From a country like India you can expect only one thing: surprise you. And so it is. It happens continuously: cultural clashes here are as common as spicy in their food.
Today we are going to tell you all the curiosities and oddities of India that have left us with our mouths open 🙂
We knew it was a cheap country, but we didn't know how much! There are many people who say that prices have increased (inevitably) but if you travel without many pretensions and adapt to travel in India it can be extremely cheap. Yes, act like an Indian, otherwise your interlocutors will give you “indian prices for european people”. An advice: if you buy something packaged (potatoes, pastries, shampoo, etc ...) don't ask The price: it is written in the making! Ah! And when you pay, be careful with the turn... sometimes the cleats give it to you in two batches, and if you neglect and leave after they give you the first one ... some billetito stay!
(Before)
The train is a curiosity after another. There are two types of Indian traveler: those who, when the train arrives, go crazy to climb the first ones and those who, to climb, wait for the train to start. The first ones are our favorites: they run, push and fight as if getting on the train first meant saving humanity (mind that the tickets are with seats and everything!). The first time we traveled by train we arrived at the station and the typical ... people looking at us, smiling at us, trying to chat a little. All very friendly and funny. Especially an old lady with a pint of granny and prickly grandma. The balls: the train arrived and changed his face and everything, it looked like golum: "My tessssoro train" ... Lety was pushed to climb that neither Arnold Swaznegger had that strength in his time at Terminator!
(During)
Once you get on the train, you sit down, and you recover from the shoves of the old-golum (who meanwhile has smiled at you again, but you already lost confidence) the show begins: "Chai, chai, chai!" “Water, coke, mango juice” “Samosaaaa” “biryani veg, chicken byrianiiiii!”. Come on, just need an uncle selling electronic cigarettes and you will seem to be on a ryanair flight: They sell everything! Rober has proposed never to say NO to a food vendor on a train ride, we'll see how this ends ...
(After)
When the train approaches the station, people begin to be nervous and it is that they not only want to get on the first ones, but they want to get off the first ones. Without waiting for the train to stop, they start to get off. When it is still underway! What a hurry they have! And of course, those who are downstairs waiting to go up get nervous and start climbing before the whole rock goes down. A disaster!
Of course, old Terminator, sellers at all hours and turbulent descent included, The experience of traveling by train is very worthwhile: we love its madness.
The Indian streets look like an open-air zoo ... squirrels that run around everywhere, pigeons, crows, hawks and a hundred types of birds never seen, monkeys that if you are not careful they steal your food, the camera or the groom, goats and sheep, stray dogs, the odd kitten (few the truth!), camels, elephants ... and they, the undisputed queens of the roads: cows. Cows are sacred since represent fertility and motherhoodThey also say that if a cow touches you with the tail, it brings you luck ... Stealing on more than one occasion I try to be hit by the tail but there was no way!
The "NI" is the best of India. Many times, when you ask a question they answer you with the “ni”, that is they make a mixed movement with their heads between the SI and the NO of all life, which repeat about 4-6 times. But what does that mean? It depends! Most of the time it means YES (see if it is accompanied by a "ha"), sometimes NO and many times "I have no damn idea."
This should be the national motto: born to honk (and balls). India has sound. And it's the sound of the speakers. The mother who gave birth to them: biiiip over here, booooop over there, your eardrums will soon become expert bocinophiles ... you will recognize the means of transport that is approaching, you will avoid it so you do not crush it and it will be part of your daily routine. On the back of most vehicles, "Please horn" is read and here the horn is not used as in Spain that if you whistle it is to insult another driver or some clueless pedestrian (often retired people who are on their way to the works to see people work), or at most to congratulate the bride and groom who just got married! Here is an altruistic purpose: it is used to notify the vehicle in front of you that you are going to overtake. Even so, we believe that many drivers are frustrated DJs and love to give the beeeeeeeep!
It is estimated that throughout India there are some 5-6 millionDaughters, men who dress as women, to define them in a fast (and superficial) way. After being castrated (of his own accord or not) he has to fulfill a very important ritual: spilling milk in a stream symbolizing his loss of fertility.
People believe that, unable to have their own children,daughters acquire a power to bless or curse the birth of other children. This is why they are invited to baptisms where they express omens and blessings in exchange for rewards of alms. In the Mumbai subway we saw several asking alms from passengers and in many cases they got what they wanted ... will it be because of this superstitious belief? (It is also true that an uncle tipped him because he was smacking him in the face hehe). Let's see if we will soon prepare a monographic post on this subject (and that of castes), because the argument is very interesting!
I'm your biggest fan I follow until you love me, papa-papa-razzi. Nothing from Lady Gaga! Here they are true paparazzi. We have lost count of the photos we have taken with strangers (In how many Indian houses will there be a photo of us !?). In Hampi it was already the height of the situation: the uncles stand in front of you (if you are a woman, men do not interest you so much), take out your mobile and throw you a photo blatantly, let's go total paparazzata! At first it is passable, although you soon start looking for strategies to escape photo shoots. Once, after taking 1075 photos with 2765 people, we were really fed up and as soon as a poor man asked us for a photo, we told him that our religion did not stop us. Pooreeee, we feel bad malisimooooos! Dirty awareness and feeling of extreme guilt, in the end we took the picture ... At the end of the day: we took pictures of "them" and they have the same right, right? Although some make them with more "dark" purposes (like when we put the two and clearly focus only on Lety, leaving Rober out of the picture ...)
