Come here to discuss travel in India, be it a week vacation or a six month odyssey. If you've gotten bored of Southeast Asia, visit India and rediscover the feeling of exotic adventure on the other side of the world. Be prepared to step over a lot of cowshit!
Buy this delicious sponge dosa breakfast with a dollar and get 25 cents back. They even gave me a complimentary tea (value, 12 cents).
>>2870309That looks good, I don't have any restaurant that tempts me around but I went to a home kitchen for the first time it was nice.
>>2870312Went to the Annamalaiyar temple, expected to see white tourist because it's popular but didn't see any, they prefer the Sri Ramanasramam apparently.Pic is west entrance, it's fucking huge took me 2 hours to visit and get various benedictions.
>>2870314Piles of shoes all around. It can go up to 100k visitors a day, most of them actual hindus taking it very seriously.
>>2870309Where's the protein
The door to the old pumping station is jammed, but daredevils step across the protruding I-beams to climb through the window and write their names on the walls. I'd have to chicken out of that challenge. Just thinking about it gives me the willies.>>2870315So many Indians walk around barefoot because they lost their shoes at a temple, kek>>2870312I like how they cook different sabji every day, so you can keep coming back and getting different flavors.>>2870317Don't need lots of protein to be peak skinnyfat like most Indians. Eat a big dinner before bed and your belly will get swelly. Every now and then I get meat cravings. Last night was a mutton thali, but despite charging 350 rupees they gave me bony, tough scraps of meat. Not happy with that, at that price you should get premium tender chunks of lamb that flake apart.
>>2870323aren't you in south india where they cook chicken and lots of meat-lamb samosas, i'd be ordering ten samosas to go with the sparse morsels you keep posting and calling food, and indians are skinny fat because of the buffalo chai they drink, buffalo milk has a lot of fat
>>2870309Wow bro some pancakes and diarrhea oil. What a great healthy meal.
>>2870578Go to a tandoori joint and you can make the owner's day by eating every meat item on the menu. It won't be dirt cheap, however. Two medium-sized pieces of grilled chicken will run you about ₹250. Mutton has gone up in price a lot lately. Few years back a mutton rice plate or mutton biryani cost $2, now most places charge $3.50. If you're a proper American steakhouse-tier carnivore, you'd eat about $5 worth of mutton in a sitting. >>2870580Perhaps. Been having a lot of putrid farts lately, butthole chronically sore and inflamed. But no watery shits. Diarrhea is for wimps whose gut literally has a meltdown over a little spoilage or contamination.
>>2870578This ₹250 chicken thali had a large portion of savory boneless pan-fried chicken, chewy but otherwise great. The broth was boiled down until the chicken herb flavor was amazingly intense. So good for dipping the roti. Muh "90% rice Asian food" meme BTFOYou don't need as many calories in a hot climate as you do in a cold one, even when you're active.
Two cups of chicken in the last pic BTW. They just raised the price from ₹200 to ₹250, evidently it came with a portion size increase as well. Rare to spend good money and not feel stuffed afterwards, unless you order seafood.Picrel an abandoned chapel on an Indian Army base that allows visitors to climb up to Purandar Fort. Two bus rides and one (free) motorbike ride to get there from Bhor. Friendly and helpful people all around, although the first guy who gave me a ride seemed a little off, like he was homosex. He also believed that repetition could magically overcome the language barrier, ignoring my repeated insistence that I don't understand Marathi.
>>2870603Might just be the heat, it messes with my guts in weird ways personally. I with I could stand the sun like you, these days I've been lazy all day and do my shit from 5pm to 8pm basically.At least I've got a place with a terrace and a nice view.
>>2870615Normies will simply never understand the appeal of this view. It's not something that can be put into words. It's something that can only be understood once you've experienced it.
>>2870653Do Indian normies understand it?
>>2870615Lounging after a big meal is a bad idea, and resting your laptop on your belly while lounging is even worse. You're farther south than I am, and you have no wall of mountains blocking out the oceanic humidity like there is here at 700 meters elevation on the edge of the Deccan Plateau. Dry breezes are common in midday, and temps have been reaching 31-33 C. It feels a lot like Colorado during a dry summer desu, and plenty of Americans enjoy the outdoors in those conditions. 3-4 liters of water necessary for each outing, which does fuck up your electrolyte balance. The rehydration drink boxes are only 20 rupees at any pharmacy, however.
https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/cities/delhi/story/delhi-man-shoots-chest-friend-video-new-ashok-nagar-pawan-2882992-2026-03-17The things people will do for Internet immortality. Anyone have the webm?
>>2870653Anon has a shitty phone camera and took a photo at midday. If he had a telephoto lens and captured only the rugged flanks of the mountain towering over the big red tree under the golden rays of the evening/morning sun, then you would get a sense of what it's like to actually be there looking at the view.
I hate having power lines in my vista shots tho. They ruin the perspective with their ugly straight lines. Stroked this big boi as he entered his burrow on the riverbank in Shirwal. He quickened up the pace a bit and shortly disappeared underground.
>>2870806The shitty phone camera adds an extra level of Indianness
>>2870815Most Indian phone addicts have $200+ phones, which they likely buy on credit. I like my $65 motorola phone, but two hours of screen time runs the battery down to 40%. Indians are always shocked when I tell them how little I paid for my phone. Virtually 100% of my positive interactions here are with men. Same with past travels to Poland and the Philippines. Women are rude and obnoxious, men are friendly and polite. It's always women shoving their way onto the bus to grab the best seats. I can be standing right next to the door waiting to board and ten women will push in front of me. One time the women were crowding so close that people could hardly get off the bus. I put my elbows at my sides and plowed right through them. Bitches love to push men aside, but they sure hate to be pushed back, kek
Met a 40yo blonde woman today, here for some spiritual retreat at the local ashram. She landed in Chennai then took a private taxi straight to her place then didn't go more than 500m away since she arrived 12 days ago because she didn't feel safe.Took her for a 5 hours walk around the city and some nature, she enjoyed it but less than me I think even if it's my daily routine.She got so much attention, especially from women, and it was a bit stressful for me after sunset, glad I don't have to deal with this daily.>>2870818The worst I've seen is Vietnam where girls must have the latest 1000$ iPhone. Heard about family businesses lasting generations who went bankrupt because they had to finance one for their daughter.
While drinking beers in the abandoned cottage I met a couple scrawny young guys who showed up for similar purposes. One of them was drunk and exuberant, the other smoked ganja only and was much quieter. The ganja was Maharashtra village grown and 10x better than the godawful brick weed from Odisha, although potency was quite low. Eventually the drunk dude started being an asshole, despite (or because of) me buying him a beer. He wanted to drink at a dargah, which I knew was disrespectful and refused to bring out the beer. We went to the river, met some rapper guy who was also a good swimmer. Word got around, and soon while cooling my heels on the shady stone steps I looked up and saw the guy from the dosa shop I frequent watching me from the top of the wall with his friends. They seemed to indicate that I should leave that drunk guy, but I liked the river too much. When he started throwing one of my pomegranates up in the air, I got mad. A hungry old man caught it and began eating it like a monkey. I stalked off indignantly as usual when the conduct of newfound "friends" is deemed unacceptable. Theft or attempted theft is my one big red line.
Mango rains arrived today, boiling up over the peaks and dumping fat raindrops on the parched Deccan plain. Everything smells like a recently extinguished campfire. Of course the streets are full of filthy puddles, so I took off my sneakers and walked barefoot back to my room. No, I don't think I want to visit India during monsoon. The countryside looks paradaisical, but the wet streets are too fucking messy for a foot traveler. Passing vehicles regularly splash your legs. Water pours off of every roof onto your head. Dry spaces become extremely crowded, especially during downpours. Pigs start fornicating in plain sight, and large toads hop cluelessly into the drenched streets.
I got so close to the walls of Rajgad Fort climbing a barely-used trail recently hacked through the brush. But this one portion was unacceptably dangerous. A slippery slope of crumbled gravel on the side of a ravine, without the smallest rock to use as a foothold. Basically, it is an emergency escape route from the fort through a gap in the south wall. The trail was well-blazed with orange ribbons, which is how I found it in the first place starting from the backside of a tiny temple on the benchland below.
Rajgad fort from a distance. The main trails enter the fort at each end of the ridge. Originally I intended to visit a ridgetop temple located a couple km from the foot of Rajgad, but the trail to the top of the fort passes along the base of that ridge before cutting a grueling route straight up the mountainside. Picrel is GPS location pins I dropped along the way, as the route was a little tricky to find at times (even with the excellent trail markers). So close, but no cigar.Also failed to get breakfast or lunch. They dropped me off at the restaurant, but the place was not yet open, and the owner was surly like a bad cook who only has disgruntled customers. 3.7 km of road walking til the turnoff, then 5.8 km of winding curves to get to the temple at the end of the road, then at last the trekking route to Rajgad begins (which was not on any map). All the while I hurried, thinking that the return bus would arrive 2 pm like the conductor told me. I made it back by 1:57 only to be stuck waiting for two hours.
The area was scenic and very tranquil. Temps surprisingly cool, barely reaching 30° with moderate humidity.
Yesterday was bazaar day. Lots of unripe fruit on offer, buyer beware. Mostly veggies. I wish I could eat a big dish of Indian veggies for breakfast, but the eateries are so limited in what they want to prepare. Only with dinner do you have a good choice...at 300+ rupees a meal, of course. And even at that price so many places skimp you on veggies or paneer. The good places make you forget about all the lame meals you've eaten, they are that good. It's basically a matter of luck for a traveler. Appearance means nothing, and reviews are all AI-generated marketing snippets. Even menu pictures are often stock images. You see many cafes advertising delectable beefy looking burgers, but what you get is a sad flat disgusting little "burger" with no pettuce, no tomato, nothing but a thin patty with zingy onions and some slop sauce.
Upon the parched and thirsty Deccan, where the crumbling eaves of a forgotten habitation offered a shelter of dubious merit, I didst find myself sequestered with a pair of scrawny striplings, their countenances marked by the disparate humors of the vine and the verdant herb. One was a creature of bacchic excess, loud and overflowing with a coarse and boisterous spirit, while his fellow remained a silent votary of the Maharashtra leaf, a rustic harvest far surpassing the wretched, brick-pressed weeds of the Odisan marshes. The mango rains began their heavy descent, boiling over the stony peaks to quench the gasping plains with fat and sudden drops. This exuberant knave, ungrateful for the barley-brew I hadst so freely provided, soon turned his tongue to insolence, demanding we profane the sanctity of a holy Dargah with our revelry, a sacrilege I wouldst not brook. We retreated instead to the river's edge, where a swimmer of some local renown didst appear amidst the rising waters, even as the watchful guardian of the dosa-shop—he who knows my daily bread—signaled from his high stone perch that I shouldst abandon such low company. The mango rains turned the air to a thick and fragrant steam, redolent of campfires long extinguished. My patience didst finally shatter when this drunkard, in a fit of senseless thievery, cast my pomegranate into the firmament, only for it to be snatched from the air by a withered, ancient mendicant who devoured the crimson seeds with the frantic hunger of a forest ape. I took my leave in high and righteous indignation, for I shall never suffer the hand of a pilferer, stalking barefoot through the gathering mire of the thoroughfares. The mango rains have rendered the world a paradisiacal emerald in the distance, yet beneath one's feet, they offer only a wretched slurry of filth and puddle, where the swine fornicate in the open deluge and the witless toad leaps blindly into the gray and drenching gloom.
>>2871165LMAO, this is good
Quite an evening in Velhe. Half a dozen teashop loiterers got the whole police station involved to resolve the matter of me not receiving a room key for the mountainside cabin I rented, and then being locked inside the property like an ox while the caretaker went shopping. I was pretty mad about having to climb over a barbed wire fence to escape. Also, talk from the owner's young son had me worried, demanding 2000 rupees for "securing" my luggage while I was trekking, i.e. holding it hostage by locking my room door while I was away. Two hours and thirty conversations later, I have an apology from the owner, a room key and a promise that I won't be locked inside the compound again.
Dude went snooping in my room while I was bathing in the outside bathroom...I heard him unlatch my door, and he was standing next to my open door when I finished. Of course I brought my money into the shower with me...basic travel sense, never leave your cash out of your reach. He continued lurking around, seeming to demand a tip for giving me a motorbike ride, or rather demanding that I drop my business in town and ride back with him. But then my phone crashed to the floor from its perch on top of the outlets and I yelled some cusswords seeing the back was shattered. He retreated to his room and didn't bother me any more. After a sleepless night on a stack of camp pads, I set out for Torna Fort at daybreak.
Holiday weekend started yesterday; seems like there is some kind of holiday every week here. It gives the people something to look forward to. Couple days back there was a Hindu nationalist speech in the road near my hotel in Bhor. The message was clear: Islam is the historic enemy of Hindustan and should be treated as such. The speaker went into detail about the tortures Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, the captured Maratha king, endured at the hands of Aurangzeb's minions for his refusal to convert to Islam. Several hundred children listened with rapt attention from a huge carpet spread in the road. I ate some more food, then came back half an hour later. The stage and crowds and police had all vanished. Muslims about town looked butthurt and angry, but then again they always do. The hatred felt by Abrahamics for idol worshippers persists to this day.
At ₹2000 or $21.50 per night it's the priciest room of my trip so far. But it mogs all the poorfag rooms with its 36 fuckin wall switches. (Yes, I counted them.) Fridge, terrace, tea/coffee service, and the obligatory "let me follow you into the roo- GAHH I HATE FANS TURN IT OFFFF!!!!" mosquito. Velhe village is full of friendly people who go out of their way to help a visitor. Yes, it feels good to go somewhere that's a bit exclusive and be welcomed. >why are you so frugal?Because the math works. Sixteen weeks in, I have a solid baseline of frugal daily spending established. Average $20 a day for 16 weeks, then you can visit a pricier country, spend $80 per day for four weeks, and still end with a 20 week daily average of $32 - less than $1000 per month.
>>2871555Do you plan your route in advance or do you just wing it? Thinking about doing a shoestring trip in provincial Thailand
And how do you handle your car insurance when you're gone 75% of the year?
Back in the city, wanted to see the sea and opted for Chennai, 6th day and still didn't see any westerner and many locals come to me for selfies. Thought it would be touristy but everyone is in Pondicherry.My first appartment was full of big flying cockroaches, owner came and stomped them with the toilet brush but they'd come back from the drains constantly. I knew I had no chance to get my money back for the 3 last nights but just decided to flee when I was shitting while they ran under my feet.It's busy as fuck but I like this kind of chaos.>>2871555Looks like you got real curtains. Crazy how they usually don't care about the sun and even high end hotels will provide white transparent ones who don't block anything.>>2871603>>2871609Not him but it's easy to wing it in those countries because worst case scenario you pay 20$ and someone will drive you to the nearest town and find you a place to sleep.If you travel long enough it's good to get rid of expenses at home but sometimes it's too painful and not worth it.I never travel for less than 18 months so I cancel everything and leave my appartment, but keep an insurance in my country that covers everything that can happen to me anywhere in the world, very costly but I'll always keep it.
>>2871657Had my worst meal in the country, thought it'd be some grainy balls like falafels but it was spongy as fuck, also looking at it doesn't help.
>>2871603I try to plan the next day's travels before going to sleep, but getting information about these remote parts of India can be so damn difficult, leaving you stuck loafing around all day (which is boring as fuck). Thailand should be easier, as your choice of bus or train-accessible destinations is so much smaller than in India. The villagers don't know anything most of the time, because 85% of households have motorbikes and hardly ever ride public transport. People kept telling me there is no bus going past Velhe, but when I am walking past Gundavane Dam at sunset, I get passed by two S.T. buses. Even asking the driver of the one bus that had stopped was difficult. Indians are not good at intuitive logic. They get puzzled so easily and require 1000 words to communicate the most simple questions & answers. Not written communication either, because they are barely literate; only spoken words suffice. Photos can be very helpful as well. I showed the driver a blurry picture of the destination sign placed in his filthy bus windshield. At last he named the destination of the bus. Kumble. Ah, I could've gone to the brink of the Madhe Ghat waterfall today if I had only known that a bus to Kumble passes through town. >>2871658Do the poop-covered bread balls have a name? This room has a lot of ants in the bathroom, but I haven't had to deal with roaches in many weeks.>>2871609State Farm let me suspend my insurance coverage on the only trip I took overseas while owning a car. Registration renewal was also a concern, and my boss was not happy about having my shitbox sitting in his parking lot all winter.
>>2870605>>2870312Your food looks amazing. I can't eat meat, oil or butter without getting painful acne on my face. Would you consider it impossible to visit India without eating any of that? They seem to love oil and gee.When I travel in other countries, I ask for plain noodles or rice, get sushi, cook at my hotel, eat lots of fruit, buy loafs of bread and pre-boiled eggs.I don't know why my body is incapable of dealing with fats like other people, but eating fats is not worth looking and feeling bad on a vacation
Rubbish in most places here is concentrated in dumping areas. They can be very foul-smelling, but walk 50 meters and you don't even know they exist. Using creekbeds as rubbish dumps is one of the worst Indian habits I've seen. Yes, people deliberately throw/dump trash in waterways intending for a flood to wash it all away downstream. Oh, people live downstream? Huh, whatever. If they want clean water they can buy Bisleri.
>>2871721Religiously wash your face with soap and water after every meal. If I forget, a pimple usually pops up to remind me.
>>2871730damn dude, you're a character.
>>2871730Nigga chose the jeet life
>>2870950>took a private taxi straight to her place then didn't go more than 500m away since she arrived 12 days ago because she didn't feel safe.Did it seem like she questioned her spiritual/religious devotion? Like "if my saving grace brought me here... oh no... there is no god"?
>>2870307>India general
Just completed my first daytrip by riding along in private vehicles. A family man with his wife and two daughters offered me a ride to Madhe Ghat while eating breakfast at a little dosa shop. He stopped on an upward slope when his tires briefly spun out and had his daughters put rocks behind the wheels, because evidently he couldn't use all three pedals at once. (Automatics are rare in India.) He drove a few km past his resort to drop me off at the turnoff to Madhe Ghat. The edge of the plateau, unremarkable rolling green hills abruptly giving way to a dropoff of up to 500 meters. Below, the low parched plain spreading away to the industrial outskirts of Mahad. The waterfall being dry, visitors were scarce and the eateries were closed. A local man took me 4 km up the hilly road on his motorbike, where I had lunch, and the eatery owner flagged down a passing vehicle driven by a jovial and prosperous Brahmin who dropped me off at my resort in Velhe. Nobody wanted money for the rides.The shared taxis are supposedly honest and not prone to ripping off foreigners. However, one old lady got shorted 100 rupees on her change and loudly reminded the driver just before he continued on. Lots of carelessness with making change here The 30 km ride from Cheladi to Velhe cost 60 rupees, with shorter distances costing less.
Looking forward to my venture tomorrow to a small village near Rajgad Fort. Plenty of cash remains; I brought about $220 worth of rupees along, not expecting to find any usable ATMs in these small villages. In general I keep $90-180 USD worth of cash on hand, enough to provide travel flexibility for extended stays in the countryside.
>>2870309looks better than pancakes!
>>2871897you better watch your step when taking these photos. looks like the dirt under your feet can slip away at any time
>>2871730You look like Rick Steves in the 80s
>>2872063Raised doorjambs and random small steps inside buildings will teach you quick to watch your step here no matter where you go. Even when stepping into the bathroom.It's rapidly getting hot again after that brief rainy cool spell. 96° F (36° C) and 17% humidity inside this restaurant at noon. Tin roof baking in the sun. Low humidity and a fan's breeze makes it bearable on the inland side of the mountains. Once you have become heat-adapted, your sweat glands limit perspiration to the bare minimum that is necessary for cooling. Only when your body temp rises beyond normal due to exertion do you start dripping sweat uncontrollably - a warning sign that heat exhaustion is imminent. Germanics have a love of baking in the hot sunshine, but Celtics OTOH may not have the capability to handle 35°+ weather without getting red as a cherry and feeling like they are burning up inside.
>>2872081There is no such thing as heat adaption you fucking retard. If you stopped sweating it means you are dehydrated.
Every time I check in on slumtard he has come up with some new and retarded psuedoscientific bullshit he tries to casually pass off as wisdom.Honestly its a little bit entertaining, but I do wonder what made him this way.
White privilege is insane in Chennai for some reason, at least in restaurants. Long queues for the popular ones but they just give me the first available table and the owner/manager will come personally to take my order and go in the kitchen to make sure I get it asap.I usually avoid hotels but the one I fled in is nice, except the owner has a switch to turn off rooms AC from his office and does it even when I'm there. I wake up in sweat too.>>2871721You can find rice anywhere and they're usually flexible so I'm sure you can eat out and just ask for specific ingredients. Or just do like usual with groceries and cooking. >>2871706They were called millet podi idli, 125 rupees.>>2871730You look like a local, maybe I should buy some clothes here to stop looking like the most oblivious tourist.
>>2872126It's tropical here, apparently cockroaches are a huge problem everywhere and there are many midges traveling in swarms. Monsoon season has to be crazy.
