Accommodation in the host families

We have now visited Delhi, Agra, and after a fantastic time in lovely Pushkar, we are now heading towards our last stop on this tour, Jaipur, to our, hopefully, best and most Indian time.

Hostfamilies

This morning the bus was full of exited and nervous (in a good way) students, who almost had no idea of with whom, where and how they were going to spend their next days in Jaipur. The class knew most of the students who were hosting a student from 2.L, because most of the Indian students were a part of the exchange program this April between St Xavier's and Gefion Gymnasiym, and some of the students from 2.L are going to stay with the Indian student that they hosted, when they were in Denmark. But as we have experienced earlier, there might changes, so we cannot be sure with whom we are staying. And that is even be more exciting.

Welcome

The bus ride was approximately 3 hours plus a quick stop to have lunch, which meant that we arrived at St. Xavier's School about 3 pm, which was right on time. We had a very warm welcome and for the 4th or 5th time we got wreaths of flowers. Also, the students at St Xavier’s were just as eager to meet us. From the school the students from 2.L drove with their new Indian families back to their houses, some with a private driver, and some had the pleasure of experiencing their Indian host driving the car by himself.

Back at the houses the students had some lunch and got to know their new Indian family. Some went on a quick sightseeing in Jaipur after lunch, and some just stayed home and had a short rest.

Students Gustav and Kira eating lunch with Gustavs host family. The man in the right side of the picture is Gustav’s host, Baljinder’s father, and behind Kira is Baljinder’s cousin. In the left side of the picture we see Baljinder’s sister (in red) and his mother (in pink) and behind the mother is the house-help. What you cannot see on this picture is the rest of the family, who was invited over to meet us and to observe the new the foreign students.

Families

The families with which 2L live are very different. Some students stay in a house where they have their own floor, and some of us have our own room. Some stay with a very religious family (as Gustav’s family, they are all Sikhs) and some may stay with a third kind of family. Only one thing is sure to conclude, and that is, no matter what kind of family we stay with, these days will for sure be the most interesting, challenging and fun days on this tour.

Gustav, Jens and Lucas

Traditions in India

Diwali is a festival similar to our Christmas, where families meet up, eat together and exchange gifts. Diwali is also known as the "festival of lights": an ancient Hindu festival, celebrated in autumn every year. As part of the celebration, the Indians have fireworks in the streets like we have New Year’s Eve.  Diwali spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair. The festival preparations extend over a 5 day period, but the main festival night of Diwali coincides with the darkest, new moon night of the Hindu Lunisolar month Kartika. We were lucky enough to experience the main festival night of Diwali; a dance of colors illuminated the starry night sky in their wake while the momentary sonic booms - only comparable to the sounds stemming from Georg’s bathroom (should have stayed away from the curry) – deafened our hearing. 

Camels

We also experienced other traditional Indian ways of life, like camel riding in Pushkar. Camels have always been a way to transport wares and people. Today, they are also used to entertain tourists with a  “traditional” Indian safari trip into the desert.  

Pushkar 

India has a very diverse culture and is a large nation with many different people. Everyone has their own beliefs and traditions: despite of this, the festival of lights unites the Indian people, which was fantastic to experience. Walking down the streets of Pushkar, we saw a town much different from Delhi, which is one of the biggest cities in India. There, we saw both the slums and the privileged areas and not many tourists. Many people took pictures of us like they had never seen a white person before. When we arrived in Pushkar we saw many white tourists, like ourselves, so we saw Pushkar as the tourist city in India. What we didn’t think would happen in Pushkar was people still taking pictures like we were aliens. Pushkar is a very westernized city, there are tourists everywhere and the restaurants have Italian food. The shops selling clothes have a lot of t-shirts and dresses like we dress in in Denmark, and you find a souvenir shop at every corner.

The India we see is a changing country, that used to be ruled by its traditions and now is trying to fit in to globalization. 

