We awaited our Thai Airlines flight to Bangkok for three hours at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi. India is renowned for its lack of infrastructure, and the airport is no exception. The international terminal has 8 whole gates (a city of 13 million, capital of the world's 2nd largest nation), a trinket shop, a small duty-free store, an Indian fast-food joint (worked by one individual), and a Subway (two sandwich artists). All this after a recent renovation. At least it was air-conditioned. Fortunately, our plane was on-time, and we were aloft by 12:30AM, November 16, aboard the red-eye to Bangkok. Dinner was served about 1:30 AM, but, alas, no breakfast: I was really looking forward to Courvosier on my granola.
India. We're glad we visited what we did of India, the so-called Golden Triangle. There were many interesting and remarkable sites, mostly Muslim in origin, and not a little history to learn, much of it unfamiliar to us. And culture and religion.
In our preparations, months ago, we figured we could not handle India without help, and so we engaged Caper Travel (found on the web) to move us around, book hotels, and provide more or less daily guides. This was relatively inexpensive and worked for us. Our only dissatisfaction was with some of the hotels, noted earlier.
Despite current comparisons, India and China are worlds apart. India, what we saw, is decidedly third-world. China is in great flux, but you have to look for real poverty, at least in the 6 or 8 cities we visited. In India, it meets you as you debark and raps on your car's windows at every intersection. Squalor and filth are everywhere.
Will we come back? To put it in plain Anglais, J'ai été là, j'ai fait cela. Travel is an intensely personal and individual thing, however, and nations are far too complex to dismiss, even from experience. We saw or met many tourists spending rather more time in India, clearly loving it, almost going native in some ways. We knew pretty much what we were in for, and we were not surprised. But we have had enough. On to Thailand!
PS. My one regret about India was not getting to Mumbai and the Bombay Sapphire outlet presumably there. But I suspect this would have ended like our unsuccessful search, years ago, for the London Fog outlet in London.
India. We're glad we visited what we did of India, the so-called Golden Triangle. There were many interesting and remarkable sites, mostly Muslim in origin, and not a little history to learn, much of it unfamiliar to us. And culture and religion.
In our preparations, months ago, we figured we could not handle India without help, and so we engaged Caper Travel (found on the web) to move us around, book hotels, and provide more or less daily guides. This was relatively inexpensive and worked for us. Our only dissatisfaction was with some of the hotels, noted earlier.
Despite current comparisons, India and China are worlds apart. India, what we saw, is decidedly third-world. China is in great flux, but you have to look for real poverty, at least in the 6 or 8 cities we visited. In India, it meets you as you debark and raps on your car's windows at every intersection. Squalor and filth are everywhere.
Will we come back? To put it in plain Anglais, J'ai été là, j'ai fait cela. Travel is an intensely personal and individual thing, however, and nations are far too complex to dismiss, even from experience. We saw or met many tourists spending rather more time in India, clearly loving it, almost going native in some ways. We knew pretty much what we were in for, and we were not surprised. But we have had enough. On to Thailand!
PS. My one regret about India was not getting to Mumbai and the Bombay Sapphire outlet presumably there. But I suspect this would have ended like our unsuccessful search, years ago, for the London Fog outlet in London.
1 comment:
'stay out of the caves" E M F
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