Rajgad Fort has four different layers of ramparts, with the king's palace occupying a level clearing on a huge natural buttress of rock jutting up from the middle levels. Morning weather is still beautiful and cool for the ascent, but very few visitors are around. A local friend set me up with lodging & dining at a rustic hotel. Pay at checkout. So far it's been good. They are simple, patient, unexcitable village folk...and so am I. The dinner they cooked was fkn delicious, cashew butter masala with dal, rice and five butter chapati. Served at 7:15 pm. I had only eaten a melon and 400 calorie poha all day, while walking about 13 km roundtrip to the base of Torna Fort. Metabolic efficiencymaxxing. >>2872101It's called not having a thick layer of insulation, i.e. being fat. Body temp is 98° F, so a heat-adapted person should be able to handle temps up to 94° with minimal sweating. Also don't be an Ameriglutton eating so much food. Excess eating makes you feel overheated and in need of A/C when it's only 33°. I eat very light before my treks and therefore dissipate heat very well. >>2872126"Guest is god", Indians say. I like the millet bhakri they serve here in Maharashtra at the rustic eateries, the taste is so wholesome and sits well in the belly. Not a fan of idli, however. Too thick and plain, poor people food at ₹10 each.>>2872127When the insectivore birds are feeding their young, you will notice a stark decline in flying pests. I think now it is breeding season for most species. Raininess surprisingly can have an inverse correlation with prevalence of mosquitoes, as the formerly stagnant filthy pools are now flowing and clean.Anywhere that eating in the room is discouraged, roaches are uncommon. Sounds like the places you are staying are neglecting both room cleaning and fumigation if roaches are everywhere. Long-stay guests like migrant workers are to blame because they cook and eat in their rooms to save money.
Relying on rides from people I meet is something new, but so far it has gone great. The ultimate no-planning trip; everything is figured out as you go along. BTW as a guest you should never say "no" to an offer of tea or some other thing. It is rudeness to refuse. Better to sip just a little and then leave it if you really don't want tea. In India you don't have to fake effusive gratefulness. They prefer genuine expression here, so if your personality is unemotive, you can be yourself without anyone holding a grudge against you like they do in America. >>2872016No sugar in dosa, unlike most pancake breakfasts.
Also got to see the spot where I tried and failed to ascend the steep mountainside from Male village. >>2871130 Even from the top it was hard to tell how the trail reaches the level of the ramparts.
Some dude told me about an uncle feeding parrots every day at 4pm nearby so I went thinking you can just show up, see them arrive, eat their seeds and leave.Actually it's quite popular and you need a booking. Seeing a white dude they just let me skip the queue and go in then gave me the vip seat next to the owner while he was making his speech about the circle of life and shit and made me feed them while the aunties giggled.
>>2872354I think it's my last day in Chennai, city is exactly how I imagined India to be but one week was more than enough.If I wake up with enough motivation I'll just go to the main bus station and take one.>>2872273It has to be one of the easiest country on earth to hitch hike, I didn't do much but the 2 times I was kinda stuck on the way back of a day trip I didn't have to wait at all.
>>2872354Woah that's a lot of parrots>>2872355I just returned to the city Pune after months in smaller places, not liking it very much. Villagers are gentle and curious, while city dwellers are indifferent and stressed, not giving a fuck. The cramped little eateries serve much cheaper food than the village restaurants do, however. Lugged my 14 kg bags up a steep hill to find a non-existent hotel. Another fraudulent listing on MMT and Google Maps. You don't find those in the villages either.
Goods in India are trash tier. Check out the atrocious performance of my new mobile battery, installed for an excessively high ₹1200 at a phone shop in Satara after the old one developed voltage issues which had the phone blacking out at random. It's rapidly losing capacity after only a few weeks of usage. In the time it took to type this post, it already dropped to 41%.
>ah nice, a hilltop garden overlooking the city! >the disappointing view once you get to the edge of the garden - a bunch of ugly houses crowded up against the boundary>at least the neighbors are quiet respectable poors who live up here to get away from noise, not to make it>manager tried to charge me 2500 for a standard A/C room, I had to show him the online listing to get it for 2000>le 10/10 rated location is awful for walkability, hardly anything within a kilometer>saw a mean autodriver yanking on a yowling cat's tail as it was squeezing through a narrow gap between concrete pillars>the cat broke free and he laughed his ass off with his thuggish friends, slapping their backsFuck auto drivers. Scammy pieces of shit driving their filthy little machines around, clogging up the roadsides and harassing passengers at every station.
Whew, escaped the concrete jungle on the Pimple bus - two buses in fact, because the #294 I intended to take was not running. Not sure how people can visit India and spend all their time in its cities. I guess they just lounge around their luxe hotel room for most of the day, because even two hours of walking the city streets feels so wearying. Tough to get used to the surly dismissive attitudes and constant impatience after weeks of being treated like a VIP in the slower-paced small towns. You become grumpy and indifferent and unappreciative, just like everyone around you. The reception poster said this room was ₹1400, but after griping about the broken elevator and lack of amenities in the ₹2000 deluxe rooms, I was offered the budget room for ₹1000. Seems every property over the last couple weeks has gone through the same ritual of quoting an inflated rate upfront, then offering a "discount".
It wasn't humid when I set out for the lake under the hot afternoon sun, but a wave of mugginess arrived in the still of the evening, turning the sky various shades of soft pastel. There is a barely used motorbike path along the lakeshore that is perfect for a peaceful stroll through the sticky calm. The Indian countryside is no end of discovery; there is always something to find if you care to look for it. No A/C in my room because I was counting on low humidity. Oh well.
Tomorrow, Sinhagad Fort, the last one on my list. The next 3½ months of travel are a blank slate. Take it one day at a time and trust that everything will work out OK in the end.
Unseasonal rainstorms have returned again for the afternoon. Nice to sit on the balcony hearing the pitter-patter, feeling the balmy breeze and inhaling the odor of burning junk from the crematorium or incinerator adjacent, whose smokestack is right on a level with my third-floor room.Pimple metro bus conductors never put the destination I specify on the ticket. They always input a place 5 stops farther along to raise the ticket price.
There was a natural stone cave full of clear water on top of the mountain. Everyone was dipping the pail to fill their water bottles; evidently the water is blessed by god. Not wishing to be blessed with the kind of blowout bowel movement that afflicted one trekker, who left a giant pile of shit right in the middle of the mountainside trail, I stuck with my Bisleri.
One last daytrip tomorrow will finish my wanderings around this area. Restlessness has set in after four months of slow travel. I want to ride for hours and hours until the land looks nothing like these parched, waterless hills baking under a hazy sun. Verdant Himalayan forests towering over rushing creeks, that's more like it. Interestingly, Nepal only recorded 250K Indian tourist arrivals last year. Meaning that despite its proximity to a billion people, Nepal is barely even visited by jeets...far less so than its neighboring Indian states like Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, or Jammu & Kashmir. Of course one can expect an inferior array of lodging and dining options in impoverished Nepal, but also absent will be the touts and the price gougers and the tourcattle and the rich assholes driving aggressively in their shiny new cars - or Thars.
Nights are getting much warmer lately, but days are staying around 33°, significantly cooler than cities out on the Deccan plain like Solapur - which have been routinely hitting 40°. With humidity low, the climate here in the Western Ghat is significantly less oppressive than Southeast Asia. The koels, mostly silent for the winter apart from an occasional kerfuffle, have begun their "U-WUU" breeding calls. I love hearing them, and they help keep crow populations in check (whose cawing is far more obnoxious). Future itineraries have narrowed down with the purchase of a $520 BKK to LAX flight in July. For an intermediate destination, India's flight options out of New Delhi are far more numerous than Nepal's poorly served Kathmandu airport. Thankfully, Kathmandu to Bangkok ($180) is well-served, if hardly a bargain. That flight will be the final link completing my circumnavigation of the Earth. 30 or 90 days in Nepal? I think the country is worth up to 90 days. No need to loaf around Thailand for another 60 days, that's for sure. Already been there done that. Thailand is peak comfy, but it doesn't offer anything close to the landscapes of Nepal. I'd get bored and return to smoking weed in my room all day and shambling down the flat streets like any other lazy loser farang, instead of adventuring around the base of the world's most tremendous mountain range and feeling the exhilaration of the high altitudes.
Also worth noting that AQI in India has improved greatly with the onset of summer breezes. The dusk sky is so clear and bright tonight. USA tier air quality, basically. Some days it still gets hazy, but nothing like the constant pall of January, which at times was so thick even the midday sun cast no shadow.
Well, the Sahyadri tour is finished. Once again went door to door in several parts of Pune to get the "fuck off, we're full" treatment from every hotel. No choice but to go back to the same dilapidated budget hotel I stayed at last time. 1400 for a room with an ice-cold A/C unit, about as good a price as I've seen on this trip. It's quiet and clean and comfy here, which is great because the fucking laundry is going to take five fucking days to be ready. And no, I'm not paying 2x for your expedited service either. Pune definitely has a big city mentality. Everyone is hustling and grinding, competing and distrustful of each other. Plenty of luxury is available, but it comes at a steep price. Here it's a guarantee that every idler who approaches you in public has some sort of hustle up their sleeve, so being anti-social is the only way to go. Completely different from all the friendly and hospitable rural places I've visited over the past few months. It's remarkable how many light-skinned people there are here compared to the villages, where everyone is mid to dark brown. Many of the upper class Indians would easily pass for white in muttmerica. The city girls prefer modern Asian styles too, which is also not at all the case in the villages where they all dress in colorful sarees. They are all pouting and make-up caked and spoiled with fine living, unlike the dutiful and obedient village girls who don't even understand the concept of looking sexy.
Waiting out a thunderstorm in the museum atop Parvati Hill. Power is out, so I can't see the exhibits I paid ₹30 to see. Lots of wind and thunder, only a little rain. There's really no reason to hurry on to some faraway place when 64 days still remain for this stay. Pune is quite livable as Indian cities go. In the airtel shop there was a naggy middle-aged pajeet with a Trinidad and Tobago passport who had gotten approval to reside in Pune. It's considered one of the best metro areas in India.
India-bro any cool parts of India I can live through June-August and just low-key live and work remotely, maybe socialize and party too, that would not be unbearably hot? I was thinking Kerala because I like socialism or Goa because I like techno.However it will be monsoon season in Goa (and In most of India?) so there will be 0 parties and no people to meet?Trying my last attempt at breaking out of my shell of an alienated 30 yo loser, is India at that time of year good for that?I think you recommended some up-and-rising city in India, maybe somewhere in Kerala state, which has good and cheap accomodations?
>>2873297Plenty goes on during monsoon, and the south will be cooler & cloudier than the north in June. Goa is slammed with domestic holidayers, more than ever before - it's only foreign arrivals which have declined. Monsoon is the locals' favorite season, because the temps are mild, mist shrouds the hilltops, waterfalls cascade down slopes and everything is impossibly green. India becomes like a magical fairytale landscape, when viewed from afar. Up close it is a messy slog; India has limitless quantities of dirt and filth, so no amount of rainfall is capable of cleaning a cityscape. Overall, life goes on in rain season much the same as it does in sun season. Social opportunities are very unpredictable here. It's impossible to predict what your experience in a certain city will be like, or what kind of people you will fall in with. Just like the traffic, you can only react to things as they develop. Today I saw a tall, balding white guy in his 30s with a longish fringe of flaxen-colored hair being surrounded by a covey of college-age admirers at an overlook as lightning steaked in the background. One guy was video recording him as he spoke. Your expressiveness has to be more normie tier to make friends in the city, I feel. In the smaller towns they like eccentric guests, so the odder the better.
Gas shortage has been a huge PITA for dining here in the city. I literally can't find basic-bitch Indian food for dinner; no restaurant will cook it. Many places are shut down entirely. In the village you'd hardly notice anything is amiss, because they've seamlessly reverted to cooking most foods with firewood. But in the city, only electric cooking is an option, and most businesses didn't invest in electric apparatus. Why would they? Power goes out almost every day in India. Cell service has become ridiculously slow for me as well. 45 seconds to upload a 3 MB file kind of slow. Old phones are getting denied bandwidth; only 5G-capable phones can scroll reels all day without a hitch.
>>2873311how much longer are you goin to be stuck there?
Slumdorks final adventure will be starving to death like a homeless leper, because he refused to pay more than $3 for a meal.
The new phone battery is evidently bulging, because the back case of my phone has popped loose on two sides. A mere 36 minutes of usage now runs the battery down to 50%. Last week it was 49 minutes. How long before the fucker bursts into flame? India fatigue has set in. Disappointing meals and shoddy rooms coupled with degraded and uninspiring urban surroundings are bound to do that. Tough to find motivation to go out and explore... IDC what you architecture fags think. Access to imposing structures like Shaniwarwada, Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal does NOT substitute for actual quality-of-life enhancing amenities like easy daytrip access to spectacular vistas and beautiful nature reserves where you can be alone and active amidst the greenery.
Public toilets in the Pune metro are shockingly clean, just like the platforms and metro cars.>>2873402Lunch was 330. An okay veg thali with bland watery dal and stale chapati for 180, plus a yucky veg grilled cheese sandwich for 150. A pile of unmelted cheese shreds thrown on top of a sandwich that was nothing more than a few slices of cucumber and tomato plus a smear of mint chutney inside two slices of bargain-bin white bread.
>>2873403is that pune? go to lonavala. If you are coming to india just go to the mountains or kerala. I would skip everything else.
>>2873406Already visited Lonavla, so Narayangaon is looking like a better option for a two night respite from the city before returning to pick up my clothes from the stupid laundry place (which takes 96 hours to finish a 96 minute process) and then heading north for good, probably to Dhule on the ST bus. Junnar and Shivneri Fort would make the perfect daytrip from Naranyangaon.
Sneak over a wall behind a slum rubbish dump along the canal road and whoa, you're in a romantic Japanese garden full of couples and families. Evading the security guards who watch for people leaving the pathway. There were three of them, but they all stand together, making evasion not too difficult. I did get whistled at once, but moved along until I found a better spot to sneak into the perimeter greenery and move undetected toward the infiltration point.
The lazy security guards probably didn't even know about the back way in. You're supposed to pay an entry fee, but there was no entry along the east side, only a fucking wall. Wasn't about to walk in a big circle outside the boundary just to pay a fee for the privilege of walking in a smaller circle inside.
>get a downstairs room, yes it's quiet here>manager playing brainrot reels at 10:30 pm, clearly audible inside my roomIndians have zero sense of what quiet even means. Here's a test. How Third World are your surroundings? A good gauge is the number of times you have overheard the wheezy laughter soundbite - if you know, you know - play on somebody else's phone in the past month. Upwards of 100 times? You're in a very brown place. Zero, you're either in a white utopia or you never go outside.
Got a great deal on a used Oppo F15 at a local phone repair shop on a back street in Pune. The sticker price was ₹9000, but after spending half an hour heming and hawing over the various phones on offer, he offered it for ₹6500. You got a deal! Dual SIM capacity, and supposedly it is sold worldwide, so it is suitable for world travel. There was also a Samsung M32 5G on offer for ₹8000, but the camera on the cheap Samsung phones was rubbish. Glad I remembered to try the cameras before buying, because all sales are final.
>>2873450What is the wheezy laughter soundbite?
>>2873607It plays in just about every single humor reel that Thirdie scrolling addicts watch. After hearing it for the thousandth time, it becomes very annoying.My old SIM card expired today. Woke up and it was cut off from the network. The 21 days left on the 28 day recharge were lost as well. Now I had to dial 59059 to activate my new SIM and then begin the ordeal of finding a shop offering recharge for cash. The first shop was right across from the airtel store, run by a Sikh who gave off scammy vibes. He kept insisting that I only had one option, unlimited data, and turned off his screen when I asked to see the different options. No can do. Luckily I came across another mobile shack on a different street with a friendly and honest owner who got me back on the network. No, things don't become less of a PITA with time spent here. You only become more resigned to the tedious hassle involved with every simple task. Best to keep your to-do list for the day as short as possible. BTW new (to 4chan) devices are banned from uploading files here. once you've gone through the 4-page captcha rigamorole a few times, the file upload ban disappears.
>>2873450What forts would you recommend around Mumbai? I'll probably have 8 full days in the middle of May, thinking of 3 or 4 days for Mumbai and 4 or 5 days for some forts/countryside.
>>2873783>climbing forts in the middle of MayIt's been strangely rainy and cool lately, despite the calendar signalling the start of hot season...but May is usually the time of year where temps are around 30 C at the crack of dawn. You must bring at least 3 liters of water plus electrolytes, if not more.Mumbai has geographical constrictions which makes it very time-consuming to leave the city. Commuter traffic is also among the heaviest anywhere in India. Malanggad looks like a cool dingus shaped mountain not too far from Mumbai, but first you have to take the local train to Kalyan, then make your way to the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Transit (KDMT) bus station to catch the #45 bus to Malanggad. There are many train stations in Mumbai where trains depart from, and once you get to the station indicated by Google Maps transit directions it will be a complete shitshow of hurrying passengers and minimal signage. Be sure to ask the harried ticket seller which platform you are boarding on. Fellow passengers unfamiliar with the route you are taking may direct you to the wrong platform rather than saying "I don't know". Personally I'd stay in a hotel in Kalyan if I wanted to climb Malanggad. Much less stress that way. There are other forts in that same mountain range as well as the hill station of Matheran, which is accessed by a very tedious hill-climbing railway that will bake you alive in a glass cage if you don't shell out for the A/C carriage.
>>2873447you should go to that part of india in gujarat, gir or whatever where packs of lions come out at night to hunt the cows in the streets
Lovely traffic jam last night, everyone making a right turn and blocking through traffic. Some old lady started remonstrating with the drivers and pleading with them to let the people through, because they were not letting anybody continue down the road. Eventually she got them to create a gap and the traffic surged through until some aggressive drivers blocked it off again. By the time the traffic police showed up from 1/2 km away, rush hour was already over. Took them over an hour, and even then one of them just stood scrolling on his phone while the other one directed traffic. India idolizes their politicians, puts their faces up on huge billboards all over the country, yet they are some of the most useless, lazy and incompetent bastards you will ever meet. With egos pumped up to the stratosphere, they act like lords rather than public servants. When they go out they are always traveling in a convoy surrounded by an entourage of cool-looking tough guys with gold chains and designer sunglasses who love their job of standing around looking cool and tough all day. Plus a whole bunch of assorted lackeys.
Rode seven hours on a bus to Chh. Sambhajinagar, a very unwelcoming city for foreigners despite being a big tourist destination - or hell, because of it. Only two hotels out of the fifteen or so near the bus stand would accept me. The rest refuse to fill out the C Form, claiming it can't be done. One was a back street dump I was led to by a tout, and they tried to charge me ₹1500 for a shitty non A/C room. Instead of giving me the proper ₹1200 rate listed on the card, still higher than the fair value of such a rundown room, the owner told me to get lost. So I ended up at the only designated foreigners hotel, with a choice between a muggy little single room facing the busy road for ₹1050, or a deluxe A/C suite for ₹2100. That's a huge spread, but feeling nauseated and filthy and tired, I chose the fancy option for 15 hours of rest before continuing north across the plains tomorrow. Yes, it's gonna get worse the farther north I go. I can sense it.
24 hour hotels are pretty nice. You can check in any time, and your checkout time is 24 hours after you check in. I arrived at this room at 8 PM, so now I don't have to leave until 8 PM today. In general, Indian hotels are very lax about check-in times, much more so than other countries.A couple days ago I ate a burger in Pune that had lettuce on it. Lettuce undoubtedly watered from one of the filthy reeking cisterns you see all over the countryside. Most other food crops filter out contaminants from irrigation water, but lettuce soaks them up. Unlike shartanon >>2873988 the experienced traveler knows not to push shit out into his undies regardless of what its consistency feels like. Helps to not be gay too. A virgin butthole is much better at retaining watery diarrhea without leakage.
An eleven hour sleeper bus ride while undergoing intestinal illness is not a good idea, particularly when you only notice that the bus has no washroom after you are on board and underway. However, such an experience is peak India. The bus was quite uncrowded; over half of the berths were empty. Other than the gut pressure and clenched butthole due to lack of bathroom breaks, the trip went all right. Parcel dropoffs necessitated a detour down a road so full of giant holes that I got thrown around like a rag doll on a few occasions. The railroad tracks outside my rundown hotel room in a quiet suburb on the fringes of Indore will likely be the next leg of my northward journey. Much flatland country remains to be covered before I will catch my first glimpse of the Himalayan foothills. A guy on a motorbike lingered around me after I arrived, trying to convince me to ride along with him... but eventually he got bored and left. He seemed to have ulterior motives, particularly when he said "you can trust me" out of nowhere. This is urban North India. You can't assume the best when random strangers approach you being vague about their intentions. >Posting from your IP range has been temporarily blocked due to abuse. Please verify your email address or try again later.It's part of the site's new crackdown on ban evasion. Any device which does not have a history of posting is automatically suspected of ban evasion and may be blocked from posting even if the captchas, waiting periods, and whatever other bullshit they think up is completed successfully. My laptop OTOH has a very long post history, so using the same data signal I only get a single challenge with three panes.
Been enjoying your blog posting, usually read a few of your posts to my mother on weekends.Peace be with you, God bless.