Cilja, Karoline, Ronja og Kira

Shopping in Pushkar

As we walk down the narrow streets of Pushkar, amongst holy cows, intriguing, yet risky, street kitchens and fellow shoppers and tourists, while the scooters race by, honking loudly and constantly, we look for souvenirs and Christmas-presents for friends and family back home. There are shops selling scarves and saris in all the colours of the rainbow, shops selling notebooks with handmade paper pages and beautifully carved, leather covers, and even kiosk-like shops selling cigarettes, Pepsi and toilet-paper.

The Indian Salesmen

As varied as the available items, are the salesmen selling them. They all have their own technique and procedures for selling, but through all their differences they are all willing to take advantage of the Western tourist, by overpricing their seemingly unique items, that can also be found in the shop next door.

However we have divided the Indian salesmen into three main categories:

1. The Insisting Show-offs

This is by far the largest category; they exist as shop owners, restaurant waiters and spiritual guides by the holy lake of Pushkar. The shop owners will insist on showing you all their different scarves, and if you look at a specific one for just a second too long he will pull out five more with the same pattern in different colours. They will often be very nice and talkative, some will even offer you coffee or the (unofficial) Indian national drink, chai, while they tell you their whole life story and pull out saris for you to "ooh" and "ahh" at.

When you ask them the price of an item, they will tell you to relax and present you with fifteen more bracelets.

If you're on a tight schedule these salesmen can be very stressful, but if you have plenty of time and friends with you with whom you can laugh during the experience, it can also be fun. As long as you remember that the talking is also part of his way of selling you more things, at a higher price.

2. The Unbudgeables

An essential part of shopping in India is bargaining. If you're good at it, you can get the desired item for less than half the price first given by the salesman. But some salesmen are not to bargain with, introducing the Unbudgeables.

You can try all the tricks in the book: "but it's my birthday", "I only have five-hundred rupee-notes", "it's Diwali", "we're going home tomorrow and we only have two hundred rupees left"; they won't budge. It's their way, or no way. Their prices will often be more reasonable than the others, but occasionally the price will simply be too high and you just have to give up and buy your beautiful, traditional Indian bracelet elsewhere.

3. The Calm and Collected

The Calm and Collected are the most desirable salesmen to meet while shopping in India. He will most likely be sitting quietly on a chair somewhere, and only speak to you when you ask him the price of an item or help find a different colour. He won't jump at you with questions of where you're from, how long you've been in India, the second you step inside. He won't throw saris in your arms to look at, when you really just came in to look at a necklace. He will wait patiently and will let you bargain with him when you're ready to pay.

In Pushkar your purchases will not be handed over in plastic bags. but in small and colourful cloth sacks

Final impression

Shopping in India is stressful, tiring and hard, especially if you're not used to bargaining, but it's also exciting, exhilarating and gives you a huge amount of satisfaction if you were able to bargain even a little with an Indian salesman.

After a hard day of shopping, taking a break from the shops at one of the many rooftop restaurants is absolutely essential

Mille, Linea and Katja

What characterizes India? Horns!

After a few days in India, with numerous impressions and cultural revelations one thing is definitely for sure: The Indian traffic is undoubtedly nuts. Alone the fact that the majority of all trucks encourage to use “Horn Please” or “Blow horn” as written on the back of the vehicle is an enormous contrast to the Danish culture. When we first arrived, we found the horns offensive since we are used to being in danger or doing something wrongly when horns are necessary. The reality is strictly the opposite. Honking in Indian traffic culture is a way to let someone know you are present to avoid any accident and actually (weirdly enough) seems to be a friendly thing and the “noise” is now slightly comforting. We have developed acceptance and understanding for Indian ways throughout the last couple of days. 

Chaotic traffic culture

Today we lie at the pool and think: what makes this different from the culture we have been used to if you were to close your eyes. The answer is simply the excessive use of horns – the constant sound of Indians making their way through the melting pot. One would supposedly assume that you could easily escape the noise. You simply cannot. Yet our general impression is that road rage is not a known term (as we see it in Denmark). This is either because there are simply no rules to obey or the fact that many Indians possess modesty and never express anger in public. