Revealing India

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Everyone raves about visiting India, but we were nervous. We had not done too much background investigation on the possible points of interest to see, and we knew it would be a sensory overload right from the onset. We, therefore, started liaising with a tour operator before we even arrived to help guide us through this chaotic country.

This decision has had its pros and cons. We have had someone holding our hands all the way – right from landing at Delhi airport – so getting around has been easy, and any language barriers have not affected us with someone available to quickly interpret. Instead of how we handled Vietnam and Cambodia, immersing ourselves right into the thick of it, we initially had short excursions to a particular site and then were returned to the safety of our hotel.

At our brief interactions at popular tourist sites, we found the local people to be abrasive, and in an open and brutal way, out to see how they could make a buck from you. In retrospect, how could we expect more if we weren’t prepared to have more meaningful interactions ourselves?

Our first few days left us amazed with the spectacular and surprising sites we were seeing but negative about our experience with the people. This opinion was in stark contrast to what others had been saying about India.

India, like a good curry, reveals her wonderful flavours slowly. Each day we were blown away by the locations we were seeing and slowly started engaging more and more with the locals (besides the photo opportunities). Without our guide or driver leading the way, we began walking through the markets, talking to children on the streets and buying our supplies at local corner stores.

Bit by bit our pessimism faded through our travels from Delhi to Agra and then all around Rajasthan. We are visiting our last city in this province, Udaipur, and woke up this morning with a noticeably different attitude. Instead of being excited about what we are going to see, we are more interested in who we are going to meet. 

Taken at Amber Fort, Jaipur

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