>>2874122hope to see some pictures of kashmir
Evidently my new phone doesn't have the standard Mossad backdoor surveillance package, because it triggers globohomo tech companies left and right. I even got captcha'd for a fucking Google search yesterday.>>2874242Kashmir is full of Muslims. It is also a place where everyone is trying to take you for everything that you got, because evidently the locals spend ten months of the year lollygagging around. Kashmiris are some of the smoothest liars on Earth. I met one recently, and that dude was as glib as they get. He brought me to a gem shop, but me and the owner got into talking politics and religion, and the owner closed the door to the gem cage as if to signal that I was coming as a friend and not as a customer. Seeing no further advantage to be taken from me, Kashmiribro got bored and wandered off without a goodbye.Uttarakhand looks like a much better option for mountain adventures. ST buses traverse most of the state, unlike Kashmir's transport mafia which doesn't allow travel options outside of their ripoff-priced services. Uttarakhand is almost 100% Hindu in the mountain regions as well.Immediately after the train pulled into the station at Ratlam, one burly guy forced his way on board through a bunch of old people and women, then shortly afterwards another big guy tried shoving his way upwards through the exiting passengers. But this time I was at the top of the stairs, and I made him back the fuck up and wait his turn. Welcome to the north, Land of Assholes. Last night some drunk youths tried forcing their way into my hotel room after midnight. I opened the door and they went from rapey to apologetic in half a second. A tranny also went around collecting money and patting people's heads on the train. Indians LOVE getting attention from tall trannies with charming mannerisms and deep voices; you should've seen them all beaming with happiness as they handed him/her some cash and got their little head pat.
>>2873402In India the price you pay for food is unrelated to its safety. The safest places to eat streetfood are the ones where food is flying off the shelves which tend to be the ones that cost like 50 cents lol. The tards who get raped by streetfood are the ones who go up to a jeet on the side of a dusty road who is trying to sell cold shit that has been sitting in dust clouds for 8 hours>>2874122nah peak india is when you settle down in a place and experience authentic community. you can get a decent RK even in delhi for 100 bucks a month or so, after you become a part of their daily life they treat you like family. peak india is living on $3 a day in squalor with lower middle class jeets for several months at a time. The pluralist civnat culture, the 180 day long visa, the extremely low cost of living, the nonmaterialist anticonsumerist deconstructions of modern capitalism that goes on in those hoods, you can‘t get that anywhere else in the world.
>>2874293>one burly guy forced his way on boardPreviously you emphasized women exhibiting this crude behavior. I guess you were further south at the time?>Last night some drunk youths tried forcing their way into my hotel room after midnight. I opened the door and they went from rapey to apologetic in half a second.Think they anticipated stealing or raping some local women?If you were to stab them with a screw driver, would the law side with you, them, or enforce justice without bias?They were probably scrawny fags. Did you consider educating them? I imagine any recourse would feel futile since there are 100s of thousands of retards like them
>>2874293>Last night some drunk youths tried forcing their way into my hotel room after midnight.whut? does the hotel not have a reception desk?
>>2874338>volume = hygeineI've seen this said many times, but do not believe it to be true. Many of the high volume kitchens have no time to spare for cleaning, so everything is fucking filthy. The towel used to wipe off your dish before the food is put on it has been used to wipe dirty water off 100 dishes before you. Street food is for people who are in a huge hurry; it's better to sit down at a proper restaurant if you want to eat leisurely. >authentic communityWhy would I want to be involved in the countless daily dramas of this human stew? Being a traveler gives you freedom from entanglement with the lives of other people. Most of what happens socially here would completely boggle the rational mind of a Westerner, because the backstory is so complex and intertwined with other backstories. You might be treated like a VIP by a bunch of villagers, but one small faux pas leaves one guy feeling slighted, and he starts spreading a pernicious rumor about you. Suddenly everyone has turned cold and hostile. You have no explanation for it either, because Indians are never going to speak the plain truth.>treat you like familyFamily are often treated worse than anyone else, kekTheir presence is completely taken for granted. Demands are levied on their time and energy without regard for their individual desires. >nonmaterialist and anticonsumeristThis is absolutely not the case in the cities. There wouldn't be so much rubbish strewn around if the slummies weren't constantly buying little items they didn't need. >>2874358Drunk Indians behave very repellently, and when they set their minds on some tomfoolery, it is very hard to convince them to fuck off. But you have to govern your response. Most Indians will become passive and non-threatening as soon as you show some menace. >>2874387The boys were staying in a neighboring room. I looked inside in the morning and it was a complete pigsty. They drank about $15 worth of beer.
I might go for the sleeper bus again for the journey northward, seeing as train tickets are impossible to reserve a day or two in advance unless you travel general class, and then the carriages are so full that you have to cram inside a reeking sleeper car lavatory area with barely any room for yourself, let alone your luggage. Sleeper bus is sheer luxury by comparison, even though the ride is full of bumps and jolts. Prices are quite reasonable as well for the best-served routes with plenty of competition. Poorly served routes can be price gouges. Pickup points can be very vague or inconveniently located as well, and you might struggle to figure out which bus is your bus.
>>2874412Post pics of your meals again, I liked seeing what was available there.>3.23MB>Mentioned having extremely slow internetYou could also compress your images before uploaded them here and probably get them 10x smaller without even noticing
>>2874409Volume is a foolproof way to not die. I never even got sick from a high volume placeYou’re too elitist and transient to enjoy India. Maybe a more superficial place like China is more suited for you, so you can go to random places, say hi, and leave after 5 minutes without having to engage with them on a deeper level.
>>2874413Currently using WiFi on my laptop. Phoneposting remains blocked. Hotel WiFi is usually good when it is functional and within range, but power outages always shut it off, and hardly a day goes by here without a temporary blackout.>>2874413Picrel is from a city restaurant, but a quiet part of the city that felt like a village. Price was 130 IIRC. There was a woven bird nest only 1 meter above the ground in a shrub growing right next to the dish washing area. The mama bird regularly flew in and out, but she didn't like getting attention. While human proximity was not deemed a threat, her instincts still treated the human gaze as predatory interest.>>2874423A healthy immune system can handle low-level bacterial contamination. But the most delicious, wholesome and lovingly prepared food I've eaten in India has always been at the low-volume rural restaurants. >engage on a deeper levelI've done that on a regular basis in my travels, but as an outsider, not as someone striving to become part of an in-group. I am not one of you, and that's the way it is going to stay. None of this globohomo melting-pot ideology where foreigners try to assimilate into local culture.
Would not recommend this local wine (cost $3.50 USD for a half bottle). Dinner sat like a sour lump in my belly afterwards, and eventually I got out of bed and puked it all up.
Rajendra Nagar was a remarkably quiet suburb of Indore. This was the main railroad street at 9 AM on a weekday. As wide and empty as small town America. Nearby was the RRCAT atomic research facility. There were several highly rated hotels on silent back streets suitable for high IQ scientists. All of this very different from the typical edge of an Indian city. But why go to Ratlam? Map autism. By starting in Ratlam, I would visit four states (Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi NCR and Uttar Pradesh) on my way north to Uttarakhand, versus going straight from Madhya Pradesh to Uttar Pradesh if I went north from Indore to Uttarakhand.Hotel rooms are definitely cheaper in the north than in Maharashtra. This place charges 800 for non A/C room and 1200 for A/C room. The room has a desk and cabinet and natural light, but ventilation is poor as the window is very high and cannot be opened. In Satara, a similar room with no natural lighting cost 1200 for non A/C and 1500 for A/C.
>>2874436Being a fake traveler in India is fake and gay. If you want to fake travel you can just go Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty etc. The narrative of a White man pozzing India is really cringe from a colonizer’s point of view. Rudyard Kipling was a proud White British man born in India, and even he said it‘s the White Man’s Burden to learn Hindi and colonize them. And he was right. After British occupation the Indians became smart enough to write their own Constitution and govern themselves on their own terms. That’s a feat that even the East Asian countries like China, Japan, and the Koreas couldn‘t accomplish.
Bangalore anon here, I didn't post much here because I was writing some shitty blog for my family and friends already.Spent 60 days total in India and I'm back home now, the silence is the biggest cultural shock, usable sidewalks feels weird too.The trip was extremely good and I can't wait to come back, I hope in November. Always felt safe, made friends (who were certainly just networking), didn't get sick except a very mild diarrhea 50 days in.I'll do more climbing next time, plan to bring a friend and go to famous spots like Hampi.The return was via Abu Dhabi and had to spend 14 hours in the airport, could hear drones being intercepted and we had to take shelter, some dude got hit 10km away.>>2874413My favorite was kesari bat, a dessert, almost ate it every day.
>>2874452Watching a movie in theater a Saturday night was one of the wildest experience actually. It's like you'd expect with people cheering and shouting, eating hot food, sound level so high I had to put earplugs.>>2874412I only took a sleeper once, it wasn't as comfy though. Worst part is no toilet and no breaks for the last 5 hours, since I drink 3-4 liters every day I can't hold that long.I put the curtain and peed in a bottle, with the bumps I peed on my white pants quite a lot. The crouched position was so hard to maintain I had DOMS for day.
>>2874452Based, why did you go back? Especially now
Indians on Reddit are complaining that the coolest spots in the Himalayas are all being ruined...by Indians. A chillum is a weed smoking pipe BTW.>>2874447>learn Hindi, you fake traveler!NoHindi is only spoken by half of Indians. Arrogant northerners will tell you that Hindi is THE national language of India, but southerners insist just as adamantly that Hindi is merely one of India's national languages, one which is not widely spoken in the south. They hold that English should be the lingua franca for business and public life throughout the country. Northerners undoubtedly snark back that English is the colonizer's language, not an Indian language, and independence demands that India have its own national language. Strangely, the friendliest people I met here in Ratlam were the Muslims. The Hindus have been mostly assholes. Opposite of my previous experiences in Maharashtra.>>2874453Speaking of popcorn I was eating some on the train when a gust of wind blew it onto the laps of the people across from me. I said "sorry", and they looked down, collected the handful of popcorn from their laps, and handed it back to me to eat. >dickhole too big to fit within the mouth of a 1L bottleSame problem here. I had just given up on pissing into the bottle without pissing all over myself when the attendant pulled back the curtain and told me that I could relieve myself outside during the halt. The bus I was on stopped about a dozen times to pick up and unload.>>2874465Too hot, perhaps. Another western disturbance is bringing highs of only 31 C to the middle of the country. But the forecast for a week from now is 39-40 C every day. Laying around in your A/C room all day is hardly a good trip.
>>2874482For me personally, Bengali speakers have been much more friendly than Hindi speakers to me. But at least learn the local language of wherever you are, why not open doors for yourself
>H. pylori infection can be acquired by consuming food prepared with soiled hands. Fuck. Just after getting over the last bout of diarrhea, a new ailment hits me right in the stomach. H. pylori gastritis symptoms:>Bloating and belching>Feeling full soon during a meal>Feeling overfull after a meal>Gnawing or burning sensations in the upper left abdomen>Heartburn>Indigestion>Loss of appetite>NauseaEvery single box, checked. Food has also started tasting yucky as well. At least when you have a really sour face, nobody tries to mess with you.
>>2874452>kesari batBased high protein semolina enjoyer. Glad you didn't get sick as fuck. I had to go to the hospital twice just for eye infections
India bro, how long have you been travelling, do you have a destination or deadline?I lived in Delhi in 2017, I think of it fondly and wish I could go back.
>>2874568>Limit of current India stay: May 30th>Crossing into Nepal for a 30-day stay is likely>Flight from Kathmandu (or North India) to Bangkok: TBD, but sometime after May 17th>Departure from Bangkok for America: July 15thKeep in mind that a foreigner on an e-Visa cannot enter India at a land border. So once you enter Nepal from a land crossing, your only option to continue on is to fly out of Kathmandu.>>2874562The south really has superior quality food. Lower population density + higher affluence = much more good food available.
>>2870307i am a chud white man who hates indian peopleswhy should i travel there
>>2874597Colonization. Read Rudyard Kipling
>>2874597Why would you hate people who are merely primitive heathens? India teaches you to be more tolerant and less hypersensitive. Just saw two dads on the train have words with each other after one dad spat out the open window and the wind blew it onto the sleeve of the dad sitting behind him. Once he acknowledged it with a "my bad", the matter was forgotten. Traditional conflict resolution without law enforcement involvement or threats of murder (i.e. stand your ground & concealed carry) is still an integral part of Indian culture.
>>2874465I'm on a 2 years vacation, I'll spend the spring and summer at home in Switzerland. They are nice seasons here, pic my room's view of the garden, 20° today.As he said, heat was starting to get bad in India and most of SEA and I've been 3 months alone, kinda homesick.I'll go back to Asia including India when it starts to get depressing here in October and then 10 months in south America with the gf.>>2874508That sucks and can happen anywhere anytime, at least you're not shitting every 30 minutes.>>2874483Languages are hard as fuck for most people, except if you only want the basics I guess. I speak 4 now but the amount of time and efforts it took me is insane.Traveling when you know the local language makes it way more enjoyable though and is so satisfying.
>>2874453>3-4 liters every dayfucking hell, this is overkill unless you are overweight
>>2874508h pylori is serious and extremely stubborn, make sure you treat it before it gives you ulcers and gastritis that could take years to heal because most people don't like changing diets, treat it immediately
Picrel is the perfect illustration of how tolerance is necessary when traveling India.>>2874633Drinking that much water is essential for even a lightly active white person to stay cool and hydrated in 35 C heat. Dry heat might feel more bearable, but that's only because your body's cooling system is running very efficiently. But by doing so it sucks so much water out of your skin. And if you smoke weed, now you have to add another liter or two because your lungs exhale much more moisture after deep hits of weed smoke.>>2874634It's so serious that half of everybody on earth has it in some form or another. Contaminated food may cause a flareup, but a functional immune system should bring it back under control shortly. No, taking antibiotics is not a good idea unless you are suffering from relentless diarrhea for 7+ days that doesn't respond to any natural remedy. Yes, after traveling Third World countries and making a few mistakes, you must accept the presence of low levels of all sorts of nasty bugs living in your gut, kept in check by your immune system. Can't remember the last time I sat on the toilet and pushed out a 10" solid log. You get used to it, it's part of the cost of living this kind of life. Prebiotics may help stop the occasional shart attack, however. It's really annoying to have burning hot sludge push up against the inside of your butthole at completely random moments, even if you can easily hold it in until you get to a toilet.
Chittogarh, Rajasthan has left a positive initial impression. People are friendly and happy to see a visiting foreigner. Even the train ticket reservation agent was extra helpful. People do seem less inhibited in the north than they are in Maharashtra. Some teenage clowns swerved at me from a passing motorbike (at low speed) and then continued on laughing when I yelled at them. A dude sat down across from me at the restaurant even though all the other tables were empty. He kept staring at me, then eventually began communicating across the language barrier. He gave me one of his chapatis and then kept trying to give me more food off his plate. I began to suspect him of trying to pull a "the foreigner agreed to pay for my meal" scam. Anyway I finished up before him, refusing his constant pleas for me to eat more food, and paid for my own meal only. Being an emotionally unreactive autist can serve you very well in India; as long as people don't cross my red lines, I let them do their thing without responding negatively. But I don't let them make my choices for me.Economic activity seems rather scarce in Chittogarh, despite this town looking rather sizable on the map. The streets are wide and have a fair bit of traffic, but it's a far cry from so many crossroads towns in MH where every square meter of space has some sort of business going on, and two cars can barely pass each other even on the main through streets. There are a huge number of mediocre budget hotels here, but I chose to stay in a heritage mansion hotel for Rs 1800 ($19 per night) because the setting was interesting. Picrel is the view outside my room window.>>2874631Wasn't expecting it to be so green in early April there. But Europe seems to be like that. Even northern France in December was surprisingly green. OTOH most of the USA turns brown in wintertime and doesn't green up until mid-April.
Yes, Rajasthan has a lot of touts. Random people saying "hello" as you walk by, auto drivers pull up alongside you asking "where you go". One guy shouted "BITCH!!" from the back of a passing motorbike as I was walking up to Chittorgarh Fort. In general, you shouldn't turn around to look at people who yell words at your back. That's what they want you to do, so don't give them the gratification.As always in an Indian tourist destination, some people - will treat you like tourcattle to be herded into some kind of transactional milking stall. But I don't let anybody make my choices for me. There's no need to say farewell to a random stranger who solicited you in passing, so if you are tired of engaging with somebody who is trying to sell you something you don't want, you turn away without another word and wander off. Like I said earlier, being a nonreactive autist can serve you well in India.OTOH, if somebody is friend-tier and you want to be nice to them while also cutting off the interaction on your terms. Then take down their name and number, shake hands, tell them "see you later".Getting to the top of Chittorgarh Fort requires passing through seven separate portals. You have to take an auto ride from the town to the fort entrance if you don't want to walk 4 km uphill in the blazing sun. Past the village is the ticket booth. Entry for foreigners is Rs 600, and if you want a motorbike tour of the fort grounds from one of the licensed guides, it's another Rs 1250 - they have a rate card. (Of course you could walk the full 13 km fort loop route, but that's a lot of walking.) All said and done, your daytrip outing is going to cost about $20. A far cry from the Marathi forts, most of which cost about $1 in bus fare and some sweat for the climb.
After seven days, this bout of gut illness is basically a stalemate between the immune system and the invading bacteria, which have lodged within the damaged, inflamed lining of the small intestine. My premise holds true; Indian bacteria are relatively weak due to the lack of disinfection here. The gut is hard at work replacing the lining faster than it is being destroyed, and killing the bacteria faster than they can reproduce. Pit-of-hell sulfur burps have disappeared, and bowel movements have become quasi-regular, if still semi-liquid and full of gas. Pain and bloating remain an issue after meals, however. Prognosis: wait a couple more days for the symptoms to self-resolve under the current probiotic regimen. If there is another watery diarrhea or vomiting episode after the ten-day mark, then it's time for antibiotics.Ironically, I got sick by eating at local restaurants in an upscale touristy part of Pune, Koregaon Park. It's the only place I've been so far in India where white people were a regular sighting and nearly every menu was in English. So yeah, white people getting the shits in India may have a lot to do with the places they go.
>>2874817>>2874829>Ironically, I got sick by eating at local restaurants in an upscale touristy part of Pune, Koregaon Park. It's the only place I've been so far in India where white people were a regular sighting and nearly every menu was in English. So yeah, white people getting the shits in India may have a lot to do with the places they go.Should have took the volume pill. When I was in Delhi one day I left my local hood to go to one of the tourist areas, Connaught Point. When I was there I met an Indian from Rajasthan, he looked Arab. He was a little spergy but cool in his jeet way, spoke decent english. We hung out and started walking around the city, good times. He showed me some of the spots he knew, one was a tour guide who sells train tickets, another spot he showed me was a brothel where the girls have sex for 9000 rupees. I don't do prostitution and a few days prior a woman tried to get me to fuck her for 3000 so I noped out of there, but I appreciated bro showing me around. Then we saw a white roastie from Spain or something here on a couple day trip as tourcattle, his way of acting towards the roastie gave me deep insight into how Indian men behave towards women and a crash course on what not to do. He kept probing and asking her endless interrogation questions, despite her clear lack of interest. From witnessing that I knew it's best to just be cool around Indian girls.Then a few days later he invited me to Rajasthan, wanted to take me there on his bike from Delhi for the Diwali. But I wanted to stay in Delhi and try to meet with local girls so I didnt go. I was a shitty friend but no regrets on my end lol.
>>2874861Many Rajasthanis do have that Middle Eastern look; light brown skin, bold eyes, thick hair. Rajasthan countryside looks like Texas with its endless scrubby plains and rocky hills. However, there is no barbed wire fencing here, and the hills usually have temples on their summits. The towns are arguably less scruffy than most of India, despite being poorer than the national average; streets are wider, litter seems less prevalent, and traffic is rarely a nightmarish snarl of honking and obstruction like is so common in even the smallest towns of Maharashtra. There are lots of white buildings and a few stately historic mansions as well, giving places that desert aesthetic. The desertification of the land is sad to see, however; so many hectares have been completely ruined by overgrazing that it can't even grow grass anymore.>India smells like poopGenerally not true, but their express trains sure do smell like shit. Every time somebody flushes, the shit gets splattered all across the underside of the carriage in the slipstream, wafting a potent odor across all the cars behind. I could've sworn that I felt a mist of poo water in the air every time I stuck my arm out the window of the moving train. Periodically, a new and particularly rancid shitsmell would come down the long line of carriages. At least I could rip putrid farts while sitting next to a cute girl (with a fuzzy mustache) and she wouldn't even notice the smell. Her mom shared some of her aunt's tasty home cooking with me. But while she was friendly, she was shy and insecure. She also didn't own a smartphone, extremely rare for a girl of 16 or so. She looked out the window, hummed tunes, napped on her mom's shoulder, and chatted a little with me over the six-hour train ride.
