Having been to quite some places around the world, I thought I"m prepared for India.
I was not !
India has some really beautiful places, but life is so different. People who have been to India before, try to prepare you for the dirt, smell and different life, but arriving in India is still a shock.
Being in Cambodia was strange with poverty and dirt, but Indian people are so different. They do not care where and when they have to pee. They do it in the middle of the road anywhere. In China I was disgusted by the spitting, but in India it is called throat cleaning and it is much worse. Trash is just thrown on the street everywhere and nobody cares...
The streets are full with people or to be more exact, full with men. When I had my haircut on the street I had 44 people (all men) watching for 30 minutes and they had nothing better to do, then to watch and stare.
Once I took a nice photo of a cow walking across the road and then going into a house and I was all excited and smiling until I was asked why I took a photo of the cow on the street. I told them that I come from Germany and in cities there are never and nowhere cows on the street. The surprised guy called all his friends telling them that in Germany there are no cows on the street and it was impossible for him to believe that a cow is not living on the street.
And because the cow is not on a green field, the food of the cow is sometimes plastic rubish...
Another new fact for me was that I assumed in India everbody would speak english, but thats wrong. It is better then China, but very often you have to search hard to find an english speaker.
Another surprising thing is that men (there are mostly men on the street) hold hands walking down the street. When you see that the first time, you think that being openly gay in India is OK, but then you see soldiers and policemen in uniform holding hands... Fact is holding hands amongst men is a sign of friendship and has nothing to do with sexual preferences.
Travelling you will meet many people who have been to India and nearly everybody got sick. Before leaving Bangkok I bought lots of wet wipes, immodium tablets, etc. You have to pick your food really careful. I thought it was a good idea to go to McDonalds to have some known food, but while having a look at the "menu", I could not find any Burger ? There was no Big Mac, nothing. Basically no meat was on offer ! I was so confused that I left again and went to a local restaurant to have indian curry with rice.
For India I expected the worst and it was not that bad. I would not say that I will never ever come back, but for the near future I will not.
