Sandy Does The Subcontinent

I’ve been back four days now and the jetlag is getting worse rather than better. At this point, I’m basically a house cat with intestinal issues. As soon as a patch of sun appears on my bed, I have an irresistible, primal urge to curl up in it and sleep. Then I’m up at all hours of the night. Although, the whole concept of waking and sleeping is an abstraction, since I’ve slipped into a twilight consciousness, complete with zero attention span and not being able to feel my legs while I’m walking. And maybe worst of all, I can’t use meal times to reset my internal clock, since my digestive system is firmly insisting that, “No, no, India food was just fine; it’s American food we can’t handle,” as though that was its stance all along and I simply hadn’t been paying attention.

In an effort to clear my head and keep myself awake, I figured I would make some highly subjective notes on what I think are widespread fallacies about the India travel experience:

1. India is total madness! – So as not to bury my lead any further, let me clearly state: India is not that crazy. I don’t know how it’s gotten this reputation as being a really difficult travel destination, but if you have traveled in Thailand, you won’t have a problem in India. In fact, it’s easier in some ways. Mostly because there is an extensive and efficient transportation infrastructure – trains, buses, boats, car services, and quite a few economy domestic airlines – and everyone speaks English.

Just do yourself a favor and stay away from the backpacker ghettos – they’re ugly, dirty and filled with wannabe hippies. Paharganj in Delhi is even more of a parody of itself than Khao San Road in Bangkok, and that’s saying something.

2. You are going to freak out at the extreme poverty – If you’ve never visited a major metropolitan area anywhere in the world, then yes, the poverty you see in India will be a shock. But I can say quite confidently that it is no more extreme or extensive than what you see on the streets of San Francisco or New York every day.

3. Foreign women get harassed constantly – Yes, men will stare at you in India. But you know what? Women and children will stare more. Staring is just a cultural thing. After a couple of weeks, I saw an East Asian woman in a crowd of Indians and I stared like my eyes were going to fall out of my head. People who look different are surprising and interesting and stare-worthy. That’s just the way it is.

In the two weeks on my own, I was out and about a lot, I explored everything, I took day trains and two overnight trains…and I didn’t have a single unpleasant incident. In fact, I was pretty much just left alone the entire time. Now, I have no doubt that a lot of foreign women have trouble, especially on their own (because if you’re with a man, you are invisible to Indian men), but – as difficult as it is to admit this – from what I saw, I think they bring much of it on themselves by disregarding basic cultural guidelines.

Here’s how to make your life as a solo female traveler in India a lot more difficult than it needs to be:

* Hold eye contact with men – this should be a no-brainer to anyone from a Western country because it means the same thing there that it does here: yes, I’m interested in having sex with you. OK maybe not that extreme but at the very least it shows interest if you lock eyes with a cute guy on the bus, right? Same thing there.

* Wear tank tops or long shorts – look around…do you see Indian women wearing this stuff? Enough said. Now go put on a salwar kameez, which is way more comfortable for the climate, anyway. If you have the attitude that a lot of Western women seem to have – “I can wear whatever I want and they just have to conform to my cultural expectations and if they don’t, I’m going to get pissed off at them” – well, maybe you should rethink why you’re traveling in the first place.

* Engage men in conversation – they will try to talk to you: where are you from, what’s your name, what do you want? Get it out of your head immediately that it’s rude to ignore them. What they’re doing is rude. They would never approach a single Indian woman and start following her around with a barrage of questions. It would be totally inappropriate. So follow that lead and give them cultural signals that they are behaving inappropriately – avert your gaze, wiggle your head, maybe hold up your hand if they are especially persistent…and they’re gone instantly. If you’re not sure what to do, just watch Indian people deal with Indian touts. Imitate and be amazed.

* Expect to get harassed – if you walk into it seeing Indian men as aggressive and sexist, you’ll probably end up at odds. If on the other hand, you accept that this is a culture that discriminates between the sexes – women get their own waiting rooms, their own queues and sometimes their own seating areas – and expect to get taken care of and treated as special, then that will probably be your experience. See this not as a lessening of your status as a person, but as an opportunity to explore your feminine birthright. Hey, it worked for me.

* Sit wherever you please – as a follow up to the last point: always sit with other women. People segregate themselves by family group and then by sex. It is perfectly acceptable for you to join a group of women and children. And once you get over the awkward intruding feeling (at least, I had that to start off with) you’ll be much happier there than around the solo men.

4. India is dirt cheap – It’s cheap by first-world standards, of course. But you definitely get less for your money than in other developing countries. I spent about $650, not counting two domestic flights, which I think were around $350 total. I was splitting the costs for half the trip, but that was balanced by doing a ton of shopping and staying in some pricier mid-range hotels. Overall, I’d say $30 a day is a reasonable budget. That’s about the same as my SEA budget but, like I said, you definitely get less – much lower food and accommodation standards – in India.

Maybe I’ll write more later but for now there’s a patch of sun on the bed that’s calling my name…

I’m home. The flights were easy and I had someone to pick me up from the airport, so that was nice. But now I feel lost. I feel disconnected in every way. My body is totally confused – it’s cold, it’s the wrong time of day, food is different. It’s all really disorienting and overwhelming which is leading to a bit of an emotional meltdown. Needy doesn’t even begin to describe. I’m just sitting here alone in my room, staring at the walls and at all the crap I have to unpack, unable to do anything but cry. I really needed company while I got re-oriented and back on my feet, but instead it’s back to my empty room and my empty life here.