Arkansas Blog

Consider your physical condition. In the past 10 yrs I have 3 friends who journeyed to India for spiritual reasons.

All three came back sick as hell. According to them widespread pollution like you cannot imagine.

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Stay home, watch the Inaugural and celebrate the conclusion of the worst administration in the history of the Republic.

Talk to people who have been to India. Ask if they would go again.

The shots. Of course, one must take shots to visit many places. But . . . the shots.

When the flight attendants announce to the passengers, before they deplane, "Please ignore the beggars. You will be met by a sea of beggars, some quite pitiful. Some without eyes or limbs. Ignore them all. Do NOT under any circumstances give them money or gifts. Stay together with your escorts."

When you board your bus for the hotel and notice the windows are blackened so nobody can see you inside, though you can see out, realize there's a reason for that.

When you pass mounds of human and animal excrement and urine along roadsides, with children playing on top of them, keep your eyes straight ahead.

One could go on. And on.

It is a tragic, heartbreaking country -- with some wonderful people -- and bone-crushing numbing overpopulation, poverty and starvation -- and has been for many decades.

Ask friends who've been about their experiences, and if they'd return.

I've just returned from nearly 6 weeks in India. It was my second trip. I've been in towns large and small and have travelled extensively by automobile and train, as well as a few domestic flights.

You will not be greeted by beggars at the airport. The flight attendants make no such announcement.

The buses have darkened windows because it's a bloody hot place. Tourist buses attract attention among the locals because they are labeled in large lettering "Tourist Bus."

There is no denying the poverty, but I have found similarly disheartening circumstances in many other countries.

It's a tough place to live--even to visit. Hyperbole is not necessary.

Life's short. India's an incredibly old and fascinating civilization. Events like these are rare and random--like getting in car crash or plane crash by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Not random, but rare.*

I guess we'll hear reports on how dangerous the situation is for future tourists...

Would love to see it myself, but would want at least a month... one just cannot take that sort of experience in, in a week or ten days. I know some who return, but not many. Tourists, that is.. not talking about the folks who fly over there for affordable/excellent medical care inside posh resorts.

"everything and nothing you've heard about India is true."

so said a professor while we were en route, back in 2001. i vowed to return, and did, in 2007. its a thousands-year-old culture that will challenge your ideas about yourself, life, and the world, if you will let it. that means letting go of your assumptions and fears and expectations that everyplace should be just like home. you learn to roll with the contradictions and just take it all in.

i loved India and plan on taking my fiance next year. you should go, and make sure to do some "volunteer tourism" while there, so you can interact with local people. worth it!

I wouldn't have thought my first post to the blog after silently hovering for quite some time would be about India...

I've been to Mumbai twice and LOVED it. History, culture, nice people, but also dirty and overcrowded. The experience certainly changed me for the better. Stayed at the Lela Kempinski and ate several times at the Oberoi. Never got sick until I ate a ham & cheese sandwich before departing for the airport. Stick to Indian cuisine. I would definitely go again.

On a side note, I've also been to Caracas, Venuzuela. Scary place! And much worse than anything I saw in Mumbai.