The intercity express train ride was great. Reserved seating meant orderly boarding. The train covered 310 km in less than six hours, which is a very fast rate of travel by India standards. A non A/C chair ticket was only $1.50 as well, and seats were still available a day in advance. At one point, two express trains were moving in the same direction on a merging track. Just a few meters before the other train merged onto the track we were on, our train diverted to the next track.Rajasthan has a lot of cool towns; the state is absolutely worth an extended visit. Passing through Ajmer without stopping was a disappointment. The town had a kickass fort and hilltop temple. These towns are all very hospitable, with a large selection of affordable lodging options. But I want to make it to the mountains before it gets hot as hell.
Forgot to explain the last picture. Jaipur Junction train station serves a very large city. How many foot over bridges do they have? Only one. Every single passenger from two entire express trains, both of them arriving at roughly the same time, had to walk over this bridge and down the gauntlet of tuktuk touts to leave the train station. The infamous tuktuk touts of Jaipur didn't bother me for more than a few seconds, because I refused to respond to them. Foreigners always make the mistake of saying "no thank you" or "go away" or "leave me alone" or "I am using Uber". Engaging with them means they are going to engage with you, duh. The vloggers obviously do it for the views.>Railway Chaos: Harassed by Auto Drivers in IndiaBegging women sometimes poke me or flick my sleeve, but the men never touch me to get my attention.
>>2874992note to self: get a ticket in the frontmost carriage
>traveling is so boring that you have to blogNoted.
>>2874641how did he know you were a foot fag?
>>2875060>not travelling is so boring you have nothing to blog aboutduly noted
>>2874641There are not that many places in the world where you can swap a foot massage with a stranger.
Two guys in their 20s burst past me at full sprint just as I exited the Jaipur metro. Red shirt was chasing green shirt, caught up to him, grabbed his shirt and tried to throw him to the ground. But his shirt was too loose and stretchy, so the guy twisted free and took off running again. Red shirt guy hopped into a tuktuk and they continued down the road, driving normally so green shirt guy wouldn't have any inkling of which vehicle contains his pursuer. Neither of the guys were yelling anything, so it apparently was a private matter. The green shirt guy must've been caught getting frisky with the other guy's sister or something. Perils of dating in India...Jaipur has hectic traffic with a lot of aggressive drivers, but it's a very soulful city that has a true Old World civilization feel. So far I haven't seen any other white tourists here. There are a shit-ton of hotels on quiet streets in this neighborhood. 1300 for an A/C room at a local guesthouse, but the A/C is noisy and requires earplugs. Annoying. Touts will solicit your business, but of course you will get an inflated rate - 2000 for a room much like the one I'm staying in - which after multiple "bargaining" attempts will come down to the normal rate of 1500. Staff make out like the normal rate is a special rock-bottom discount deal, tell you that no other hotels can accept foreigners. Lies and bullshit. Don't let other people make their choices for you.>>2875060Writing is a white people pastime, you wouldn't understand. We genuinely enjoy expressing ourselves through the written word.
Finally, some good food again after a bunch of disappointing meals. Half-size mushroom masala with paneer veg pulao and tandoori roti. 290 rupees for the spread. I went to use the bathroom in a public park and two teenage boys were lurking, staring at me as I pissed and then turning on the spigot for me as I went to wash my hands. I walked slowly at them and made them back up until we were outside the bathroom, as they were blocking me inside. They started demanding 100 rupees for using the bathroom. I got angry and told them to show me the sign that says PAY AND USE. There was none, of course. Their mannerisms were very insolent, but the exit was clear, so after dressing the ruder boy down, I walked off without paying.No friendly approaches here in Jaipur are genuine. All the interest the locals show in a foreigner is faked and part of their rapport-building exercise. Even tuktuk drivers saying "excuse me, can I ask you a question?" like I was the local and they were the tourist, kek. A university student approached me in the park, chit-chatted for a while, then began asking directly for money. Despite telling him no, he kept repeating his request until I walked off. Shortly afterwards I saw him walk over to a circle of men who were playing cards in the park. Ah, a gambling addict.Another guy started chatting on the sidewalk, brought me to a teashop where we had some tea with another sales guide. He paid for the tea himself, so no scam there. Their job was to bring customers into a back alley jewelry shop, which was touted as a "low pressure, no sale required" shop. Mostly it was true. Seeing that I had no girlfriend to buy anything for, they wanted to sell me on some kind of "see how it's made" workshop. But eventually they realized that my pockets were sealed, and they politely dismissed me.
>>2874829you are setting yourself up for lifetime gastritis, the stomach does not fight h pylori lmao, h pylori lives in the stomach and is one of the most stubborn pathogens in the human body, but what do i know
Might as well keep moving north shortly. It's 430 straight-line kilometers to the edge of the Himalayas at Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. To get there I will cross Haryana, the National Capital Region, and Uttar Pradesh. I'd like to spend a night in each state along the way to rack up the count of Indian states visited, even though those overcrowded flatland shitholes otherwise hold zero appeal. Local trains from Rewari (Haryana) to Delhi and from Delhi to Sahranpur (Uttar Pradesh) will be extremely cheap, but they may be unendurable to ride due to horrific overcrowding. Indian Railways provides ridiculously few local trains when compared to the number of people looking to ride them. Nothing like the plentiful local trains of Thailand, which allow easy short-distance rides along almost any stretch of rail. Throwing luggage and clothing items inside the windows is one of the most common Indian tactics to reserve a seat on a non-reserved train with a big crowd waiting to board. Often people ask departing passengers to place such items on a seat. Fierce arguments erupt when a small item like a water bottle somehow ends up on the floor while somebody else takes the seat. It surprises me that more pickpocketing doesn't occur in the chaos, but evidently thieves know they'd get beaten half to death if they got caught.
She was a lot cuter than she looks in the photo - it caught her at a bad moment. She was hanging around a cool alleyway cafe with a handsome beta boyfriend, and her mannerisms were as charming as a real princess when she interacted with the cafe owners. Such Indian girls are a remarkably rare sight in a street-level public space. Lower-class chicks are much more common, but also coarser in appearance and hardly charming in their mannerisms.
>>2875240>Might as well keep movingLol. Retard never learns. Stay in one place nigga. So you can cook your own food and not get sick, build lasting relations with people and even have s3x, and improooooove moar at language gym whatever. It's also 1/10th the price to slow travel
>>2875242what do they smell like?
>>2875269>stay in one place/regionAlready did that slow travel life down in Maharashtra. Saw all kinds of beautiful nature, met genuinely welcoming people at every turn, ate amazing food, spent the four winter months down there. But now it is summer. Temps will soon exceed 35 C all across the subcontinent. Too hot to be active during the midday hours. Other than a few scattered hill stations like Ooty, there is no escape from the heat south of the Himalayas.>just sit around all day, cook your own meals, and chat with people you already knowYeah fuck that. Afternoons are meant for hiking daytrips, not for rotting in the living room. Besides, if I wanted to sit around bullshitting with acquaintances all day and cooking my own meals, I would be doing that in small town America. The purpose of travel is to put your feet on the ground in many different landscapes and feel like you are genuinely seeing the world in all its variety.>ooh the heckin hustle and bustle! look, there's an old building!1! ZOMG how cooool!!!Cityfags would disagree, but stepping out the door to encounter endless kilometers of traffic-ridden streets has never induced a desire to explore, nor does it feel rewarding to go across a city and see more city. However, when you are trying to cover any sizable distance across multiple states/provinces, the only feasible way to do so is from one city to another. So against my will, I have been corralled into the urban environment as I make my way up to the Himalayan villages.
>>2875341Peak India is standing around in the hood with basketball shorts and a boner and talking to qt indian women all day. Then at night time going to the gym and after that playing your modded xbox 360You're a scared cuck who would rather redditravel like a roastie. You didn't beat the game. All you did was scroll instagram irl
>>2875345This is India, not Brazil or South LA. There's no busty bitches strutting down the street talking sassy with loitering guys who are drinking beer outside the corner store. There's only the ceaseless grind of commerce and busyness. You will see people resting, but they are only resting from their labors. They aren't loitering about being ghetto clowns, getting drunk/high and harassing people out of boredom. And that's a good thing. A lot of India's shittiness is made endurable by the fact that the people strive for respectability. You don't have to deal with that mulatto street hustler bullshit anywhere on the Asian continent like you do in Latin America, Africa, the ghettos of the USA, and increasingly many European cities as well. Some lazy good-for-nothing slob who thinks he's hot shit because he slings dope and snatches phones and never worked an honest day's labor in his life.>but he beat the game! he has le sex!As a beta cuck yourself, you envy his shiny gold chain and wily mulatto charm. You wish you were in his shoes. Your intelligence is too limited to comprehend the overall cultural decay which allows such debased characters to proliferate and turn fatherless girls into single mothers, thus continuing the cycle of fatherlessness and street crime.
>>2875415You don't know shit about normal Indian life, all you do is tourcattle to big places and then leave after 5 minutes. Indialife is standing around with the boys talking shit all day and if you see a hot girl take your shot. you're running around endlessly because you're too scared to stay still and face yourself. You're shitting up India more than me with your pretentious normie bullshit that no jeet wants to be a part of. You don't understand the beauty of India. In India there's no need to take yourself seriously and pretend. It's hard to act bourgeouise while you live on a dirt road and step over cow shit. In some ways it's a lot like this website.
>>2875420Go ahead, enjoy being the resident lolcow. Somebody has to amuse these people, they struggle and grind too much. But it's not gonna be me.>take yourself seriouslyGoddamn right. Money matters are a serious business.>"Who cares, it's just $1. It's just $5. It's just $20." Get fucked, softie. You're the walking embodiment of ber-zhwah white/mulatto privilege. You never had to toil for your daily bread. I hope you get taken advantage of by everyone you meet, because that's what you fucking deserve.>too scared to stay still and face yourselfMy ancestors were marauding steppe nomads who pushed west as far as Poland and Vienna. Staying still and integrating with settled society is not in our nature.
>>2875430>i pay 1/10th the price as you>i fuck all the women that you take creepshots and masturbate to>i never get sick>but i'm the lolcow UwU in the copepost of some seething hapa faggitlol.
>>2875345>poverty from 2005>>2875345
>>2875459>I gets all the vagene>I lives like a king with a harem on $2 per dayLARPing comes naturally to coomer-gaymers like you. /trv/ LARPers hate me because my lived experiences consistently dispel their fantasies about life in the Third World. Your kind always cope with the same old "but you must be ugly, but you must be bald, but you must be a horrible person" lines. Why? Because you are terminally online, and everything you think of as your own views and opinions has been shaped by groupthink propaganda in your favorite online spaces. So when somebody gets out into the real world and then shares that IRL experience online, with no bullshit and no agenda, it flusters you to no end.
There are a few peaceful nature-adjacent areas near Jaipur where you can escape the incessant traffic and tuktuk touts. One temple complex had a ropeway promising views of the city, but a ride cost 500 rupees - foreigner price - and the ropeway ran through a valley in the hills, so there wasn't fuck all for views. The most pointless ropeway I've ever seen. It barely even climbed 100 meters. Beyond was a leopard sanctuary, a hilly region of thorny scrub trees surrounded by populated plains. A super comfy 4.9/5 star rated hostel not too far from the bus station costs less than $5 per night. Like most hostels I've stayed at over the last few years, it's more a place for rest than for socializing. Endless solicitations from randoms in the street get tiresome; nobody wants to go back to their hostel only to encounter another round of "hello, hello, excuse me, where you from?" You'll notice that most North Indians are curt and demanding when they do business with each other. They don't use pleasantries or act like they are happy to see a stranger. If they feel slighted or cheated, they respond with harsh words toward the wrongdoer. It's very much a low-trust society, but also a low-coercion society, meaning that nobody is going to use intimidation to get their way (unless you're such a chickenshit that you can be intimidated by an Indian, kek). If your intuition is spot-on and your mannerisms indicate gruff masculine confidence, there's really nothing they can do to get to you. Next best thing is harassing you endlessly for the lulz.
>>2875652Stop "trolling" people online, Stephen. Instead, go outside to the skatepark and try it. I guarantee you'll get your fat gut stabbed for opening your mouth.>>2875630Ignore the /trv/ board "troll". He works at a grocery store stocking shelves for a living, only affording a 2 week trip every 2-3 years. He acts like nuisance in the Taiwan general too.
>>2875764>everyone who BTFOs me is one guymeds. I travel for years at a time. never posted in the taiwan general. I'm more of a mainland chad
>>2875773Fuck centrally planned cities, where every single detail in sight was ploddingly constructed from some masterplanner's blueprint for a modern 21st century metropolis. This photo has literally nothing besides the distracting bright lights. All the public space is a wasteland of concrete landscapes and little nursery trees that probably die and have to be replaced every five years. In India even the centrally planned cities have so many unplanned characteristics that they still remain interesting shitholes. Everywhere you look there is some kind of niche where people and animals establish themselves without any kind of government approval or permission. In fact, most life here happens without meaningful government regulation. It's filthy anarchy versus sanitized totalitarianism. Your presence as a visitor feels meaningful in India, you feel a part of your diverse and inexplicable surroundings...but in China your footsteps on those vast spreads of concrete is utterly meaningless. No wonder so many of you cope by becoming the hungry ghost, desperately searching for female companionship in order to quell the anomie that naturally results from being a loose-footed vagabond in an excessively ordered landscape.
>>2875823It's interesting to hear about sanitation from a cuck's perspective. I also preferred India to China, despite it being around the same cost and much shittier in terms of physical material conditions. Why? Because the people are happier and I had moar s3x there. Being in China taught me a lot about the importance of Western values. I started to see India as a modern parallel of Ancient Greece, in the sense that it's a pluralist polytheistic democracy with (soft) slavery and women mostly restricted to the home. India may be the least gynocentric place on Earth, IME only muslim countries come close but they are a simp religion when it comes down to it, while China has been arguably the most gynocentric place I've ever been to. In China the entire justification for the trillion dollar State apparatus is "safety" which is simp coded. In India no one gives a fuck about women, let alone their safety, so this makes everyone there a lot more pleasant to be around. Also India is a lot more sovereign in the sense that they wrote their own constitution, have their own religion, and keep their own writing. China is living out jewish bolshevism which is inherently foreign and unnatural, and the high pressure, highly censored synthetic environment they live in takes in ordinary people and churns out professional actors who have a broken soul.
Old Delhi is more charming than I expected. The main street of Chandni Chowk is a designated motor-free space. The eateries are extremely cramped, but this chole bhature tasted so amazing. What magic spices he used to make chickpeas taste almost like a rich beef stew, IDK. There are wide sidewalks with rubbish bins at regular intervals, like a civilized city. I saw someone miss a throw into a rubbish bin, turn around, pick up the refuse and put it in the bin. In India?? Unthinkable! This time of year, the pollution levels are low, so you aren't choking on smog either. People are surprisingly polite and mild-mannered in Old Delhi, but you do get jostled more than in other places of India, especially if you are lugging your bags along the street. There's so many people carrying loads and baggage you have to weave your way around. One alleyway guesthouse tried to overcharge me 2000 for a shitty room with a rattly old window-unit A/C. But I went to a proper hotel farther down the road and paid 1750 for a quiet, small windowless room. The location is in high demand as it is right next to one of India's busiest railway stations, Delhi Junction. So that's about as close to a good deal as you can get here.
>>2875941>cuck pays 2k inr for a windowless shoebox>i had a full apartment with balcony + kitchen in a nice neighborhood (saket) for 12k inr a month (400 a day)>the girls from other neighborhoods I knew all lived in 8 or 9k a month apartmentsCome to new delhi in saket near the garden of five senses, that's where I lived. If you want to see reddit tier pockets of civilization you can go to green park or hauz khas village where the cattle go. the women who walk around there are all bourgeouis roastlarpers into materialistic consumerism. a more rare place is the tibetan refugee community up north, they have paved roads and chinese style amenities. i wont tell you the main neighborhoods I used to hang out in, they are goldmines and no one on the internet knows about themyou should def take the metro, it's way cleaner than usa's and newer than japan's. i will tell you one good place to pick up girls though: in the hauz khas station. fucked several girls I got from there, all hotties. you'll get blown out a lot but it's worth it if you can stomach it(this post has info not just for you but for the silent lurkers so dont seethe too hard)
>>2875823>>2875878You guys should grow up and stop waxing poetic about nonsense. Yeah no shit the CBD of Chinese cities is soulless and planned. But if you can't figure out a way to have a "meaningful" adventure in the country that is most definitely a "you problem"I will say Im quite surprised at the possibility of more sex in India than China, unless you just weren't trying in China
>>2875823>>2875878You guys should grow up and stop waxing poetic about nonsense. Yeah no shit the CBD of Chinese cities is soulless and planned. But if you can't figure out a way to have a "meaningful" adventure in the country that is most definitely a "you problem"I will say Im quite surprised at the possibility of more s3x in India than China, unless you just weren't trying in China
>>2875976>>2875975sorry for the double post the site spazzed out
>>2875976>I will say Im quite surprised at the possibility of more s3x in India than China, unless you just weren't trying in ChinaFor China I definitely tried. My error was I made the fatal mistake of going to a lower tier city (Guiyang) and it was a complete shitshow. For the first two weeks I was there, I went hard approaching girls. Got a ton of numbers, so many that WeChat even temporarily blocked me from adding people. But quickly learned that numbers mean nothing in China. Went out with a few of the girls, they were nice but they were too autistic about being traditional. One girl even brought her father with her on the first date. She was a 38 year old roastie.After that it was Chinese New Year and the city was a ghost town, so for the next two months I just grinded the gym, the library, and the arcade, I went to these places 6 days a week. Towards the end a few girls started to notice me and even approach me. But they were all on cuckservative bullshit and wouldn't even kiss. So I left for Chengdu and was there for two weeks. It was much better. I was able to get girls to go out with me easier, and one girl wanted to be my girlfriend. Got a makeout at the club too, the security guard was seething and trying to interrupt itNow it's been one week in Malaysia. Even though I approach indiscriminately, so far the only girls who have gone out with me/kissed me etc have been Japanese and Korean. Chinese Malays act like stuck up bitches, Chinese from mainland are kind of in between
>>2875983>She was a 38 year old roastie.Kek sounds like she was genuinely trying to marriage speedrun you.But for China I think a lot of guys get stuck in same way you did taking the traditional bit at face value. You definitely have to give them a plausible deniability charade all the way thru the point of actually being inside them but they go along with it quite easily
>>2875987In guiyang even the ones I pulled back to my place were acting super retarded. I would go in for the kiss and they would hyperventilate how they're not bad girls and have an existential crisis over it. And if I kept trying they would just leave.In America I fucked many chinese but it was usually fairly straightforward. My conclusion is Guiyang girls are just cringe
>>2875967Anywhere you go in the world, it costs more to stay in a nightly hotel than it does to be an obedient monthly rent-payer. It's the price of freedom.A street vendor right outside the train station was selling cups of apple juice. Sounded refreshing, but the juice was dark brown and smelled like rot. Foolishly, I drank the trashbin juice anyway. Vomiting ensued about eight hours later. So much for that delicately flavored Kashmiri butter chicken dinner. Hygeine really is awful here, and visiting the good parts of India does not prepare your stomach for the ratty slums of Old Delhi. I asked for a spoon at the restaurant and they gave me one straight from the dirty dish bucket. The onions served with the meal were placed in a crate over a filthy street sewer drain and splashed with water from a bucket that was hardly clean either. Won't be sad to be leaving Delhi behind after one night. There are so many homeless laborers sleeping on the street here. Horrible roads mean the air is filled with dust along many streets. Afternoon temps are now topping 100 F. Tomorrow will be an express train ride to another shithole, Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. One night in U.P. and that's it for the flatland states. Next stop is Uttarakhand, then a crossing into Nepal on or after May 10th.
>>2875993>A street vendor right outside the train station was selling cups of apple juice. Sounded refreshing, but the juice was dark brown and smelled like rot. Foolishly, I drank the trashbin juice anyway. Vomiting ensued about eight hours later. So much for that delicately flavored Kashmiri butter chicken dinner. Hygeine really is awful here, and visiting the good parts of India does not prepare your stomach for the ratty slums of Old Delhi. I asked for a spoon at the restaurant and they gave me one straight from the dirty dish bucket. The onions served with the meal were placed in a crate over a filthy street sewer drain and splashed with water from a bucket that was hardly clean either.Behold, the freedom(tm) to not cook your own meals and eat whatever garbage is slopped to you
The rooms in Old Delhi are small, but not closet sized. Windowless is better in the slum because it is super quiet, and you can sleep in late with the lack of light. >but muh curtainsThey're never as dark as you expect them to be. Still better than Poland. Curtains in guestrooms there were thin gauze for privacy only. They didn't block out any light at all.>>2875994Properly stocking a kitchen requires buying so many ingredients and then creating a meal plan that ensures all perishable items get used up on a timely basis. Then you have to go shopping for all that shit, or pay somebody to run errands for you. I'd rather forage like a stray dog whenever I feel hungry, because yes, it feels more free than laboring in the kitchen. >Connection error.Looks like this gay site has added some kind of AI photo scanning technology that glitches and leaves the post form stuck at 100% until it times out...even when the upload itself is timely.
>>2875983>brought her father with her on the first date. She was a 38 year old roastie.I'm guessing you're at least several years younger than her? How awkward was that? Think the father could sense your sex predator nature? Also, how many times were you called 白人垃圾?
>>2875997
>>2876015>she was only 38 and 364 days you literal predator!1!
>>2876015no one says that. they say 洋垃圾
>>2876023thanks for always helping with my chinese
>>2874210me likey too
>>2876024Ha if someone has repeatedly been tedious about your minor Chinese errors it probably was me. You're very welcome
Rules are meaningless in India, because nobody really believes in authority here. The train conductor comes through the reserved sleeper carriage telling non-ticketed passengers to leave, they stand up, say "yes boss", put a fearful look on their face, and then sit back down when he continues on into the next carriage. If you're someone who hates statism, i.e. the idea that the government with its armed police force should fix every societal problem through lawmaking and coercive enforcement. Then you should love India. Here there is plenty of privilege - and of course no anarchocapitalist has a problem with privilege - but very little power to coerce others. The rich man driving his Mercedes can honk all he wants at the dalit wandering in the road with his sack of recyclables, but he can't do anything besides slow down and go around him. Supposedly these northern state, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, can be very lawless after midnight. There's a lot of young unemployed men who loaf around town, and with nights getting warmer, they are getting restless and ornery. Sometimes guys in passing say things in Hindi that don't sound friendly at all. Not much you can do besides give them a dead-eye look saying "don't try me, buster" and carry on. Conversation with a friend, or a "friend", can distract you from awareness of your surroundings and make you much more prone to a snatch theft or pickpocketing attempt. Went to an ice cream shop with a teenage boy I met and bought a kulfi; he said "let's leave" very abruptly just as I was putting my wallet away. Right behind me in the cramped shop entry was a rather unsavory-looking guy who got a clear look at my cash. I failed to notice his proximity before I turned around, and then he was barely two feet away. Some of these jeets can run really fucking fast too.
Saharanpur is a lot better-developed than I expected, at least in the city center. My A/C room cost 1200 and is nicer than the room in Delhi. Food and shopping options are also plentiful. But it's still a flatland shithole city with a godawful filthy river, aggressive traffic and harsh words erupting on a moment's provocation. The edge of the first range of Himalayan foothills is a mere 35 kilometers away. So close. God damn I can't wait to be walking alone in the beautiful forested hills again and taking pictures of pretty rural vistas instead of these urban messes.
>>2876143>I failed to notice his proximity before I turned around, and then he was barely two feet awayThis is like some thriller cinema where men with no names are always breaking on the back of your neck, making your skin crawl
>>2876166*breathing
One time I visited a sus medical clinic with an Indian medical assistant in my country. He took my blood pressure with a portable monitor from Amazon which struggled to pump air into the sleeve - it took two attempts. After, he asked me if I drank water that day because my heart rate was low at 41bpm (I exercise a lot). I replied saying I drank a few cups of herbal tea. He paused, then responded "that's not water" with a devilish grin. "I don't think that matters" I retorted. He doubled down. 7-8 cups of water only, no juice, or pop or anything else.Was I dealing with a run of the mill retard, or was this a signature Indian move to "demonstrate their superiority" because I didn't confess "You are totally right, I didn't drink anything today!" and to vindicate themselves for having shitty medical equipment?
>>2876185Yes you experienced the hierarchy shit testing first hand, and you failed the test.The Indian gave you a chance to acknowledge his skill and expertise by offering you a chance to agree with him, but when you didnt, he had to protect his ego/establish it.
Something else worth noting. Every single room I've rented up here in north India smells bad inside. You stop smelling it when you're in the room, but when you come back from outside, the same disgusting sour odor hits you in the face every time. Room freshener only provides temporary respite. Interestingly, bad room smells were rarely an issue in four months of travel across rural Maharashtra.
Never before have I seen a literal mob of people barging their way into a public park. That's how desperate the citizens of this shithole city are to enjoy some recreation time in the only sizable green space this city of one million has. The geniuses in state government decreed that the park can only be open for two hours in the early morning, and two hours in the evening. It has to be closed to the public from 8 AM to 5 PM because...well, because we said so! The mob grew at 4:30 PM and at one point surged right past the protesting gate guard when he admitted some staffer or VIP on a motorbike. He regained control and closed the gate, but one friend group was split on either side, and after a lot of hubbub, he unwrapped the chain and let everyone else come inside (most of them waiting around to pay the 10 rupee admission fee). Bureaucracy in the north is terminally corrupt and inept. They will build a fancy median in the middle of a boulevard, wrap tricolor LED lights around each streetlamp, line the entire top of the median barrier with expensive potted plants that have to be watered every day. Meanwhile the roadsides are filthy and unimproved. Garbage trucks fail to pick up the piles of reeking rubbish dumped alongside the road. Rancid piss flows up from a drainhole outside the public bathroom and runs off into the gutter. But there are little BJP flags attached to every streetlamp in the median, ensuring that everybody knows which political party takes the credit for this purely aesthetic "improvement" that continues to cost taxpayers a large sum of money while providing absolutely no value. A charade of public service, that's what it is.
>>2876298they need the 8-5 to clean up the mess left behind by the morning mob
>>2870317In the bacteria
>>2876143>>2876147Oh lord, I can hear the noise and the honking just by looking at those pics
>>2875983Little lamb brought her shepherd. Perhaps she saw the wolf's teeth
>>2876230right right, this Izzat shit
>>2876147they even have benches for the pubilc. this puts them ahead of places in SEA
>>2876348One thing's for sure, you're never going to get your way here by humiliating somebody with demeaning accusations. If you say "you're a fucking scammer, now give me my 100 rupees change", it's now much less likely that you will get your desired outcome than if you said "I paid you 200 rupees, you only gave me 30 back. Give me 100 rupees." In the latter case, he will then give you the missing 100 and go on his way nonchalantly, because you levied a demand out of simple self-interest and did not try to shame him for his scam attempt. Of course he will continue scamming. There's no room to be a Karen here and police people's behavior. You can only stand up for your own self-interest. For the water pipe scenario, it's imperative that the disgruntled neighborhood speak communally as one voice and focus on solving the problem instead of insulting the politician in charge. Democratic expression in this country is 100% collective. A solitary commoner who publicly reviles the ruling class will be deemed impudent and a troublemaker, and he will be put in his place.For the public defecation scenario, it's forbidden by Islam's poop etiquette to make conversation while defecating. Approaching a man and offering him money while his ass is exposed was likely construed as a homosexual proposition.
At last I have escaped the vast lowland plains of north India. Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, is tucked away in an east-west valley behind a range of rugged eroded hills that are covered in beautiful green forest, a remarkable feat of natural preservation. Burning is absolutely prohibited, so the forest is home to numerous leopards and other wildlife. Hopefully I will be able to check it out tomorrow, but it's not looking likely. The nearest trailhead is 7.5 km away from my hotel on the far edge of this sprawling city.To the north of Dehradun, the first range of the Himalayas rises, its entire face covered by the hill-station resort development of Mussoorie. In Delhi it is 101 degrees; here in Dehradun it is about 91; up there in Mussoorie it is in the upper 70s. Hotel price-gouging is likely to remain part of my daily reality. All I can do is hope to stumble upon a good deal, like I did today.They asked 1800 cash for a large, well-furnished windowless A/C room on a random street corner of Dehradun, but the online booking price was 1118. In India I've become used to one of three things happening:>no foreigners accepted>we do not receive payment from online bookings, you must pay cash>we can offer a discounted cash rate of 1200, pay here at reception okay, don't make a reservationNone of this happened. I saw a good deal online and made a booking in the hotel lobby. Reception received my reservation two minutes later, registered me and gave me a room without a single word of bullshittery. Fucking unbelievable! It was like booking a hotel in any other country in the world besides India!
>>2876453i just want them all to come to america and england so we can see this first hand and judge for ourselves
>got a shave at a barbershop>50 rupees>I pay 100 rupees>he digs around in his drawer looking for change, beckons his son over to go fetch some change>no need, I have 50 rupees>hand him a 50 rupee note>he takes it, says "thank you sir" and acts strangely as he shows me to the door>I put my wallet away and leave>two minutes later I realize I never got the 100 rupees back>stop by a shop to pick out an ice cream bar>shopkeeper says "forty rupees">I check the label, MRP is 20>hand him 20, he takes it without commentPeople up here in Uttarakhand are pleasant to do business with, much more so than in the flatland shitholes like Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. They are happier and more welcoming to a foreign visitor, instead of being perpetually fatigued/frustrated and not giving a shit. But sometimes positivity can betray you. You feel good for a change and start assuming good faith.>woah, the people in this neighborhood are so nice to me! they must all be good people!When you assume that others have your best interest in mind, you're bound to get suckered, because there will always be somebody who is ready to take advantage of your carelessness. Many Indians are not good at scamming. They go from casual indifference or easy friendliness to strange nervous behavior, and your spidey senses instantly know something is amiss. But your initial response may be "uhh, this is awkward", and oblige their desire for you to leave. Scam completed. Because no, you're not going to show up at the shop again aggressively demanding 100 rupees. That's basically extortion, and when you have 20,000 rupees in your wallet, yeah, what's a dollar. It's nothing.
>>2876457What kind of fucked up bait is this?>>2876453So the working strategy is to frame matters in a way that prioritizes yourself or a group's well being, while largely excluding them in any explanations or communications?Basically just avoid fixating on them or insulting them verbally
>>2876472That reminds me, one time in Vietnam I took a Grab taxi from my beachfront hotel in Da Nang to Ba Na Hills. On the way there, my driver pulled over and told me to buy a ticket at some local street vendor working out of a shanty. I was a little hesitant, but the people had good demeanors, so I figured it was legit. I paid them $50 or so and got back in the car. Without my ticket. They laughed at me and handed me my ticket through the car window. Sometimes we're a little distracted.
>>2876487It's a very small-picture way of dealing with problems. Nothing's gonna get fixed, it's only going to get patched to meet a minimal threshold of satisfaction. It takes a few minutes to wear Indians down with your nagging, because they will repeatedly pretend like they don't understand you. Today a restaurant owner kept trying to charge me extra for items which were included in the 170 rupee thali plate (in very small print on the menu). I insisted that the "sweet" was already included, and then he tried to charge me extra for the "raita". I repeatedly pointed at the menu and named the items that were included in the thali. Dal, sabji, roti, rice, raita, sweet. Eventually he gave up and asked me what I wanted. Pretending ignorance or forgetfulness is what they will always do when their little ripoff attempt is foiled. Well duh, I wanted to pay the menu price for the thali I ordered. Okay okay, he agreed at last.This city has a "smart" electric bus service, but it's basically a giant boondoggle, barely even usable. Jeepney-style shared tuktuks traverse the main route through the city with more regularity. How lucky, the route went all the way to the Tibetan exile colony on the edge of the city, where it meets the forest preserve. It was a beautiful and peaceful neighborhood with a Buddha temple and a monastery. Nearby, a trail led into the forest preserve. I said "hello" just before passing a Tibetan grandma walking with her daughter and little girls. She startled, then responded in a sing-song voice speaking her native language, something like "oh I didn't even hear you come up behind me!"
How did this vast stretch of forest so close to a major city remain completely uninhabited and unlogged? It's a remarkable feat of preservation. Most of India's vast and ecologically degraded plain is parched and broiling hot at this time, but in the forest preserve it was a mild 30 C, humid and fragrant with tree blossoms. Everything was so green, the foliage so thick that only saplings grew on the forest floor. Perfect habitat for the tiger and the leopard. The forest is open enough to allow free movement and to spot prey from a long distance away, but still had enough undergrowth to conceal a crouching predator. Saw my first Indian deer as well; it startled upon first hearing my footfall, ran a short distance, froze, then bounded up a hill at top speed. Despite it being a Sunday afternoon, nobody was out walking in the forest. Only a few guys cruising on motorbikes or lounging in the shade, and one very scrawny jeet who was sleeping in the fallen leaves on a remote stretch of trail. I thought he was dead, but when I approached, he opened one eye sleepily. All right, carry on. Shit I don't know if I would even want to call the police and report a dead body. Next thing I know they'll bring me in for an interview and ask "why did you kill the man?"
A range of hills separates this section of Uttarakhand from the lower plain of Uttar Pradesh. During extreme monsoon events, flash floods rage down from the heavily eroded hilltops, destroying everything in their path and leaving swaths of rocky rubble that look like white ribbons strewn across a vibrant green carpet in Satellite view. The occasional large tree stubbornly clings to life in the middle of the wash, but smaller trees don't stand a chance.
>>2876623that's a beautiful forest. did you ask them what kind of trees those are?
>>2876625The foothills and inhabited valleys of the Himalayas seem some of the nicest places in India, someone I knew who had travelled in both the big cities and the aforementioned places told me how nice they are comparatively as well. Seems a lot closer to India prior to their population boom
Twenty weeks in India are complete. That's 140 out of the 180 days allotted to me.>5136 km covered in 139 bus/train rides>94 distinct cities and villages visited across six states and the NCR>roughly $2900 total expenditures in the country - less than $21 per day>48 hotels patronized - nightly average $12.50 per day>food spending averaged $5.70 per dayI intend to stay 21 more days in Uttarakhand before crossing into Nepal. The crossings are a shitshow due to Nepalese enforcement of customs laws regarding imported Indian goods and protests regarding this enforcement, so it might take half the day just to get across. There is only one crossing point where foreign tourists are allowed to enter Nepal from Uttarakhand; it is in the flatland southern part of the state. A thirty day tourist visa will cost $50 USD cash. >>2876831There are a lot more high-caste people up here in the Himalayan foothills. Facial features are more refined, especially in the women. In winter it is cold and smoggy, hardly appealing, but this time of year the climate is perfect if you don't mind some strong midday sunshine. Dehradun is definitely the most pleasant city I've encountered so far on this trip. Prices vary a lot here; some restaurants are shockingly cheap, while others charge a premium. The creamy, buttery grilled chicken dishes served up here are mindblowingly delicious. The spice and herb mixtures are very pleasing to a Western palate. >prior to their population boomThe honking and traffic is just as much of a shitshow here in Dehradun as it is anywhere else in India. But the roads are wider, better built and more walkable. Tons of bike/scooter rental shops here if you dare. Picrel is at one such shop.I got approached by a rapejeet today. He seemed like he was on meth, he had that glazed skin look and was being very demanding (in Hindi). I had to stand up and walk away angrily.
>>2876895>roughly $2900 total expenditures in the country - less than $21 per day>48 hotels patronized - nightly average $12.50 per day>food spending averaged $5.70 per dayDisgraceful stats
Dehradun is definitely better developed than most of India, although it still has a lot of room for improvement. Next goal is to ride the new electric city buses to explore some neighborhoods right against the base of the mountains. Rajpur, Maldevta and Sahastradhara.For points further away, the "hill bus station" is where UTC buses depart for all the different mountain villages. The route map looks like somebody dropped a bowl of spaghetti. Damned if I can plan any sort of itinerary. I'm just gonna have to take it one leg at a time. First stop Mussoorie, than we'll see where we can go from there. Hopefully all the way up to Gangotri, a high-altitude village surrounded by snowy peaks at the end of the river road.
Only 120 rupees for this creamy pasta dish. The flavor was pretty great, black pepper and Italian herbs.
This 80 rupee sweet corn chaat was meh. Only a little lime for dressing, not much flavor. The corn kernels were brown on the cut ends, beginning to go slimy. 24 hours after eating I had a sudden shart attack and hurried with clenched buttcheeks to the nearest public restroom, which was thankfully right outside the beautiful Gandhi Park. There was a sandal footprint on the toilet seat; evidently a jeet had crouched on top of the commode while shitting.
serious question, how do you deal with>the risk of food poisoning>the scamming>the weatherthese are the three main obstacles making me not want to come to India
>>2876930>the risk of food poisoningcook at home>the scammingdoesnt happen in day to day outside tourist areas>the weathercome in october-march
>>2876932>cook at homedon't have a home in India, and I don't want to spend my holiday cooking>tourist areasnigga what do you think I am that's where I'm going!!
>>2876930I use collective transport to avoid being scammed by drivers. Of course it requires a lot more planning than booking an uber from A to B. And outings which seem insignificant can take up most of the day, like my daytrip to Raipur village at the base of the mountains today. It's only 11 km from Dehradun center, but the outing took about seven hours. The foothill villages were very peaceful, and people were quite friendly too. Waving and speaking kind greetings in passing.
Found this abandoned mineshaft or something along the way. It was blocked up with dirt about ten meters inside. The mountain slopes are scrubbier than expected; perhaps they burned in a forest fire several decades ago? Only a few relic trees remain, a stark contrast to the lovely forests cloaking the valley hills below. Temps are still very balmy in the hills, though the sun is strong. Hiking is not oppressive, but the scale of the landscape is imposing. It feels way too big to explore on foot.
The city of Dehradun looks neat and green from a distance, with several hills covered in thick forest rising from the urban sprawl. VIPs with police escorts bullying their way through traffic are a common sight here. India's ruling class sure knows how to be entitled assholes. I used the electric A/C bus service to get to Rajpur. Fares were 20-25 rupees, but service timing is very intermittent. On the way to Rajpur I walked past a bum who was squatting and pissing in a hole, mixing the piss and dirt together with his hands for some reason. His mattress was laying nearby on the sidewalk. Bums and beggars are both very common sights in Indian cities. The nicer neighborhoods in particular always have beggars making the rounds, because most Indians will give a coin if they are repeatedly asked to do so.>>2876932Winter pollution is much worse than summer pollution in the north. I would not recommend visiting a place like Dehradun in winter. The AQI is abysmal, especially in the morning when the cold air sinks and traps pollutants in the valley. This time of year the sun is hotter, but the air is fresh and breezy. >I stay at home cooking and playing vidya all day, I never get scammed!Good for you. That's not an option for us travelers. We are going to new places on a daily basis and doing business with people who know that they will never see us again. The incentive to attempt a ripoff is very high. Some scammers are too proud to admit that they were trying to rip you off, so if you attempt to negotiate a lower price, they will stand firm and refuse to budge. Sometimes you have to bluff and bullshit them back before they relent. But most of the time, it's an engagement trap and you'd be better off finding some other person who is more honest. There's never going to be only one tuktuk driver, only one jewelry seller, only one tour guide, only one bus ticket agency. Don't let anyone weave a web of words around you that makes it feel impossible to walk away.
>>2876934>nigga what do you think I am that's where I'm going!!you're doing India wrong then lol. India isn't a "enjoy this curated Disneyesque pocket of existence where everything is fake and gay and curated"It's a place where you park yourself for 6 months and live a good life for the same price normalniggers pay for a 6 day trip in Atlanta or whatever>>2877078>Good for you. That's not an option for usYou were there for almost the full 180 days, next time settle instead of bussing around to generic jeet city #5637. If you settle opportunities to travel will arise naturally. You will have friends and shit that want you to travel with them and see their hometown/surrounding domestic areas
>>2877095>generic jeet cityIt's all a generic blur to you because you have low brain function. That's why you have to take months to settle in familiarize yourself with an area, while I can take a thousand mental snapshots in a single evening of walking around. Done. Time to move on to the next place, which hopefully will be worth two evenings. >see their hometown95% of that time is going to be spent sitting around chattering. Where you from, what do you do for work, are you married, etc. Yawn. Very wearying and annoying. You have to walk on eggshells to not seem rude, say yes to every offer of tea, compliment the decor of the house, etc. So much more stimulating to master the local transport and find your way to some lovely rugged scenery that nobody told you about. And after a week, when you've seen all the different spots around the city (with no help from the useless locals either), you get a move on and continue discoovering.
>>2877115Virgin Discooooverer>gets no s3x because spends all day on a bus with jeets>can't eat at home so gets sick all the time>pays 10x the normal price, to sleep in a random bed every night>no friends>weak because no gym>bad hormones and low T because bad sleep>misanthropic from only having transactional relations>too beta for instagram, instead treats 4chud like instagram>entire identity is based on not being normal>travels the same exact way they do>enjoying life? lol that's for fags I must disCOOOOOOOVer
Whats the study situation like for a prospective student? Unpaid tutors only.
>>2877128Hard to find but exists. The bad thing is even if unpaid sometimes they still ask for money. The good thing is they have no problem sharing you with their friends and referring you to each other.
>>2877145Elaborate on the sharing thing this sounds like a new meta
>>2877170>date in the afternoon>take her home and have class>date in the evening >take another girl home and have class again>later that night>get a strange message on whatsapp>hey I heard you like girls in [neighborhood]>go on to have class with her too a few days laterand the girl who gave her my number was her best friend, who saw me approach another girl right before her, and persist in getting her number even though she had a bf. In the end she didnt cheat on her bf but she sent me her friend who turned out to be better.also another girl after class facetimed her friend while we're in bed to show off or something and introduced me that wayfirst time in third world, thought it was standard. maybe not?
where are these himayalas you keep mentioning but can't be seen in your pictures?
>>2877185>after class facetimed her friend while we're in bed to show off or somethingIndians don't know how to maintain kino and gotta ruin it with some unrefined retarded teenager behavior. Very similar to pinays in this regard.
>>2877205I was on a train in a different country and an Indian guy started loudly talking on his phone on speaker walking back and forth through the hall like he's king nigga and he says he's going to BANGKOK BABY YEAH BOOM BOOM HAHAHA
>>2877213based. bet he posts here.
Here's the popular daytrip getaway of Sahastradhara. 11 km bus ride from Dehradun city center. Tons of rowdy jeets splashing in the 100+ dammed pools in the river. In general, a foreigner is left alone in Uttarakhand, though some people may say hello or welcome. I like it that way. >>2877118Don't you have any other flexes in your life besides "hey everybody, I get LAYED! S3x, tee hee. You 4chud incels wouldn't happen to know what that is, would you?" In fact I do. Trekking is much more worthwhile and rewarding of an activity. Most importantly, it's not dependent on any female whim. So liberating to be free of the expectation of cooing and wooing like a pigeon every time you encounter a young woman.>only having transactional relationshipsUntrue. Back in Maharashtra I made many friends, but then cut them all off after we parted ways. Getting hit up for random phone calls at all hours of the day and night became very annoying. Besides, they had no insightful ideas to share.
A tremendous landslide swept down this ravine and obliterated a good chunk of the village at the bottom. By some sort of miracle, the mudslide split into two tracks and this house remained standing, though it was uninhabitable. These mountains can be a very harsh environment. Growing food is incredibly difficult. Everywhere you look, you see the scars of mudslides and flash floods.
This was once a sturdy steel bridge spanning a river. No longer. An excavator was hard at work digging out a channel through the rockpile for floodwater to flow down into the river. Monsoon season is only two months away; the dry conditions won't last.
Here you can clearly see how a million tons of boulders and mud shot down the ravine with unstoppable force. The only way to defend your construction is to build diversion walls which channel the flowing rubble at a slight angle, directing it away from your property. A riverside resort downstream a few hundred meters built one such wall, which directed the remaining force of the mudflow into the opposite bank. From there on it passed smoothly downriver.
The traditional mountain village lives in harmony with the earth, cultivating any area that can be terraced and building on naturally protected benches, but the new tourist construction gouges out space for resorts with heavy machinery, and then builds hideous retaining walls all around to keep Mother Nature from sweeping them away.
>>2877067maybe worth renting a car then. Don't know how I would do that without being scammed though>>2877095hmmsounds like I will have to wait for it to actually develop like China and then go
>>2877228>DisCOOOOOOOVer, complexities of human nature :/>DisCOOOOOOOVer, random jeet rubble:O
>>2877234You can rent a scooter in Dehradun pretty easily. Tons and tons of shops. Used to be 350 rupees per day, now they are asking 550. Your biggest danger will be other motorbikes and their reckless impulsive behavior. Split-second reaction times are a must, or alternately you can go slow as shit and let everyone pass you beeping their horn. That's the safest option, but you will feel like a bitch for being so timid.For the mountain roads, you're going to want a capable motorbike - which can also be rented, but at a higher price. Yesterday I heard a guy shouting and singing as he skidded down the mountain >>2877067 on his shitty little moped, back wheel locking up and sliding across the loose gravel before every turn. He might've soiled his pants realizing how little braking power he had, IDK. Driving a car requires the ability to judge your width clearance to the nearest inch. Indians are very averse to causing a wreck, but that is what emboldens all sorts of undisciplined behavior and heedless obstruction of thoroughfares. Pedestrians barely move aside when you honk at them, because we all hear ten thousand honks every day. >wait for India to develop like ChinaThat's still decades into the future, and even then, only small parts of the country will be endless rows of commieblock housing. India is stubbornly traditional, and the younger generations will continue doing business in the dingy old shop their great grandpa built. Also, as homebody anon points out, it costs more than you expect to get a basic A/C hotel room in much of the country. India sees few foreign tourists, but make no mistake, domestic travel numbers are through the fucking roof. And with everybody in a headlong rush to build their careers and flex their social status on Instagram, business & leisure travel demand will only continue soaring.
>>2877252I was going to disagree with this post then I realised he really is WAOWing over a pile of rubble
>>2877254Why disagree with it? I screencapped it.Another reminder that my perspective has been wrong for so long and I need a deep revaluation of how I look at things, my priorities, and how I orient myself in the world.I'm not that anon nor a regular in the India threads at all. Started coming in just since it's about the only active thread here now and have come across some of these recent posts poking fun at slumbo but realizing a good bit of these criticisms apply very well to me and I'm not happy about this.
>>2877225Ok, eventhough I hated all the places I've been to in India (save the monuments like the Taj Mahal), I gotta admit this one looks comfy
>>2877252If that's what you crave, to mire yourself in the interconnected dramas of a billion people, you definitely can find that here. But why? I've enjoyed India because it is possible to experience the country with a degree of impersonal detachment, much more so than I initially expected. Your feet are treading the same environment as theirs, you are eating the same food as they are, sometimes you speak the same language as they do, but your way of thinking remains entirely your own. It has been refined by a few months of life in the Indian environment, but it has not been fundamentally altered from its pre-existing course. A man, going his own way through the world, answering to nobody but himself for the choices he makes. The message I have always been trying to get across with my posts here: stop listening to demotivation propaganda. You don't have to hide away and rot simply because you are different from the others. There has always been a type of guy who sets out across the surface of the earth because he doesn't fit in back home. To do so you simply have to build up enough fortitude to handle life's difficulties on your own. With time and experience, that will come naturally.
>>2877256There was a hanging garden overlooking the village with springwater cascading down the cliff in a shower. >>2877255Criticism and mockery does not mean one is right and the other is wrong. It simply indicates conflicting perspectives.
>>2877260>You don't have to hide away and rot simply because you are different from the others.;_;Fuck normies
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s6aCVsnfpzUOne of the most dramatic videos of the cloudburst that hit Uttarakhand last summer.
>>2877255>I'm not that anon nor a regular in the India threads at all. Started coming in just since it's about the only active thread here now and have come across some of these recent posts poking fun at slumbo but realizing a good bit of these criticisms apply very well to me and I'm not happy about this.This is a Real Traveler's thread. I'm more realest than the realest Real Traveler, nothing personnel kid ;)
>>2877252Most people are not particularly interesting anyway and much of socializing is usually a humiliation ritual.>>2877260>mire yourself in the interconnected dramas of a billion people, you definitely can find that here. But why?This, reallyThe older I get, the more people I meet, the less I care about having anything to do with almost anyone. Not really thrilled about what this bodes for my future though.Guys having adventures like this >>2877185 though is more interesting but it's something that consistently seems interesting to me in theory, but then I lose interest fast with the bullshitting that comes with socializing.My attitude and entitlement gets in the way too much.
>>2877363Soijacking over the rubble is a copout for pussies. You're scared to get rejected or whatever so you cope with the rubble.
>>2877225this looks like a nice place, but i feel sorry for the fish that cannot migrate
I have been in India for over a week and I have no idea how you people have time to make posts let alone take/share photographs. Also, a blog seems better for long-term value. As I suspected, all you gotta do is avoid the major tourist tourist areas and you will be left alone, but if you ask for help you will get it. It is nice in the places nobody talks about. It is not that bad here.
>>2877270More like seeing others do things similar to what I do, then others criticizing it. You never see or hear someone say something that makes you think it's cringy but you never realized your own behavior until seeing something comparable in the third person?Nice try though with your attempt at an opportunity to spout some sarcastic meme response like a retard though.>>2877118>misanthropic from only having transactional relationsEvery relationship has strings attached to it and family often the same way. If you weren't born into a position like that then congratulations.>>2877379I'm not him. Not the renowned rubble reviewer.
I like the pictures but pretending that jeets live in harmony with nature is one of the funniest things I have read on /trv/. I don't think this fellow understands what he is looking at, in many cases.
>>2877401What's your plan? you're going to stay for 6 months and rent an RK right?
>>2877401The north has more pale-skinned Aryan-featured people. Some locals even have green eyes. If you're a generic white guy doing travelbum stuff, i.e. not being an obvious tourist, your appearance in and of itself won't attract attention in such areas. But if you go where everybody is darker-skinned and Dravidian-featured, heads all around will turn to look at you and many people will approach you for a friendly chat.>no time to relax and shitpostSounds like you're setting yourself up for travel burnout a few weeks in. Learn to strike a balance. Go explore a new place every day, but don't spend 12 hours a day hurrying along the busy streets. It's too much stimulation and stress. And don't bum around in one place for your whole trip. There's too much country to see, and Indian traffic is so horrendous that a daytrip of even 100 km will be more hassle than enjoyment. Much better to relocate yourself to the new destination and then explore its vicinity. >>2877418Come and explore the biodiverse parts of India then. You will definitely notice a love of nature among the villagers who are proud of their beautiful surroundings. What's true is that all the endless shilling of "BE ONE WITH NATURE: BUY A PLOT IN OUR NEW LUXURY COMMUNITY" is a load of crap. All these development projects wreak havoc on the environment, but they will put up billboards everywhere with happy white-passing families in AI-generated nature scenes. Then they spend lakhs of rupees on buying expensive nursery plants to create a "nature" garden aesthetic that is entirely artificial, but still pleasing to wealthy urbanites who pay ridiculous sums of money for a vacation cabin in one of these places. So many "ecotourism" stays are complete bullshit as well. Surrounded by horrible trashed land, yet they plant a few trees and water some grass inside their fenceline. Then they pretend like it is a literal Garden of Eden in their promotional material.
>>2877379That anon is not me.You're genuinely retarded if you think that visiting the scene of a natural disaster is an occasion for anything but somber reflection on the nature of the tragedy and the tremendous unstoppable power that a seemingly idyllic mountain landscape can unleash during extreme rain events.
Online bus info once again inaccurate. Previously I had spotted bus #3 passing by Clock Tower intersection, and online info had it coming past the railway station. So I stood and waited for it here, but it never came, and after an hour of waiting I aborted the daytrip and headed to a friendly local cafe for some creamy veg pasta and buffalo chicken drumsticks lathered in savory gravy.It's frankly ridiculous how much false and misleading information one encounters while in India. Even the beer store was located incorrectly on the map. BTW buying beer in India is a pain in the ass. Sales are basically monopolized by a handful of stores, which always have a knot of customers at the window. The stores feel free to charge 10-15 rupees above MRP for a can of beer, because it's either pay up or go sober. The local drunks in Dehradun all consume Malta masti desi daru, which is a spiced liquor sold in TetraPak cardboard boxes at a nearby den of degeneracy. 125 mL of 60 proof liquor for 50 rupees or something along that line. Piles and piles of them lay discarded on the ground outside the joint, along with vomit, piss and passed out bums laying in filth. My hotel is an oasis of calm cleanliness tucked away from the main roads, but the surroundings are frankly awful. I can't wait to catch the bus to Mussoorie tomorrow and escape the urban environment for the first time in three weeks.There are many Tibetan exiles living in Dehradun. Being Buddhists and of relatively high IQ, they have a calm and reflective nature that stands out in such a chaotic and reactive environment. Their colonies are very well-kept, with beautiful houses and not a piece of litter to be seen. Tibetan exiles sell clothes at fixed prices in a market which had been set up outside of the state forest office (picrel). Evidently Indians think bargaining is half the fun of shopping, because the Tibetan market saw virtually zero business, while the fashion street in the old bazaar was crammed with shoppers.
>>2877468>their promotional material.do they write everything in English?
Mussoorie is overdeveloped and overtouristed but still interesting and beautiful. I found a nice budget hotel room on the side of a hill below the bus terminal, one which is completely overlooked by the crowds of well-heeled weekenders. He initially asked 1000 but I bargained it down to 750 ($8 US) using the online booking price. It's got a nice forest view outside the room window; no traffic noise either. Temps are very mild at this elevation; only 78 F inside in mid-afternoon. The locals are fit and used to walking on hills, but the flatland vacationers are lazy as fuck and want to drive their cars everywhere. With roads being extremely narrow, this creates traffic jams everywhere. Impatient drivers leave no room for pedestrians to pass either. One of them began pushing me and my bags against a wall as I made my way through a traffic jam; I had to shout at the driver and he corrected his steering.The line to buy bus tickets in Dehradun was a shitshow as well, because the ticket seller only sold reserved seats on buses which were waiting in the parking lot. There were about ten people in line in front of me, but it still took over an hour of waiting to get my ticket, because each person was buying multiple tickets. A pale-skinned office manager type began saying something about an emergency as he pushed his way past all the other (darker-skinned) people to the front of the queue. Well, almost. He encountered my elbow in his side, and I refused to let him past me. He desperately tried reaching out and yelling at the ticket seller, but the ticket seller was already dealing with others and ignored him. I pushed harder, he turned to complain and I told him firmly "there is a line, go back and wait". Others then began remonstrating with him, telling him to hire a taxi if there is really an emergency. Surely he wasn't too poor to afford a taxi ride? Shamed, he retreated and went his way.
>>2877533Traditional India is 100% non-English and doesn't even use Roman numerals, but all the modern boutique cafes, luxury condos, vacation resorts etc. use English almost exclusively. Same goes for the ultra-modern parts of India, like IFFCO Chowk in Gurugram. You'll hardly see any Hindi signage in businesses there.Picrel is view from my hotel window. I might stay here a while. The Jeet Restaurant nearby is very expensive, so much so that the waiters kinda turned their nose up at me when I entered alone, but one street over is a row of dumpy working-class eateries serving acceptable food for low prices.
The outside of my hotel. Funny how the cheapest rooms I've encountered in India are in the most touristy locations, but a couple hundred yards in the wrong direction. The last time I paid this little for a room was in Mahabaleshwar, another ultra-touristy hill station where I got a room for 800. That room also had decent amenities. The ultra-cheap smelly rooms with nothing more than a cot, a shitting hole and a spigot are not even on my radar. Besides, such miserable flophouses refuse foreigners 99 times out of 100.Girls always smile at me when I block rude men from getting their way, kek
>>2877677>Girls always smile at me when I block rude men from getting their way, kek
Mussoorie's Mall Road at night. Cars and bikes aren't supposed to be allowed on the street in the evening, but the gatekeepers let them in anyway. Anti-social elements drive their bikes recklessly through the pedestrian crowds. Police don't do shit. Classic anarchy problem. How to respond to punks who have zero regard for others? Do you let them do as they please until they commit some grave crime? That seems to be the norm in India...and even then, they usually weasel their way out of the consequences thanks to their influential connections. >The carelessness of youth, how tragic. Here's some money for your loss, now shut up and go away.Public transport up here in the Himalayas is proving to be difficult. Evidently 550 buses spread across a vast and rugged state amounts to bus service on par with America - once per day for most routes, with inconvenient departure times like 5:30 AM or 10:30 PM. The ticket wala in Mussoorie flatly told me that I cannot buy a ticket to Uttarkashi from Mussoorie, even though the Internet says that the bus from Dehradun to Uttarkashi passes through Mussoorie. He said I have to go back to Dehradun to go up to Uttarkashi. I'm gonna try my luck at the taxi stand, where they said a share taxi to Barkot might depart sometime early in the morning. After that, it's probably gonna be hitchhiking.
The Buddha Temple in a large Tibetan compound made for a nice daytrip on foot to a ridgetop with a view of this beautiful forest preserve. Most of the compound was extremely peaceful; you could feel the tension of the Indian streets melting away as you walked through the cool shade. But of course the rich lazy tourists wanted to park as close to the temple path as they possibly could, so the peacefulness was marred by a bunch of impatient drivers honking as they hit a dead-end on a narrow street. There should've been a gate guard stopping outsider vehicles from entering, but there wasn't, and new vehicles kept arriving as others tried to reverse their way out of the shitshow. At this point I'm ready to say that Indians really do ruin India with their inconsiderate behavior. And no, it's not the dalits or the "shit skins" who are the problem. It's the urban upper classes and their spoiled nepo babies who are by far the most obnoxiously entitled. Nobody can tell them anything, they do whatever they want.
Sometimes veg food isn't enough, and you crave protein. Half an Afghani tandoori chicken costs about $4. The flavor was good, but not superb. The inside of the chicken pieces was bland, which means the marination process was not done right. Meat and protein is expensive in India, but more and more people can afford to stuff their faces at a restaurant every day. Gotta say, these mountain drivers of Uttarakhand are much more reckless than their counterparts in Maharashtra, particularly during this tourist high season when the roads are clogged with horrible traffic. On the long bus ride to Srinigar we passed by multiple accidents, including a vehicle tipped on its side. Backed up traffic swelled to block the entire road at one point, and the bus driver leaned out the window yelling at the guys who were blocking our path. With the mountain highway being relatively wide, the bus driver drove pedal to the metal whenever possible and played chicken with oncoming vehicles on several occasions, moving over just enough to avoid a collision.
By Srinigar I am referring not to the capital of Kashmir, but to the bustling village tucked away in the Alakananda River valley deep in the rough scrubby mountains of Uttarakhand. 33 km downriver, the Alakananda meets the Bhagirathi to form the famous Ganges River at the village of Devprayag. 69 km downriver of Devprayag, the Ganges exits the Himalayas at Rishikesh. I initially planned to stop in Rishikesh, but decided to skip it, for better or worse. Rishikesh itself is a decent city by Indian standards. The surroundings are diverse and beautiful; a thickly forested plain to the west, a mountainous national park across the river to the east, and numerous hill-station villages to the north. Hotels in Rishikesh seemed overpriced and limited in selection. The city has been slammed with visitors now that the famous Char Dam Yatra pilgrimage has officially commenced. The highway heading up into the mountains was a hellscape of bumper-to-bumper vacation traffic. Wild-looking pilgrims wearing orange and red tramped along the roadside. Many of them young men who have rejected the pursuit of wealth. The paradox of India. Even 100 kilometers deep into the mountains, the river valley sits at an elevation of only 570 meters. This makes for a hot, semi-arid climate with steep scrubby slopes all around. Of course, if you keep going upriver, you eventually begin gaining serious elevation. The Mana Pass road follows the river all the way up to 4800 meters of elevation, where it flows out of snowy glaciers. Glaciers give the water its milky blue color.Rubbish is much less visible up here than in flatland India. And why should it be visible, when there are steep dropoffs in every direction? Step up to the edge of the guardrail and look down. You will see all the garbage strewn across the hillside below. Easy to frame your photo of the lovely vista so you don't see it...
Too many cars and shuttles on the roads, too many taxis, too many houses, resorts, restaurants and maggi points clinging to steep hillsides. The Himalayas arguably feel more full than most other places I've been to in India; tens of thousands of people crammed into a landscape with next to no flat habitable space. Tremendous efforts have been made to blaze roads across the steepest terrain, connecting all the little mountainside villages to the modern consumer economy. This has resulted in an explosion of vehicle traffic, people hurrying to and fro in pursuit of money just like everywhere else. And because there are so many luxury properties and fine restaurants available, the tourists come in ever-growing hordes. Of course they don't find the escape they were hoping for, because they're still surrounded by the same new-money urban assholes they deal with every day on their urban commute. Not upper class, but new money. They typify the worst of Indian attitudes and behavior. Picrel is the only snap I managed along the bus trip. There were many scenic overlooks, quaint suspension bridges swaying over the river, whitewater rapids cascading far below in a roadless gorge, shelves of rock tilted up at near-vertical angles as the Indian subcontinent crashed into the Asian landmass with unstoppable force. The path the river takes through the mountains is incredible. You keep thinking it must end, there's no way it can keep going...but it does, through one curve after another. Only with a motorbike can you truly experience the Himalayas. But the risk is enormous. You need nerves of steel as the bus barrels toward you headlong, leaving barely a meter of passage between it and the dropoff. And this isn't some one-time crazy experience; it's every five or ten minutes, all day, every day while you ride in the mountains.
Very common for vehicles to pass a motorbike and then move into its path, forcing it to hit the brakes to avoid being ran off the road. If your idea of freedom on two wheels involves easy cruising on a wide-open road, don't even bother trying to ride in India. Somehow, Uttaranchal people never seem to lose their temper with all the endless bullshit that they have to deal with on the road. Riding the bus frees you from responsibility for the driving, but by no means does it free you from the bullshit. I had to wait at a ticket window for two hours to buy a bus ticket on the best-served route in the whole state. The guy behind me was on the verge of having a panic attack as the line crept forward. Just as I reached the window, the bus sold out...and we all had to wait in our places for another hour until the next bus arrived and they could start assigning seats on it. Then I get back to Dehradun, and how many buses are scheduled todepart the bus station for the entirety of the afternoon? One! So of course I stepped on board, because it was headed in the general direction of Nepal. And that's how I ended up in Srinigar. Budget hotels here are dank and antiquated. After an attempt to charge 1800 for one such room, lowered to 1400 "final offer" after hesitation, I went to a different hotel and got an A/C room for Rs 1150, the rate personally offered by the hotel owner over the phone. 3" foam mattress, thrumming window A/C unit, geyser which puts out barely lukewarm water into a dirty plastic bucket that I had to wipe the scum out of with my bare hands, a toilet which has literal strands of poo algae waving in the bowl, that's how many years since it has been scrubbed. Yep, now I see why the tourists are all going for the Rs 2000+ rooms.
>>2877883>It's the urban upper classes and their spoiled nepo babies who are by far the most obnoxiously entitledDid these retards miraculously become rich through sheer luck, or has being wealthy made them stay indoors too much, rendering them dysfunctionally out of touch retards?In the west, wealthy people are generally educated and considerate, and their evil or bad manners remain hidden from public view. Of course there are the gaudy quick rich retards in every culture.Also, are Indian people discerning? Can they recognize each other's emotions and morality from each other's gaze?
