Marc explores Delhi, Rajasthan and Varanasi
contributed by Marc McClean

Despite my passion for travel to all corners of the world and Indian food, I have never been interested in visiting India, knowing its reputation for dirt, pollution, poor sanitation, wandering cows, wretched poverty, noise, crowding and Delhi-belly ailments. However, I was in the neighbourhood. My 6 month trip allowed me a stopover and food indulgence week in northern India between 2 months in China and my onward destinations of Ethiopia and Southern Africa. Most significantly, the stopover week allowed me to dip my toe in the pool to see if India could capture my attention and convince to return one day soon.

I liked India immediately.

The people were friendly, colourful, engaging, curious and smiling. Everything the Han Chinese were not. Perhaps after visits to so many developing countries, I did not find the pollution, dirt and poverty of India to be dramatically worse. True there were glaring examples in all directions of the abject poverty suffered by too many Indians, but there was a crowded vitality and dynacism to Delhi which was exciting. Moreover, even the cows amused me. Stuck in cities, surrounded by speeding and weaving rickshaws, cars and motorcycles, these cows march along their way with the same calm and bemused look you would expect to find in a cow lazing in the fields of Southern Ontario. The only downside was the pollution (lots of dust on the eve of the arrival of the monsoon and terrible emissions) and the searing heat (40 degrees plus). Drink lots of water, but not from the tap!! It was even fun to convince the cricket-obsessed Indians to put the World Cup football games on the TV at the restos and bars.

Delhi is not chock-a-block with sights, but one can fill days wandering around old Delhi. I had my most glaring culturally ignorant moment of the trip on my first full day in Delhi. Newly arrived in India and not having engrossed myself in much prior research of the customs of the country owing to my short stay, I made a couple of glaring Western errors at the Jama Masjid (mosque), the largest mosque in India.

The mosque’s large courtyard is made of marble. Like all other mosques, to enter you must take your shoes off (or flip-flops in my case). In the searing heat, the marble was extremely hot, so to get around one had to follow the narrow carpets laid out in various directions in the courtyard. Though well-intentioned, the carpets provide little relief for bare feet. In the middle of the courtyard is a shallow pool around which locals sit and in which they dip their hands in and pour water over their baking feet, and to otherwise cool down. I failed to notice the exclusive use of hands and promptly stepped up and with great relief immersed my flaming feet in the pool. The look of horror from the assembled made me realize that this was a huge mistake. Feet, as I quickly remembered, are considered to be the dirtiest part of the body. Immersing them in the pool in the courtyard of the largest mosque in India qualifies as one of the more ignorant things I could have dreamed up to offend the locals. After scurrying away in embarrassment, I returned later determined to make it right. This time I sat at the side of the pool, dipped my left hand in the water (I am a lefty after all) and poured the cool water over my feet - like the locals. Unfortunately I was doomed to mistakes on this day. I was dipping in the water with my left hand, not my right hand. As anyone familiar with India knows, the left hand is not used for cleaning or eating. Rather, it is used exclusively for the role that we in the West reserve for toilet paper. That explained the looks of amusement and scorn I was getting from the persons to my right and left. Not sure whether to slink away or die laughing at my own uselessness, I exited the mosque, leaving behind the most culturally insensitive travel moment of my trip, resigned in the knowledge that it was bound to happen eventually.

After Delhi I hired a driver for pittance to take me first to Jaipur in the dry Rajasthan province. The pink city, so named for the colour of its buildings, is full of Indian crafts and bustling intensity. Well worth visiting for a quick insight into some of the more interesting aspects of Northern India. From Jaipur I headed to Agra for the must-do Taj Mahal. It was as stunning as advertised, particularly in the early morning light. Thankfully, June is the low season on account of the searing heat, so the crowds were light. On the other hand, in one of the few examples of tourist-gouging in India (again, unlike China), tourists are charged 750 rupees (about $20Cdn) to visit the Taj, while Indians are charged 20 rupees (50 cents). It is worth noting that aside from rickshaw/taxi drivers, Indians are far more honest and fair in the prices they charge to foreigners. Unlike China, where everytime I went to buy a bottle of water I was quoted a different price based on what the purveyor thought they could extract from me as a foreigner, in India all but one time I was quoted the exact same price for a bottle of water. There is great significance to that.

Varanasi was my last stop in India, after an overnight train ride from Agra. Varanasi is famous for the activities that occur at the Ganges riverfront, the mother river of India. Here cremations, Hindu prayer ceremonies and body/clothes washing happens everyday in an orgy of tourist photo ops. I spent one evening learning about and observing the riverside cremation ceremonies (careful not to take pictures, unlike some Japanese tourists who did so a few days before and where literally chased out of town) and the prayer ceremonies. The next morning I rose at 5am for a dawn boat ride on the Ganges to watch the locals bathe and wash in the river before the heat of the day. It was 44 degrees that day in Varanasi. The washing (and drinking) of the river water is amazing to see and hard to contemplate. I say the latter because the Ganges is one of the dirtiest rivers in the world, with extremely high fecal coliform levels, not to mention floating cows. "When in Rome" did not apply to that experience.

Wish I had spent more time here in India....ah, hindsight.
Off to Africa.


Marc McClean is a young Toronto lawyer who recently took a six month hiatus from Bay Street to travel the world. Marc's complete travel blog can be viewed here:
http://realtravel.com/member-m832838-marcfest_2006.html