Indian Insights

March 11

  Salutations America (and other foreign locations)!  My last post listed the things I planned to do in India.  It would make sense that this post would describe the things I did do in India, but for some time I have been promising some more creative, and perhaps humorous insights into my travels, and so will take this opportunity to attempt to stray away from my typical chronological accounts (I will post a blog detailing all the things I did later) and instead offer some observations from India.  It should be noted that I have not slept more than about 20 hours in a bed (I have slept a lot on planes, trains and buses though) the past 6 days and so if any of what I am saying does not make sense or contains errors, I suggest you, the reader, stop being so critical and pretentious.  With that said, here are some of my reflections on India.

1.      Mustaches are the dominant fashion statement among males in India.  Literally 90% of men in India sport a mustache without a beard.  This impressive display of lip fur, coupled with the shear volume of men in India, makes me confident that 75-80% of mustaches in the world come from India.  It also makes me want to grow a mustache.
2.      The typical things you would expect to see in India, I did in fact see in India.  This includes snake charmers, rickshaws, the Taj Mahal, train stations just like the ones in Slumdog Millionaire, street beggars just like the ones in Slum Dog Millionaire, every single meal containing curry, cows wandering the road, people talking with an Indian accent (an obvious observation), things smelling (more on that later), very crowded cities, silk and monkeys.
3.      Some other typical things you might expect to see in India that I did not see are: elephants, tigers, 1 billion people (although I did see a lot of people), telemarketing office buildings, the customer support center for Microsoft, massive slums (I was asleep when our train passed them) and 7-Elevens. 
4.      Things smell in India.  Not everything smells and the places that do smell do not all smell badly, but taking a rickshaw around the city of Chennai reveals some intense olfactory sensations.  The things that did smell good in India were: any location within around 4 feet of burning incense, which there were a lot of.  Also, the flower necklaces we got smelled good.  Things that smelled bad in India were: the tons of trash on the streets in the poorer parts of the country, the rivers of poo and pee that run through these streets, copious amounts of curry, the airports, the bus stations and the shops (all probably related to the poo, pee and trash everywhere), the River Ganges, the bodies being cremated in the open on the banks of the River Ganges and the tap water at the hotel.  I do not want to sound like a whiny tourist and therefore do admit that the strong and many times disagreeable smells all enhanced my India experience.
5.      I believe there exists a correlation between the socioeconomic status of an India city and the type of vehicles in that city. In Chennai there were hardly any private cars but tons of rickshaws and motorcycles filling the wide roads.  In Varanasi the roads were not as big or wide, and the more dominant vehicles were buses and bicycles.  In the nicer areas of Delhi there were private cars, the roads were wider and traffic was a little easier.  So it was interesting experiencing all of the different vehicles and traffic scenarios.  I traveled via taxi, bus, motor rickshaw, bike rickshaw, motorbike rickshaw, ship, canoe, train and plane.  At the end of the voyage I want to try to remember all of the types of transportation I have used, since the list is pretty long already.
6.      A three-wheeled motor rickshaw is cheaper, more fun and a lot more dangerous than any amusement park ride in the world.  Literally these tiny vehicles would shot gaps in traffic with inches to spare going 30+ mph.  My legs and arms stuck outside the open frame ever so slightly, but I still had to squeeze myself into a tiny ball just to keep all of my limbs intact.  Richshaw drivers also have these deals worked out with shop owners where they get a commission if they bring customers to the stores, so every rickshaw ride includes a bunch of stops at the driver’s “family” shop or a lot of yelling and negotiating to avoid these unnecessary stops.  I took a video during one of our rickshaw rides, which is really the only way to describe the experience.
7.      It appeared that I was the tallest and biggest person ever to go to India.  The only clothes that fit were 5XL (about 3-4 sizes bigger than normal), my legs barely fit in bus seats, and I had to constantly duck to avoid the low ceilings.  If I opened a Big and Tall store for American tourists in India, I’d be a rich man.
 
   I think that is all the insight I can muster for now.  Tomorrow we are celebrating Neptune day, which was supposed to happen when we crossed the equator back on the Amazon, but for some reason we are going to pretend that we are crossing the equator right off the eastern coast of India.  Classes are cancelled so there is no need to complain and the tradition is to shave your head, so ill probably do that (A bald head would nicely complement a mustache).  I’ll also try to post some specifics about the past 6 days, so look for that. 

Hope all is well

-Ben