The love, admiration, madness, passion they feel for bollywood and its stars is ... amazing! The actors seem to be the new gods of Indian society, especially what we call "Froti" ... this man has become our nightmare: we see it everywhere and it is less expressive than Twilight!Bollywood movies are super different in our style, but very funny (There are sub-realistic scenes and jokes that our mind can never catch at all hehe!). Yes, there is much censorship: We never saw a kiss in conditions, if someone smokes a warning saying that smoking hurts health and that the actors do not support this bad habit, they suppress scenes of high violence and sex. In general in every Hollywood movie there are many cuts: one night we watched Kill Bill and it lasted about an hour and a quarter!
Where? When? Why? No way ... here na de na, the Patri would go crazy! Build a building by putting thousands of bamboo sticks as pillars, men hanging on a single rope to clean windows or paint facades, workers building roads one on a t-shirt, another on a shirt, another with sandals, as if they were going for a walk on a Sunday, prevention and occupational hazards here do not count much!
We had already seen them in Myanmar, but here there are many, many. They are Draculas but they don't drink blood, they chew betel. And the teeth are stained red-black. Betel is a plant that has certain psychotropic effects and is usually taken inpaan, some green leaves rolled with tobacco, masala, some candy in its sweet version and it is very addictive. It is not uncommon to see red spots on the sidewalks, or even attend the spit launch live!
Here it is difficult to see a couple holding hands in public. Unless it is a couple of friends (man-man).What we interpret as a gesture of "love" here is a friendly gesture: there are many boys (and men) who walk hand in hand in the streets, even some are hugging. It is simply a sign of love and friendship, but it is still curious!
Indians are voyeurs. They do not do it with the intention of disturbing (although in some cases it is annoying), they do it out of curiosity. Especially if you move away from the tourist places. They look at you, they study you, they don't lose detail. If you reach a point of extreme discomfort you can do two things:
- Play the sympathetic card: smile at him, say something in Indian, "scare him" with a "booo!"
- Counter: start to fix it too, most likely feel uncomfortable in turn and stop looking at you. Although there is some hard bone that continues its work of "voyeur".
In many cities advertising It's very curious: there are no posters, canvases or plastics ... directly It is painted on the wall! It happens especially in small cities or in small towns. What art!
This, more than curiosity, It is a big problem: there is garbage everywhere, especially near rivers, lakes and the outskirts of cities. It is rare the time we have gone through a watercourse and we have not smelled anything (well). People It has no environmental sensitivity, there are no bins, they throw everything down the street without any problem. The cows, which until a few years ago were the “sweepers” of the streets, now collect and eat vegetables, fruits, flowers, tetrabricks, plastic bags, terracotta glasses (those of lassi)… 🙁
When you travel you learn one thing: The more different the country where you are, the more different the bathroom will be. And you know ... India is VERY different! So you can see men pissing quietly down the street (wherever it is, what more if I'm on the tracks of a train while passing a full of rock eating and looking at me, or if I'm next to the road and I stop to pee, or if I'm in the street ...). But the surprises do not end here: the first public toilet we stepped on in India left us speechless: "there is an error" I thought. “This bathroom will be a shower… there is no toilet, there is no latrine… but I have been told to pee here !! What will that tiny hole in the floor be attached to the wall? Do not tell me that… " YES. You pee on the floor and then with a bucket of water "clean" (if Don Clean saw it!). You can't imagine the nice smell inside there ... we already miss Chinese baths with the old ladies who greet you while they do their little things.
If you walk on an Indian street there are two types of shops that are never missing: patisseries and hairdressers. And the Indians are very sweet, but more vain! It is full of "beauty salons" for men, where they are going to cut their hair, beard to make massages in the face… Come on, these are gentlemen in this regard: it is rare to meet someone with long hair and without the perfect shave. It is not so rare to find a man with red-dyed hair (there are many varieties although the most requested are cooked carrot red and strawberry red Huelva). They stain with henna and the result is at least, let's say flashy! On the other hand there are almost no hairdressers for women.
The truth is that The list could go a long way: the follies of the tuktuk, the royal enfields everywhere, the goats with red shirts, the ... but if we tell you everything there are no more curiosities.
And curiosity is the greatest virtue (and gift) of a traveler ... go ahead and come and discover them yourself!
You know others curiosities and oddities of India?
 If you are interested in India you cannot miss our first novel: “Bye I'm leaving!“, Which tells the adventures of a first-time backpacker touring the Indian subcontinent. “… Among scams, corners taken from theOne thousand and One Nights, tuktuks, gay bodyguards, malai koftas, butterflies in the stomach, ramming cows, sacred rivers, meditation retreats, infinite beaches, volunteers and the occasional surprise, Iratxe will learn to live in an area of 'comfort' where you will feel more alive never… " If you want more information click on the image |
