09 October 2009

Indian culture shock

The first thing that strikes you when you cross the boarder into India is the mess. There is an unbelievable amount of litter in the streets which is just left to fester at the side of the road or piled up until it is nosed through by one of the many livestock that are ambling about. Even in the cities there's huge amounts of animals wandering about the streets: cows, water buffalo, goats and dogs, all intermingling with the pedestrians and vehicles. It makes for some very unusual traffic jams.

The other thing that is quite surprising is some of the "fairly intimate" things you see going on at the sides of the road. Such as people lathered up with soap as they have a bath in the trough under a water pump on the pavement. Stranger still are the countless people we've seen going to the toilet at the sides of the road or railway track in full view of the passers-by . . . And we're not just talking about number ones here! It seems a little odd in a nation that is fairly conservative, most Bollywood films still don't show kissing and you won't see local couples holding hands, that such things go on in full public
view.

I think after being on the road for nearly a year we thought that we were immune to a bit of culture shock but India had proved us wrong.

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