Goa
Hello everyone from my second and final stop in India. I am told by people in the know that Goa is the least "India" that you can find in India, but it looks, feels and sounds like India to me. Loads of Indians, cars, bikes, trucks and rickshaws weaving around the roads, honking at each other, yet never colliding despite dangerously close maneuvers. Maybe it isn't like India because I didn't have a large crowd of rickshaw drivers decend on me to demand that I take _their_ taxi to my destination.
Which segues naturally to my major gripe here in India (and also Sri Lanka, though things weren't as bad over there). In Cochin, when we exitted the port gate, we were assaulted by a group of about 30 people all yelling and screaming, grabbing us, telling us to take their taxi to whatever our destination was. Normally I'm a pretty laid back guy, but this assault made me extremely uncomfortable, nervous and tense (and I call it an assault, because many of the other passengers were extremely put out by this, and because it simply did not stop even when you made it quite clear that you weren't interested). Once you get out of choke points like port gates, the assault calms down a bit, but you never really have a moments peace...
So I ask all my friends who have told me again and again how wonderful India is: how did you deal with this? I am told that things get worse in the interior and the east, and I simply can't imagine what "worse" would feel like. It's obvious to me that you shouldn't try to form an opinion about a country based on 2 days of visit - I never thought that even from the beginning - but I was hoping my taste of the country would entice me to come back. As it stands, I would much rather explore a western country. Maybe I'm a wimp. But to prove that I am not, I have promised myself I would come back to India another day for a longer trip to test my limits properly. My little sailboat trip has made me soft and vulnerable. A real trip to India will hopefully thicken my skin enough to see past the annoyances and find the beauty and culture.
Tonight we leave India and sail due West across the Arabian sea and up the Red Sea to Safaga Egypt. What fun this will be! The winds have been relatively good and so we'll most likely be sailing the whole way (but in the north part of the Red Sea we'll most likely use the motor). Since we'll be away from land, I won't be writing an entry for about 2 weeks. Check back then for the latest news! :-)
Hello everyone from my second and final stop in India. I am told by people in the know that Goa is the least "India" that you can find in India, but it looks, feels and sounds like India to me. Loads of Indians, cars, bikes, trucks and rickshaws weaving around the roads, honking at each other, yet never colliding despite dangerously close maneuvers. Maybe it isn't like India because I didn't have a large crowd of rickshaw drivers decend on me to demand that I take _their_ taxi to my destination.
Which segues naturally to my major gripe here in India (and also Sri Lanka, though things weren't as bad over there). In Cochin, when we exitted the port gate, we were assaulted by a group of about 30 people all yelling and screaming, grabbing us, telling us to take their taxi to whatever our destination was. Normally I'm a pretty laid back guy, but this assault made me extremely uncomfortable, nervous and tense (and I call it an assault, because many of the other passengers were extremely put out by this, and because it simply did not stop even when you made it quite clear that you weren't interested). Once you get out of choke points like port gates, the assault calms down a bit, but you never really have a moments peace...
So I ask all my friends who have told me again and again how wonderful India is: how did you deal with this? I am told that things get worse in the interior and the east, and I simply can't imagine what "worse" would feel like. It's obvious to me that you shouldn't try to form an opinion about a country based on 2 days of visit - I never thought that even from the beginning - but I was hoping my taste of the country would entice me to come back. As it stands, I would much rather explore a western country. Maybe I'm a wimp. But to prove that I am not, I have promised myself I would come back to India another day for a longer trip to test my limits properly. My little sailboat trip has made me soft and vulnerable. A real trip to India will hopefully thicken my skin enough to see past the annoyances and find the beauty and culture.
Tonight we leave India and sail due West across the Arabian sea and up the Red Sea to Safaga Egypt. What fun this will be! The winds have been relatively good and so we'll most likely be sailing the whole way (but in the north part of the Red Sea we'll most likely use the motor). Since we'll be away from land, I won't be writing an entry for about 2 weeks. Check back then for the latest news! :-)
posted by Falko at 1:54 PM
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