>>2878153>geyser which puts out barely lukewarm water into a dirty plastic bucket that I had to wipe the scum out of with my bare hands:vomit emoji:Btw you write like a professional, do you write for work?
I've literally never visited this board before someone linked me some time wasting bullshit thread. First on catalog. Couldn't stop reading. This nigga needs to set up a blog or write for some meme magazine like Atlas Obscura. 10/10 thread. I have zero interest in visiting India now though, because I already have colitis and it sounds like I'd be shitting and vomiting to death in hours.
>>2878238They live in enclaves sequestered from the general population. Most of them have live-in servants that cook, clean, and drive them. Some reached there through merit but some are nepobaby retards or simply farmed the west and came back
>>2878238>Western wealthy people are more considerateThat's because poors in America are much more touchy and quick to take offense. They genuinely believe they have just as many rights as the millionaire owning class does. American workers expect the manager or customer to ASK them to do something, and then when the worker complies, to thank him for doing his job. In India, nope. Managers or customers yell out a command, and the help scurries to obey. No street sweeper or bricklayer in India thinks he is equal to the factory estate owner. To them, the natural order of human society dictates that he is an exalted and untouchable figure who can do whatever he pleases. But in this age of CCTV or cellphone footage going viral on social media, the moneyed people in India are more cautious than they used to be. They can't physically abuse the help anymore, because they fear the resulting public humiliation if footage gets leaked. But the lack of empowerment among the lower classes is also why India feels so safe for a white man. You can trust people to know their place and not trespass your social boundaries. And if they do step over the line, you can dress them down for it and they'll just act sheepish, they won't get violent with you.>>2878275You could eat biscuits (cookies) all day. They are nutritionally enriched. There's plenty of packaged ice cream, soft drinks and other snacks available as well. BTW it's amazing how much less chronic gut inflammation I've had since I quit dropping chlorine tabs in tap water, or filling my bottles at various dispensers, and started drinking only bottled mineral water from convenience stores. If you live downstream of any kind of population center and you get your water from the riparian water table, you are drinking sewage. Many RO dispensers are a scam as well.
Despite the 37 C heat, I went for an afternoon walk up this ravine, which has a lovely natural spring gushing out clear water into a pocket forest full of blossoming shrubs. Wildlife from the mountains all around comes down here to drink and snooze in the deep shade, with very few people passing by. On the way back, I saw a very small deer standing in the path, staring at me. I thought it was a helpless fawn. But just as I was about to take a picture, it bounded up a very steep hillside with amazing power. Clearly not a baby. Then it barked twice. It was a muntjac deer. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0eLCZv3AXek
The stench of shit near this squalid camp of untouchables was awful. Filthy kids saw me walking on top of the flood wall and began begging for chapati. IDK why they never bathe, even when they live right next to a river. The kids always look so inbred as well, with many of them cross-eyed or otherwise facially misshapen. But miserable as they are, they have a right to live just like all the other miserable creatures in India. Sick cows laying on a bridge, snot coming out of their nose and their backside smeared with diarrhea from the diseased waste they live on. A dog with a front paw that is completely broken and flopping back and forth as it limps along. What can you do but be glad to be right in the middle...neither successful nor broke, neither glutted nor desperate, neither young nor old, neither handsome nor ugly, neither thriving nor diseased.
>>2870315Those shoes are wholesaled to holocaust museums
Tomorrow I will go to Pauri, high up on the mountain and about 8 C cooler than Srinigar. The hotel selection is very limited up there; evidently it is overlooked by the tourist throngs, who are mainly interested in the spiritual journey upriver to Kedernath and Badrinath.Following the herd doesn't appeal to me. Why venture deep into the mountains to the base of the great snowbound peaks, only to be surrounded by snarls of Delhi/Haryana/UP number plates honking aggressively on narrow streets and shitty hotel rooms offered at ripoff prices? And no, it's not just a foreigner surcharge, it's an outsider surcharge. Indian tourists complain on Reddit about hotels demanding Rs 2500 minimum for a basic room. If you try to negotiate during a period of high demand, when the night is guaranteed to end with every room full, the staff will basically tell you to go and try your luck elsewhere. Customers and their money are plentiful; available rooms are scarce. The law of supply and demand does not work in your favor. OTOH, I got a discount on a room here in Srinigar - or rather, paid the non A/C rate for an A/C room - because there is a large selection of dilapidated budget hotels in the city center. Of course, the staff turned off my A/C breaker the next day a minute after I returned from my walk and turned on the unit, but I went downstairs and made them turn it back on. Indian hotels are so bad with that shit, turning off power to all rooms at noon regardless of whether they are occupied. Often I find the breaker box and turn the power back on myself, but sometimes they hide them in the manager's office.
Delicious veg pizza for only $1.60, with a yeasty crust and plenty of cheese. It amazes me how developed this town is. You'd hardly realize you are 100 km deep in the mountains. Where does all the money come from up here? How do people afford to build nice houses everywhere you look? How can food and drinks be just as cheap as in the flatlands when they have to be trucked in over such a long distance? Who pays for all the expensive zig-zag mountain road infrastructure that constantly has to be maintained and repaired? I'm beginning to suspect that these Himalayan districts are a giant money hole that pulls in an outsized measure of public & private revenue from the rest of the country. Of course, if you share this view with the locals, they would angrily reply,>Without our water resources, all of North India would be a desert wasteland. How can you call us moochers when our water quenches the thirst of one billion people?
>>2878413That's quite remarkable. It was difficult enough finding pizza in Ha Long Bay. Maybe I can find a photo of it.
>>2878444Italian food in India is surprisingly good, because here they have real cream, cheese and butter. India is the world's largest dairy producer after all. Only downside is the lack of parmesan cheese. Tomato sauce isn't quite up to Western expectations, but this pizza place used its own special sauce which tasted pretty damn good.Once again my plan to go off the beaten path fell through, as there was no collective transport going to Pauri. Yes, the bus station dispatcher told me yesterday that a bus leaves for Pauri at 9 AM, but when I showed up at 9 AM, they told me there was no bus. Everyone directed me to the taxi stand, but the fixed-rate mafia would charge something like $14 for the 30 km ride to a destination that is only 8 km up the mountain slope from Srinigar. And then I'd be stuck up there.OTOH, there are numerous private buses traversing the river corridor, with one passing by every few minutes. That's how many people are visiting the mountains this time of year. Fares are roughly the same as the public buses, a very reasonable 2 rupees per km. Seats are larger and more comfortable on the private buses. I encountered a bus continuing upriver to Badrinath, one of the four sacred endpoints of the Char Dam Yatra pilgrimage. 60 km upriver I hopped off at Karnaprayag. The driver stopped very close to a curving wall, turned off his engine, and then just as I was about to squeeze my way past, he started it up and began moving forward. I hurriedly stepped back on board and let loose some profanity. Some drivers are very careless up here. It's a wonder there aren't many more accidents than there already are.
Would be nice to crack open some cold beers on my riverside balcony, but finding the beer monopoly store can be a chore. There's still a fuckton of liquor bottles strewn around town - Indian men love whiskey and drink more of it than any other country. Map locations are often erroneous, so it's best to ask the local men where you can buy beer. A liter costs Rs 360 ($4 USD), and you rarely have more than four choices. (Typical in Asia; only in America or Europe can you go into a beer shop and pick from 100+ different varieties of brew.) Down in Maharashtra, a liter of Royal Challenge - a perfectly drinkable AB Inbev beer - could be had for Rs 200-240.
>>2878594Being lactose tolerant in India and capitalizing on the subsidized dairy is OPCucks pay billions in tax to subsidize dairy but they're mostly lactose intolerant lol. China is the same
My Himalayan friendship ordeal is over. It started with an English-speaking Indian army veteran around 45 years old, a rough 45 at that, stopping his car as I was walking on the edge of Karanprayag. He talked like he has a yoga retreat up in the Himalayan forest where I was welcome to come and stay for as long as I liked. Pure air, rich greenery, and total relaxation. A far cry from the cramped bustle of this river-valley market village. I hurriedly gave him my number, as cars began honking impatiently behind him, and he went his way.Later on we talked over the phone and he said that if I came to Kulsari, a village about 40 km away, I would be his guest. He would introduce me to the mystical practice of yoga - which is only for men, not for women, he said. There was also a marriage party that he was invited to and he wanted to bring me along as well. Cultural immersion? Okay, time to dive in headfirst.I take two shared taxis to Kulsari, give him a call and get waved over to his car. There is another guy inside wearing designer sunglasses and a big gold watch - he had come back to his squalid mountainside family home after two years' working in Oman. First thing my new friend does is tell me to buy them some beers. Two beers. Okay. Then it becomes three beers, at 200 rupees apiece. But no, I agreed to buy two beers. So I buy the beers and we set off climbing up the mountain road. Many villagers don't have cars and must climb the long switchbacks on a daily basis. They are always glad to hitch a ride in a passing vehicle. The two guys in front keep clowning around and pulling the steering wheel this way and that. Two old village women in the back seemed to disapprove, but didn't say anything. The lower classes in India rarely reprimand those who are more fortunate, i.e. car owners and their flashy friends.
We go up to a beautiful stream of water cascading out of a primeval rainforest and start a drinking bout. A bottle of liquor and some cups appear, and the beer gets poured into it.>"I love Mother Goddess Nature!">*throws a plastic cup across the road and laughs as it falls down the waterfall*>"it's good to sit in contact with the earth">*pats the asphalt under his butt*>"the air up here is 100% oxygen, so pure and fresh">*lights up a tenth cigarette in 20 minutes, starts hacking up some nasty mucus*Yeah, we were off to a good start. I sipped a little beer but refused the whiskey. The Omani worker friend began inviting me to his house in broken English. Yogaman got jealous and began arguing with him, pinching his cheeks and deriding his social standing as unworthy of showing hospitality to a foreigner. He told me that his friend was of a lower caste, and therefore it was forbidden for him to eat anything served by his family. I said that it would be rude to refuse an invitation, and eventually Yogaman came around and agreed to visit his friend's family for the first time. We pulled up on the side of a mountain, where the guy began hollering at some women on the slope below telling them to hurry the fuck up or something. When they arrived at the top with backpack baskets, he shoved boxes of liquor bottles into the baskets and ordered them to return down the mountain.>That's his wifeOh. I thought she was his slave. She had the unreactive demeanor of a slave who only obeys and never is allowed to express any opinion of her own. We descend the trail, which was treacherously steep in a couple spots, and arrive at the homestead. Swarms of flies and a strong odor of dung filled the air. The porch was made with large rocks laid flat in the ground and covered with fecal mud. We sat down on the porch, shook hands with the father of the household, and another round of whiskey drinking commenced.
Yogaman becomes extremely obnoxious and demanding with the family members, talking to the father of the house like a servant. The father only agreed "uh huh" every few seconds. Hot food was served. Very poor food, rice and a puddle of watery vegetable stew, but it was clean and fit for consumption. I finished my dish, but Yogaman refused to touch his. He only drank more whiskey and ate a few slices of cucumber, socially dominating everyone around him. Small girl children looked warily at the drunk men, ignored by all the adults. One of them smiled at me and began playing peekaboo from an upstairs window, but then decided that she would rather hide away and be ignored. Another one hid under the blankets on the bug-ridden mattress while the men drank in chairs nearby. I didn't realize it until the blankets began moving. Grandma ripped a homemade bong full of marijuana shake every few minutes to cope with the shittiness of her family life. Yogaman began negotiating with her to buy some hash while one of the girls clung to her back like a monkey, staring blankly at the men arguing. Grandma became angry and began demanding more than 500 rupees for the bag of weed and a one gram piece of hash. At one point she started trying to grab some money out of Yogaman's pockets. He forcefully pushed her away, and she retreated upstairs giving him a hateful look. The father of the house was powerless to do anything. He couldn't afford to anger somebody of a higher caste who was also part of the taxi driver's club, essential for transport in the mountains. Then Yogaman tried to get all buddy-buddy with his "older brother", as he called the father of the house, who passively allowed himself to be hugged and backslapped and kissed repeatedly on the cheeks. Humiliated by such rude treatment of his parents, his Omani worker friend disappeared and wouldn't come back outside. Finally Yogaman turned to me and said "let's go". No goodbyes and no thank yous, only a few terse parting comments
Next we went to visit his taxi driver friend from Rishikesh, who ran a drinking and gambling establishment. Hash cigarettes were rolled and passed around as the whiskey was poured. The group generally ignored me, which was fine, though Rishikesh bro kept staring at me and then looking away when I looked at him. The hash hit with a barely perceptible buzz, but my already bad mood was now becoming tinged with distrust bordering on paranoia. Yogaman began talking complete philosophical gibberish at intervals, and I couldn't think of anything to reply. A few arguments boiled up and then vanished as suddenly as they arose. Lacking a lighter, I gave mine to Yogaman and it promptly disappeared into somebody's pockets, as it was much better than the local lighters.>feel relaxed my brother, everyone here is good!It's worth nothing that honest and trustworthy people don't feel the need to tell you that they are honest and trustworthy. Yogaman seemed to believe my inability to respond meant that I was falling under his spell, like other foreigners in the past evidently had. He started getting very possessive of my attention and confronting others who tried to engage with me. >You are my brother! You are my best friend! Tell me what you want, I will do it for you!This constant manipulative pressure - the term "lovebombing" comes to mind - only hardened my distrust instead of alleviating it. But the hash had blanked my mind. I couldn't think of any words to say to express the building unease I was feeling. This passivity allowed things to worsen.
At last it was time to go to the wedding party. I was very cold and hungry, and so was Yogaman. But he was determined to wait until the feast was served before stuffing himself. There was a big procession starting in the street and making its way up the stairs to the marriage venue. Pro-grade fireworks were set off, some of which exploded way too close to the ground. The bride was carried, while the groom and the two fathers rode horses. A throng of well-dressed villagers along with a musical band (complete with two bagpipers - BAGPIPERS!) surged their way up the narrow staircase into the venue, which was already packed full. We climbed into the rooftop and then hopped across a gap to the neighboring roof, which had tables full of whiskey drinkers. And no, this wasn't no cultured sipping either. This was wholesale glugging of bottle after bottle until everyone was drunk and unruly. People began grabbing at me telling me to sit at this table. No, sit at that table. Here, drink this drink. Some disgusting raw veggies with mint chutney were the only snacks provided. Loaded comments were made in Garhwali (the language spoken up here). There were all kinds of hidden tensions within the group, snakelike welcomes that didn't show any welcome in the eyes, bickering suddenly erupting and then vanishing. One guy began trying to grab money out of another guy's pockets. My unease continued to grow. They kept insisting that I get drunk, but I refused to. Thankfully, a plate of hot fried bhindi (okra) arrived, and eating provided a little distraction.
Then everyone began clearing the rooftop on some signal. I hesitated to descend, and Yogaman along with another snaky gay who was being very weird around me began grabbing my arm, trying to pull me forcefully, and then bickering with each other at the same time over who had the right to manhandle me. This shit was too much. I broke their grip and confronted Yogaman over the lighter I had given him and never gotten back. He snarked back saying that the wedding was provinding so much food and drink free of charge, and I care about a missing lighter? >Here, take this lighter (that I never saw him buy)>No, that's not my lighter. You stole my lighter from me. >It's nothing, brother. Drink and dance and enjoy yourself!>No. I'm done. You take my things, that's it. Our friendship is over.>Wait now. My brother...>Words words words. That's all you have to offer. I'm leaving. Open your car and I am taking my bags out.>You say such things, what has happened to you? *more drunken rambling and attempts to grab my face with both hands*>I push his hands away and leave the party.Forgot to add that he offered a guest room for me in his village, but then said that we would be sleeping together and maybe even sharing a bed. I was supposed to leave my luggage in the room, but I didn't like the idea of spending the night with him, so I left the luggage in his car. But now it was stuck inside the car. There was a big concrete block nearby stopping vehicles from falling off the mountainside, and I stretched out on it to take a nap. It was very peaceful. Waxing moon overhead, a river trickling far below, a gentle cold wind blowing from the mountain. But the wind grew colder with every passing hour. I was wearing my puffy jacket, hungry and parched and stuck on the side of a mountain. With no idea what Yogaman would tell the other guests, I didn't feel like I could re-enter the wedding party to get food or water.
By 2 AM, I was parched and out of water. The only option was a natural spring along the roadside in the next village, which was across a huge ravine. You had to walk in a V shape to get to it. Cold as I was, a long walk sounded like the right idea. Around 3 AM, Yogaman drove past me and stopped short seeing me in his headlights. >What has happened? I don't believe this! I shrug and take my bags out of his back seat, tell him I will be walking the 5 km down the mountain to Khulsari village. He gets very upset by this, says that I cannot walk through the mountains alone. There are tigers & leopards everywhere. He becomes very insistent, gets out of the car and tries to grab me again. I push him away, then he said "oh, you want to fight?" I shout "FUCK OFF!!" in his face and start walking down the mountains with my bags. A few minutes later, he pulls up again. I threaten him with the police. He then says that he is obligated to ensure my safety, and that he cannot let me walk alone in the nighttime. He is very tired and cannot sleep until I am also safely resting. If I don't want him sleeping with me, he can sleep in his own house. Seeing this as the best way to part ways with him, I agree and let him drive me up to his relative's guest room. >Are you sure you want to be alone?>Why yes, I do want to be alone. Goodbye. Good night. >You will call me when you leave the room? You can do that, okay?>No.He finally leaves me in peace. The room is warmer than outside, and the bed has a good blanket. The boys in the next room blare their TV, but after such a shitshow, this petty annoyance hardly even registers. I fall into dreams with the room light on, still wearing my jacket and socks. The room is not half bad, but I feel very uneasy within it. All kinds of commotion erupts outside at 8 AM. A woman begins shouting angrily at a man, and he shouts back. Other voices join in. Eventually it subsides and quiet returns. I pack my bags and step out down the street directly.
>>2879036>he offered a guest room for me in his village, but then said that we would be sleeping together and maybe even sharing a bedLook at you, finally gonna lose your v-card ;)
Two thirds of the way down, I stop to eat the three fruits in my backpack. (Lesson learned: as a backpacker, never rely on drivers to feed you, or to even allow you to stop in town and get food. Always carry some food; you never know when you'll have to walk a long distance on nothing more than what you have on hand.)And guess what. Yogaman drives by and spots me sitting under the forest shelter. This time we are both sober and rational. He apologizes for being such a drunk crazy fool, and I apologize for using harsh language. But I tell him that I have to go my own way. He tries to restore the friendship, tells me that he will drive me the 2 km down to Khulsari, get some food and then help me find a room. For whatever reason, I agree. And once I am back in his car, he sets off doing what he wants, which was to blow through Khulsari without stopping, talking about all the amazing Himalayan places he wants to show me. I ask him where he is going, he says Tharali. In Tharali he stops to buy some petrol, deliver something at an office, and then picks up two passengers. So much for food...he blows past all the restaurants and begins climbing the mountain. I again ask him where he is going; he says Gwaldam, because he wants to show me something cool.Pragmatically, I look on the map and see Gwaldam as along the route to Nepal. Yes, it means I am leaving Joshimath, Kedernath, Badrinath and all of those hyper-spectacular high valleys behind. Okay. It was always going to be a choice of going up and back along the tourist trail, or continuing east toward Nepal. And eastward has been the path so far, so let's roll with it.We drop off the riders at a wedding and 15 km later arrive in Gwaldam. I offer to buy him lunch. We go to a local shop and get spicy mutton masala. Having eaten very little in 24 hours, I enjoy the meal, but he struggles to finish his serving. The price was lower than expected. Rs 240 included half mutton, three roti and half rice for each of us.
Immediately after I pay for his lunch, he begins asking me for petrol money. I tell him I already paid for his lunch, that's 240 rupees for 26 km of driving. He says that petrol costs money, and that I should compensate him for all the driving around he has done. I say that I would pay if I was being driven where I wanted to go, like a regular taxi passenger, but he always ignored my requests. I did not ask to go to Gwaldam. He then said it's in the direction I wanted to go. I said I wanted to see the high peaks, but now that is no longer an option. At last he said it's okay, I wish you the best. I wished him the same and we parted ways.Ominous rumbling commenced as a thunderstorm built overhead, and gusty winds kicked up swirls of dust. Interestingly, the tremendous snowy peak of Trisul, hidden by clouds when he wanted to show it to me, had revealed itself in its sunny glory against a stormy foreground.There were several lodges in town, but all of them refused me a room for one reason or another. With rain beginning to pelt the streets, I took refuge inside a shared taxi continuing on to Garur. But then a helpful fellow passenger pointed out an arriving UTC bus heading to Bageshwar, and I boarded to continue into the tranquil village of Bairnath. (Yes, hurried Google Maps searches before stepping on board are often necessary when figuring out transport on the fly.) Picrel is the view from my hotel window on a thundery, wet afternoon in Bairnath. Hot season, what's that? The Himalayas have very different weather from the plains, which are extremely hot and dry this time of year. Up here, Western disturbances track along the southwest slope of the high mountains bringing thunderclouds followed by cool, steady stratus drizzle. Traffic is light here, away from the famous pilgrimage routes, and people seem welcoming. Feels so good to be free again.
