast number of reasons - Honeytraps, gold diggers, (even though the repressed cultural landscape is rapidly changing and the current crop of millenials are pretty sexually open) the extremely aggressive police reaction to rape accusations (since it is a major problem in the backwaters away from the cities --- it is widely considered to be almost impossible to get away from rape and drug related charges unless you have very significant political or local clout), and the fact that most of the WBs are usually sequestered in social circles too complex to navigate in a short time. I did get laid plenty, but not initially, and the Indian heritage helped a bit. Will address it perhaps after a couple more travel related posts.
A lot of conventional advice tends to veer towards “Don’t go, its hell, it’s a shithole, you’ll get sick, you’ll get ripped off, people are weird, its corrupt” etc, and to an extent I agree. There are a TON of problems in the country, and especially if you’ve never been outside the Western world, it may be a MASSIVE culture shock. In the west, we tend to thrive on a certain sense of order, control, personal space and sanitation. This is why the complete chaos, absence of personal space, prevalence of communicable diseases and general squalor stand out in stark, and sometimes, chilling contrast. However, if you take a few precautions, you can negate most of the problems first time travelers often encounter.
Who I am and why you should listen to me
I’m half Indian (My dad’s Indian), I lived in the country for slightly over two years (Mid 2012 through 2014) and had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the country for job related reasons. I’ve lived in all the major metropolises, and spent most of my vacations off the beaten path, away from the cities. That being said, I’m a proud American and was raised in the west, so share a lot of the same experiences and value systems that members on the forum have. Maybe I’ll write about some of my experiences later on in the thread, if people are interested, but briefly –
1. Spent a night in Jail in Uttar Pradesh after the cops raided a hookah lounge for political reasons. Was let go when they realized I wasn’t part of the group they were targeting.
2. Got lost in the mountains of Sikkim with a group of friends in freezing weather with no network communication when the only cell phone we had, which doubled as a navigation device, was stolen.
3. Had my first psychedelic experience in a village in western India, in a thatched hut lit up by an animal dung fireplace during the local monsoon season.
4. Converted from Christianity to Hinduism.
5. Became semi-fluent in two local languages, and was “accepted” into a group of local thug enforcers affiliated to the reigning political party because I was foreign, spoke the language, and had a distant relative who was a member.
Why you should plan on visiting once in your lifetime –
1.Getting out of your comfort zone-
For reasons mentioned above, traveling to India is phenomenally rewarding and often comes as a major culture shock for the western traveler. I guarantee that once you spend some time in the country, you will come to reevaluate some of your beliefs regarding ethics, morality, the nature of humanity, dealing with change and learn to thrive in chaos.
2. Cultural experiences-
India is the birthplace of religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism (although I’d say all of them have evolved from Hinduism and have certain common aspects). The country has a very rich and colorful history – the Dravidians in the South with their ancient languages to the fair skinned Aryans in the North, the small Jewish and Parsi communities concentrated in the West, the Persian and Islamic influences from the Mughal era, the rise and fall of the Maratha empire in the West – and their greatest leader Bajirao who never lost a battle in his life, and Shivaji whose image has been adopted by radical Hindus to engage in grassroots politics and violence in the last couple of decades, the even more ancient Hindu rulers of the North, their eventual acceptance of Buddhism and its spread to the Far-East and South-East Asia due to these rulers, to the more recent British colonial influence and the country’s eventual rise as an independent nation and the changes that it has wrought. All of these different historical events have shaped the culture, the rituals, the architecture, the people and the land itself.
Also: The Caste Structure and ancient Indian Horoscope that to this day affects the local populace’s occupation, status in society, love prospects etc. The country is a living library of some of the most interesting events in history and even if you were dropped in the middle of nowhere and travel a 100 miles in any direction, you’d be able to discover something completely new.
3. Language immersion - Disclaimer: Im not a language expert and an amateur language enthusiast at best, so this is far from perfect but should suffice generally - North, Central, Western and to an extent eastern India has a set of languages (and over 150 dialects: India has a Hindu belt in the West-Center-North not unlike the Bible belt in the States) seemingly evolved from Indo-Aryan languages (the ancient languages in these regions such as Pali have long since become extinct). Although many of these languages have their own scripts and alphabets, most of them seem to have evolved from the Sanskrit – Devanagri script (Kind of like how English and Russian have similar scripts). Exceptions being Urdu and Arabic, which the local Muslim populace use. The South has its own set of languages and scripts, evolved separately from Sanskrit and mostly unchanged for over 3000 years. The North-East has its own set of languages evolved from the local tribal populace.
Precautions you should take –
1. Drink bottled water / soda at all times, unless you plan on living for over 2 months.
2. Try and eat in the high end / clean restaurants, or get a cook (***highly recommended***).
3. Always carry hand sanitizer, use it at profusely.
4. Carry a face mask if you plan on staying in one of the crowded cities for a week or two.
5. Avoid using public transport. Auto-rickshaws are fine, but avoid buses and trains as a general rule. The South has better public transport, but just avoid it and hire a vehicle (and driver?) instead. (If you enjoy riding bikes, hire a motor scooter or motorcycle ***ROYAL ENFIELD BULLETS are highly recommended for swag value (unless you’re a sub 120 pound pussy – just stick to auto-gear motor scooters then)***
6. ***Extremely highly recommended*** Get a friend on the ground, preferably a local. If you have a contact on ground, get in touch with them. If not, use social media to get reliable pen-pals / travelers / locals ahead of time. The difference between doing your own thing and having someone show you the ropes is vast, and your experience in the country, whether long or short, will be significantly more rewarding. Avoid agencies and touts, they will almost always rip you off. I had some familial connections that helped me get set up and pulled me out of trouble a couple of times since I have a tendency to rush into new experiences with a general disregard for risks (pretty sure I'd have gotten fired for those things if the fam hadn't used their local clout).
A local friend will show you the best places to go, the best food to eat, help you grease the right palms, keep you away from the cops, and prevent you from getting ripped off. Just trust me on this. Research, develop your friend network, and then go. Do not just book a one way flight into the country on a whim.
7. Be prepared to haggle in shops (exception: restaurants). When the local people see a clueless foreigner, they tend to jack prices up 10X or more. I don’t blame them, since one sale to a clueless foreigner could hypothetically feed a family for a week, but just be comfortable with haggling. Initially, I would get an item for a quarter of the price asked, and proudly brag about my haggling skills to local friends, only for them to facepalm or double down in fits of laughter.
Okay this turned out to be a much larger post than intended. The country is very diverse and I doubt it can be covered in detail in one or two posts, so I decided to make a thread about it and will try to add to the thread as and when time permits.
Tomorrow's post - Broad opinions on major cities, places to visit, local cultural differences, current political climate.
***This is not intended to be a thread on getting laid in India.***
I'll add some information on getting laid eventually, but tend to agree with the general forum sentiment that you should not visit the country if your primary objective is to get laid for a vast number of reasons - Honeytraps, gold diggers, (even though the repressed cultural landscape is rapidly changing and the current crop of millenials are pretty sexually open) the extremely aggressive police reaction to rape accusations (since it is a major problem in the backwaters away from the cities --- it is widely considered to be almost impossible to get away from rape and drug related charges unless you have very significant political or local clout), and the fact that most of the WBs are usually sequestered in social circles too complex to navigate in a short time. I did get laid plenty, but not initially, and the Indian heritage helped a bit. Will address it perhaps after a couple more travel related posts.
