It’s been almost 3 years since my last entry. We were in the midst of our India trip. I couldn’t do the trip justice in my blog, so it went the way of all good things. I will say a few things about the trip to India. We spent almost 2 weeks in the Rajastan province of India, we saw many castles and fortifications, we spent many nights in some impressive hotels, some of which were originally castles themselves back in the day.
The castles and fortifications were amazing to see, but interestingly enough we found we were more taken aback with the people and the animals of the region.
We saw so much despair, so much poverty. We saw people working hard just to get by, not even to better their situation. We saw people with beds right in the boulevards in the middle of the street, this is where they appeared to live.
When you think of the disparity of haves and have-nots in the western world, it doesn’t compare to the disparity in India. The rich live in lavish compounds surrounded by tall, thick walls. The have-nots lived in the street.
Years ago, India had a “caste” system where the people were divided up in classes, and most of the classes didn’t interact. When asked about the caste system while in India, we were told that basically it’s outmoded and doesn’t exist anymore. While in truth, we found that the tour director was of a different caste than the bus driver and the bus-boy, a higher caste. With that insight, just a little watching, as I am wont to do, you could see that the caste system was still being practiced, whether intentionally, or habit, I don’t know, but it was painfully evident.
When we came to a hotel the members of our tour group and the director would sleep in these lavish locations, while the driver and bus-boy would sleep on or under the bus. It was something to experience, coming from our first world conditions.
At our last dinner, it was a big one that all the group and tour director would attend, eating and drinking lavishly. The driver and the bus-boy however were not invited to attend. We asked the director if we could have the driver and bus-boy attend with the rest of the group, we were told it couldn’t happen.
Things like this really coloured our trip and the relationships around the director and such.
The other things we really enjoyed were the animals, we saw so many monkeys, cows, exotic birds and rodents.
While at a very special temple Christine and I decided to stay back with the bus as we were done seeing the castles and temples and such. I was fascinated by the moneys that weere in the parking lot of the temple. I approached the monkeys to see them closer, a guard came running out advising us that the monkeys were feral and would attack if approached too close.
I was within probably five feet of one of these monkeys and turned away by the warning. As we walked back to our waiting area a monkey followed us, it never came too close, it was never aggressive but it was almost aways within five feet of us. I’m certain that if I approached the monkey it would have been fine with my presence but I didn’t want to chance getting bit by a rabid monkey or getting some other disease from the bite.
One hope I had of the trip is that apparently on another part of a tour to India you were able to see tigers in their natural habitat. Anyone who knows me, knows that I love tigers. I would have been so astounded to see tigers naturally, but alas it wasn’t meant to be.
We saw camels, and elephants, an option orignally was to use elephants to get to the top of a castle, but due to animal abuse issues, it was removed as part of the tour. I applaud that move, we watched at the same castle elephants being used to transport people up and down the hill, and it was a sad sight to see, these gentle giants did seem to be abused and broken spirited.
On our way back from the trip, we got to stay an extra night at the end in New Dehli because our flight out was early the next morning. It was a nice stay, we visited with a young couple from Australia who were staying the extra night too because of their flight.
We left India, went to Amsterdam and then flew home. The rest of the trip was uneventful. We learned a lot about Indians and their culture. It made us understand how and why some of the Indian immigrants to Calgary are the way they are.
I have much more to tell you about recent events but I felt that I should try to bring the trip blog to a conclusion.