>>2879041Nice work, OP. You probably don't know me, but I made most of the India generals up until about 2017. I lived in India for a few years and was just out that way last month, lol. In all this time, I don't think I've seen more than a handful of people make detailed, India-specific threads that didn't consist largely of either (a) bad-faith meme-ing or (b) requests for information on prostitutes. Nice to see an exception to the rule, particularly when it's accompanied by pictures and detailed posts. I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip!
>>2878594>largest dairy producer after allhow do you know they aren't milking those diseased trash-eating cows in the street?
>>2879061Hey anon, I'm not OP but I moved to india in 2017 and loved the india generals, thank you
>>2879041
>>2879069Just like Bisleri is the gold standard brand for drinking water, Amul is the gold standard brand for dairy products all across India. But yeah, it's possible that the rancid-tasting dahi you got served at the local thali joint might've been made with milk from a street cow fermented with whatever yucky cultures they have on hand. Bageshwar (picrel) is a very pleasant mountain village. The mountains near here are not stark towers of rock slashed by rubbly ravines, but rather rounded hills covered in thick pine forests. Everything is surprisingly green in the area. The morning sky was baby-blue clear, but by afternoon it filled with billowing clouds which bring erratic rainshowers. It's like a mini monsoon. Historically India has been dry and hot in the month of April, but this year has seen numerous disturbances which spawn powerful storms from thin air as they pass over the land. Bengaluru just got hit by a monster T-storm straight off the Texas plains. Ten jeets died, and high temps in the city dropped 8 C afterwards.Finding a room here was a slog, because it's wedding season in the Himalayas. Entire hotels are monopolized by wedding parties, and the less important guests then fill up all the neighboring hotels. After a dozen refusals, I found one hotel that was out of the way and got a room for 800 per night. The bed is cheap, but the room is on the quiet side of the building and has a decent view. No need for A/C at 3000' elevation; interior temp is a comfy 26 C.
Travel in India can be a real chore. I left the pleasant Velhe/Rajgad area on March 25th; from then 'til today, every one of the twenty places I've stayed along the way has been unsatisfactory in some fundamental way. Travel burnout was beginning to catch up. But here in Bageshwar I have found a happy place once again. There's so much right about this village. Everyone is remarkably friendly. Lots of quirky personalities as well. The streets are well-drained and completely devoid of mud or filth (apart from a few rubbish piles in the old market area). The river flows clear and cold down from the distant mountains, unlike many other Himalayan rivers which are plagued with massive gravel operations, landslides, and other activities which turn the river turbid with silt. Even the few bits of rubbish strewn across the riverbank by careless tourists were collected and then carried away. Not lit on fire, but removed from the area. Supposedly the river fish from this area are very good, served at local eateries.People actually care here. The riverfront temple, bridge and walkway with its seating pavilions is built to a high standard of quality, with painted murals lining the path. The young guys hanging out in the park were quiet and well-behaved, speaking seriously with each other. Traffic becomes very light as soon as you leave the principal intersections behind. There are many forested hills surrounding the town, with temples and paths and other features worth exploring. A good range of food options are present here as well. Starting prices are very low at the old market eateries, but you can also enjoy upscale family dining as well. One fancy restaurant near my hotel had half a dozen blue-light fly traps. Some with sticky sheets, others with zappy grids. The air inside was filled with the sparky scent of freshly electrocuted pests. Now if only the rest of India could stop treating flies as sacred and holocaust them in the same manner.
Himalayan fish curry was tasty. Lots of bones in the small fish, but they had a lot of flavor. 100 rupees for a single fish, 200 for two. Restaurants treat me pretty well here. They don't market themselves, quite the opposite. They let me decide what I want, then when I call them over to place an order, they are polite and attentive.Barbershops are less honest. I asked for a shave, fifty rupees okay. After finishing the shave, he began trimming a little around my ears and then in the back. Then he started massaging my head while saying that I needed to get a moisturizing face wash. I realized what was going on and repeatedly refused the massage and face wash. He gestured me out of the chair and then asked for 150 rupees. I argued and said that I had only asked for a shave and not a haircut. He said okay, 100 rupees for the shave + some hair trimming. I offered 70, and we went back and forth for some time. I finally paid 100. This is one of the most common dishonest practices in India. Offering something you didn't ask for. You don't raise any objection, so it gets added to your bill. That plate of cucumber and onion they put on your table when you ordered your meal? It might be charged as a "green salad" when it's time to pay. 80-100 rupees. Budget hotels are notorious for offering a bottle of water at check-in, and then later on telling you that you have to pay a 25-50% surcharge on retail price for it. Fruit/sweet sellers may also keep trying to put more fruits or sweets in your bag than you want to buy.If you have any doubts or concerns, speak up. Don't be afraid to waste a jeet's time; they love talking more than anything. And don't be afraid to be perceived as a nag, a cheapskate, or an ungrateful bastard. It's your right as a customer to do business in a fair and open manner, and to withhold payment until any billing issues have been resolved.
Weather here is not at all what I expected from May in India. Temps are very mild, humidity is high, clouds fill the sky by mid-afternoon, and rain showers fall every evening. It has to be a southwest monsoon pattern...where else would all this tropical moisture be coming from, if not from the Bay of Bengal?After lunch I climbed up to a temple overlooking Bageshwar and then walked a lovely contour road through the pine forest. (Contour roads allow you to stroll along a steep mountainside without gaining or losing elevation.) Evidently a tornado passed through recently, because there were some destroyed sun pavilions around the temple, a tall metal lightpole folded over, and a large pine tree that was twisted until its trunk snapped. Like most rural villagers in India, people are generally shy here and not given to staring or shouting at a foreigner. It's very relaxing to walk through the countryside when traffic is light like it is here.
It's amazing how many resources the government devotes to road infrastructure up here in the mountains, despite the relatively low population. Look at a map and the entire rugged landscape is covered in zig-zag lines connecting innumerable villages with each other. Stand at an overlook at night, and it becomes clear just how many villages are scattered across the slopes. Constant maintenance of these roads is required due to relentless landslides. Sometimes done in very primitive fashion. Sledgehammer big rocks until they become little rocks, then shovel them over the edge or if that's not feasible, build a berm along the low side of the road. There's been more than a few places where the ability of the road edge to hold the weight of the vehicles passing over it has been questionable, but you simply have to trust the villagers who stacked a bunch of mortared rocks against the base of the road to keep it from collapsing.In short, roads have destroyed the natural beauty of the lower Himalayas by slashing lines across every slope and causing innumerable landslides and mudslides, which then cause catastrophic flooding for valley towns and wipe out the entire fish population of a river. But people want to cruise effortlessly up to their villages with a car full of merchandise instead of laboriously climbing steep paths with a heavy load on their back, so they will always clamor for more roads to be built.
Make no mistake, there are many pleasant roads and paths in this region, built in harmony with their environment rather than in opposition to it. They are relics of a past before modern prosperity and endless vehicle movement spread up from the flatlands into the mountains. But yeah, now we can get soda and ice cream and pizza and all that good stuff up here.
Five months of travel in India are complete, for a total in-country cost of $3172 USD (as per budgetyourtrip.com accounting). How it varied month to month...>Accomodation: $263-442 per month>Food: $150-189 per month>Local transport: $0-4 per month>Intercity transport: $7-31 per month>Living Expenses: $8-57 per month>Alcohol: $3-18 per month
>>2879430>>Accomodation: $263-442 per monthLiteral rape
>>2879430Are you Op?
>>2879501Yep. No sooner have you put one difficulty in the past and begun to enjoy your travel life again when the next ordeal arises...that's how it goes in India. At least there are very few mosquitoes up here, a far cry from the infestations so prevalent in the flatland cities.It sucks to realize that I do not have the vitality or the budget to explore the spectacular sights of the Himalayas. The high-valley cold is intolerable. The taxi rides are too expensive. My possessions are wholly unsuitable for a backcountry adventure. A little bit of coughing in the vicinity leaves me laid low with fever, and some salad from a local eatery seems to be brewing up a bacterial stew in the gut. Hard bed and a squat toilet for $8.50 per night. It's still better than being homeless, sleepless and sick in America desu. The future seems very foreboding; the only sensible choice is to enjoy whatever comforts you have while you have them.
>>2879696If you received donations with the condition that you'd write a some solid posts every 1-2 days, would it transmute your voluntary blogging into something less enjoyable?
It rained for hours and hours last night, which is very atypical for May. By afternoon the clouds cleared and the sun blazed down with incredible brightness from a pristine blue sky. For the first time, it was clear and cloudless enough to catch a glimpse of the snowy summit of Nanda Kot from my hotel room balcony, 50 km away. For a few minutes the valley was plunged into dusk while the summit still glowed brightly in the sun, wind stirring up the freshly fallen snowdrifts. Then it went gray as well. The laundry place gave me an extra pair of khakis. Choice A: go back, complain, return the extra item, leave a bad review. Or Choice B: keep the pants and say nothing. I chose B. If they put an extra item in my laundry that is not on the bill of service, it's their problem, not mine. Here you really have to embrace the "not my problem" attitude when things aren't a problem for you.>>2879727Not interested in being a travel grifter or marketer.
>>2879828>Choice B: keep the pants and say nothing. I chose B. If they put an extra item in my laundry that is not on the bill of service, it's their problem, not mine. Here you really have to embrace the "not my problem" attitude when things aren't a problem for you.>Not interested in being a travel grifter or marketer.Based
Munsyari struggles to appeal on a cold, damp afternoon. Thick gray cloud cover hides the snowy summits of the 6000 meter peaks that stand in a line not far from the mountainside village. The 145 km bus ride from Bageshwar took nine hours - that's how narrow and treacherous the roads were. At least we passed by this cool waterfall which cascades out of a cleft in the rock. Lots of vomiting on the bus; you always have to beware of the draft through the open window directing somebody's puke splatter onto your shirt when you're sitting in the row behind. I ate very little to avoid nausea, which of course made the cold weather hit harder when we climbed up to 2700 meters elevation. People on the bus tried to be hospitable, but with a severe headache plaguing me since the COVID fever passed, socializing wasn't on the agenda.Come to find out, none of the rooms up here have heat. Interior temps are 58 F. And the landlords I talked to wanted 1800-2000 for a large and decently furnished suite. When I balked, they offered a room for 1500. There was an actual budget hotel in town, but as is common with budget hotels in India, the receptionist abandoned his post and turned off his phone because he wanted to go do something else. I called the owner's cell numbers and they just hung up on me.Being less than 50 km from both Nepal and Tibet, there are a lot of people with Chinese eyes here. While these mountain dwellers never have to suffer in extreme heat like the other billion pajeets do, living in a cold environment with no ambient heating apart from cookfires is its own challenge. (Logging is strictly controlled up here, so people can't stack up cords of wood for a fireplace like they do in America.)
If only I could be a pajeet redditor posting a pic of a random mountain village with some caption like "waow, my time in the mountains was the most incredible life-changing experience, the memories will last a lifetime"But in reality, I shivered for hours in the damp chill, ate a barely edible veg thali which took 35 minutes to prepare at the only place that was open, felt taken advantage of by landlords trying to charge exorbitant room rates (3000 rupees per night if you want to use the kitchen in this place). Locals try to tell me that people are honest here in Uttarakhand. Untrue. They are not much different from anywhere else in India. If they see an opportunity, they will exploit it. In most of the world, you don't need any gear to go on day hikes, provided the weather forecast calls for mild conditions. But here you do, because I've seen how rapidly the weather can change. Forecasts are completely worthless up here. Sunny hazy skies one moment, you're mildly sweaty from climbing a small hill to an overlook, then ten minutes later thick dark clouds are racing by overhead and violent wind squalls are trying to tear the tin roofs off the vendor shacks. Then the cold rain comes down in sheets.
>>2880241>If only I could be a pajeet redditor posting a pic of a random mountain village with some caption like "waow, my time in the mountains was the most incredible life-changing experience, the memories will last a lifetime"But you've already been doing that though. lol
Madkote at the confluence of the rivers far below Munsyari is a completely different kind of place. It doesn't try to be hipster with English signage everywhere; it doesn't fake friendliness and then try to price-gouge its visitors. In fact, Madkote is a prime example of what the Himalayas were like before they became hyped and touristed. After some bullshit at the Munsyari taxi stand with drivers who wanted to charge me 2000 rupees ($22) for the 24 km ride down the mountain, I waited around until a share taxi offered a ride for 150. Lucky coincidence, the taxi driver had a relative who owned a pleasant guesthouse in Madkote. Price for a room? Only 500 rupees per night. Remarkable. For the first time in forever I can relax and stroll at leisure along the streets instead of constantly reacting to traffic and other pedestrians. Even though Madkote is very quiet, it still supplies the needs of dozens of remote hillside villages in the area, so it has a sizable selection of shops. But otherwise, this is clearly the far fringes of the Republic. Many sections of the national highway are not even paved. Business at the restaurants is extremely sluggish - but at least they are open and welcoming. There is no national bank ATM here. A thinning wallet is a cause for some anxiety, but the end of this India trip approaches in 6-20 days, so running down the cash stash is a must.
The kind of room you get for 500 rupees per night here. Worth noting is the remarkably high literacy and English proficiency up here in Uttarakhand. Even in these small mountain villages, so many people are basically conversant in English. This was absolutely not the case in Maharashtra, despite the state having nearly twice the GDP per capita. Heck, so many villagers and low-level wagies in MH were not even literate. I'd have to use the text to speech setting on Google Translate to be understood.Another thing worth noting: Airtel service is quite reliable up here in the rugged country, with only a few dead zones. I use phone hotspot for all of these uploads and rarely get a connection error. Down in Maharashtra, Airtel service was garbage, and I was seriously thinking of switching to Jio (because that's what everybody used down there). But nobody uses Jio up here, so I'm glad I stuck with Airtel. Uttarakhand people are very, very devout. But they don't push their religion on visitors. In Maharashtra young village boys demanded that I chant "Jay Shree Ram" on several occasions. That would never happen here. But when music is played on a loudspeaker up here, it's usually some kind of worship chant. Reddit Indians love blaming Delhi tourists for ruining the mountain towns with their litter. But the truth is, most of the rubbish strewn everywhere is strewn by the local residents. Only the reduced affluence of these remote places means that the quantity of rubbish is significantly less. Regular flood events also ensure that rubbish dumped over hillsides gets disposed of by washing away downriver. Not my broblem anymor :DD
>>2880309>>2880305well played on the taxi ride and the room
I had a delicious mutton thali at this restaurant, first proper filling meal in 48 hours. Note the complete lack of modern marketing. No AI-generated food pics. No name branding. No menu card. No wall menu. No Google Maps listing. Only a guy, his cooking setup, and some tables.BTW the first question you always ask when you step into a restaurant in India.>Veg or non-veg?
Do they have a McDonalds or KFC in that place? I would suffer if I couldn’t get one at least every 2 days.
>>2880241I was looking at these pictures wondering why Indian buildings don't appeal to me. Is it because they can't do symmetry or straight lines? Look at that building under construction on the left. That floor does not look leveled/flat at all. Similar situation with the roofs in the middle building. I can understand angling to get rainwater off, I guess, but they can still make a clean angle. But no, it looks here like it's raised on one just one side, so everything looks twisted and crooked.
Man this has been one of the greatest trv threads for a while
>>2880419It's a 2D snapshot of an extremely 3D landscape, with every house being built on a hillside slope. So yes, every house looks out of sync with its neighbors. The floors are always level, however. >>2880334No crispy chicken up here, only chicken pakora which is a sad, soggy imitation of western-style breaded/fried chicken bits. >>2880475Got out of bed not feeling any bowel movement whatsoever, then a second later shot a lump of masala paste poopoo into my undies. At least there was a bidet nozzle to hose them clean. (Many Uttarakhand rooms don't have bidet nozzles, only fixed bidets, unlike the rest of India.) Then I had to chase all the poopoo crumbs around on the bathroom floor with the nozzle until they went down the drain. There is a stunningly beautiful snowy peak of 6000+ meter elevation visible directly up a narrow river gorge from this village, but persistent cloud cover means that only the merest glimpses can be had now and then.
>>2880518>literally shitting your pantsHow the fuck aren't you dead by now? When do you make it to Nepal?
>>2880709It's been a miserable past few days, with persistently damp gray weather combined with a stubborn respiratory virus likely picked up on that day of socializing with all the different groups of drunks. Thanks for the parting gift! Hacking coughs are extremely prevalent among the men up here, because they all smoke heavily. Thankfully, the sun is shining this morning for the first time in almost a week, meaning temps might actually reach a balmy 20 C today. Locals in the street told me about a UTC bus going downriver to Jauljibi and Pithoragarh that leaves at 8 AM. So much more convenient than taking multiple share taxis along the same route. With ten minutes to spare I return to my hotel, pack my bags, stop briefly to buy a Mountain Dew, and then step around the corner to see the bus already departed the stop and heading down the hill at 7:59 AM. I was briefly upset, but then realized that another day here was acceptable. 16 C room temperature aside. Feels pretty awful when you soak the bed with night sweats in a chilly damp room. Bus drivers leaving a few minutes or even as much as 20-30 minutes before their scheduled departure time is very common in India. People telling you "there is no bus" when they mean "the bus already departed" is also very common in India. Strategic distrust of people's words will always serve you best here, no matter how friendly or sincere they seem.
>>2880731Are you now heading to Delhi? Many hate Delhi but I have a soft spot for it
A little glimpse of a snowy peak is better than nothing, I guess. Other peaks failed to come out from behind their caps of cloud. Despite a lot of walking around in the sunshine today, I didn't find anything of particular interest. Awfully strange how there are big vacant patches of flat land here and there around the village. Are they haunted or something? Flat land is at a premium here, but these prime lots remain completely untouched. >>2880738One night in Delhi near the old railway station is already complete. I did not find the dirty rat-warren architecture to be charming, nor were the people friendly. However, nobody tried to scam me either. >>2880709My departure flight is from Kathmandu, Nepal on June 8th. Using the 30 day Nepal visa option, that means I can leave India no earlier than May 11th. OTOH, I must leave India no later than May 31st. Banbasa is the border village down in the flatlands of Uttarakhand where international tourists are permitted to get a Nepalese visa on arrival before continuing on into Bhimdatta. Sharing taxis are a necessity due to the long distance between the villages. I don't think tourists are allowed to enter Nepal at Jhulaghat, which is the nearest crossing to Pithoragarh. But I'll ask around anyway.
While walking down the river road to check out the hot sulphur springs, a local man pulled up on his motorbike and offered me a ride. He owned a restaurant and guesthouse down by the springs. Four Israeli longhairs were currently staying with him. He looked kind of like Vincent from Pulp Fiction, and evidently thought his powers of charisma could cast a spell on any foreigner. After repeated pressure to eat some food at his restaurant, I settled for a basic breakfast - everything being charged at a foreigner price, of course. Then he offered a stay at his guesthouse for 400 per night. But I didn't want to stay 3 km from the village in some kind of bunkroom with a bunch of stoned Zionists, completely dependent on him to cook for me. He was so persistent, but my mind was made up. Food selection and prices were much better back in the village. >I will stay in the village.>But you will visit my restaurant tonight, yes? I can cook you mutton, 250 rupees.>I will stay up there.Eventually he realized that I wasn't going to be led along like a sheep, and he desisted. But while I was walking through a weird haunted parcel of forest next to the road on the way back, he called out to me from his motorbike wanting me to meet one of the longhairs. We shook hands, but I was not at all interested in chatting with an Israeli, and he was also quite cold and sneering as well, so after a few seconds he continued on down the road.The villagers evidently thought it good that their small children keep the Israelis company. They had several photos of him smiling with kids hanging around him. All around strange cultish vibes. I was glad to return to the village where people are stolidly normal.
In the interests of truthfulness, it must be admitted that the rubbish problem has infested even the most far-flung villages of India. Everywhere you go up here in the Himalayas, there are piles of rubbish strewn and dumped off the edges of roads, or from the back sides of buildings. Doesn't matter which kind of building. Every steep dropoff is a trash disposal, and if there is a water feature down below, so much the better to contaminate it with trash. Then the locals wonder why I refuse to drink their spring water...when it comes out from the bottom of a mountain that has villages all up along its flank, with rubbish-filled creeks and new toilets flushing shitwater into holes in the permeable ground. Every time they bring me a glass, there are numerous floating particles in it. In fact, every single glass of normal water I've been offered in India has been contaminated with dirt. The restaurant pitchers have grease slicks floating on the top, dead bugs, and crud on the bottom. Nobody cares. They slurp it down and say "this is good water! here, drink some!" I don't even like to accept hospitality from any Indian villager because they're always going to try and foist their dirty water on me.Not that drinking exclusively AquaFina has eliminated all problems. Extremely low customer volume here in the smaller villages means that mutton stew or dal might've been prepared in a big batch several days ago, reheated every time it is time to serve a customer. No, it doesn't make you sick per se, but the lack of freshness in the food on offer sure can result in a lot of rumbling and messy bowel movements. You can live the simple village life on $10 per day up here. But you are sacrificing a lot by doing so.
