Free hit counter

Ok

By continuing your visit to this site, you accept the use of cookies. These ensure the smooth running of our services. Learn more.

09/12/2011

Comment book - My father

My parents came to visit me this summer, for the 3rd time!

On their first trop they went to Pune and Kerala.

On the second to Mumbai and Rajasthan.
And on the last to Mumbai, Uttarakhand, Pondicherry and Matheran.

 

And here go my father about his experience – he also inaugurates the category “comments of visitors”:

 

I also updated my photoblog with pictures taken by me or my dad during the trip, a mix of glimpses of everyday India: http://indiansamouraipics.hautetfort.com/

Pictures to be posted every second day from September 10th to November 18th.

 

"A different India that doesn’t leave you indifferent!  

This summer 2011, I got to discover other aspects India than those met during previous visits, less touristic, in any case more “Indian”, more authentic, in short away from the beaten paths like we say.

Mumbai! The first time that I came here, I found it so ugly! This time...

 

 

Read more ...

06/27/2011

Travelling with an Indian, part 2…

(cf http://www.indiandacoit.com/archive/2011/06/03/travelling-with-an-indian-is-a-great-experience.html )

 

The day before departure, whereas the trip program is well tied up – and he was in copy of all the emails related to the organization – I get a call of him saying: “we should go there, and there, and there. Check it out!” I keep my cool, we will do things my way anyway!

 

Funnier: outside the airport. Me: I immediately take out the book guide and start going through (making sure that I will speak with nobody, I do not know people there!)… He: he starts speaking to everyone who comes in his way: the security guy, the taxi guy, the trolley guy. He asks them questions, they have no answer, they invent one, we keep running around…

 

And a small debate following a comment of the book guide: “since electricity has come in Batad, the backpackers (the real ones) find that the place has lost most of its charm”. Me: “yeah, Westerners are looking for the “authentic” stuff, getting back to the roots (where there was no electricity)”. He: “What bullshit! When it’s hot, you should have AC, or at least a fan”.

I think India will not have a Survivor programme so soon ;)

06/03/2011

Travelling with an Indian is a great experience!!

Note: the following remarks come from personal experiences and exchanges and if it is very general, I think that it is quite true. One can certainly say also a lot on the French who travel…

 

First: choosing the destination. The Indian is not an explorer at heart and will prefer to avoid the unknown regions – so if parents, friends went there (or better even better live there), it is preferable.

 

Second: the visa. Indians need visas to go about everywhere. And though in the majority of the countries the procedure is not too complicated – and on top of that most of Indians use the services of an agent, time management to get a visa is not easy easy. As for everything else, waiting for the last minute is preferable.

 

Once on the holiday spot, the paramount question will be the food. If the Indian is vegetarian, I don’t want to even mention the situation… In any case, after a couple of days, the Indian will want to visit about all the Indian, or Chinese, restaurants that he will come across. He will not force his partner to share his dinner, since anyway eating is about eating – you really have to be French to think that dinner is more a moment of sharing, talking, than just gulping food.

 

Very recently, my “own” Indian really played with my nerves (this is my point of view, not his obviously). After obtaining his visa in a record time (4 days before departure), he looked at the weather on Internet, discovered that the monsoon was starting there and panicked – and yes we had checked before and we knew we could expect some rain but not to the point to ruin holidays (apparently he forgot that)… So he mentioned changing the destination. Or at least suggested that I call my friend who lives there (yes, even if she is on holiday in the Vietnamese countryside, she has access to facebook not?) so that she tells me the weather. One week in advance…

If I did not have him, I would have to invent him…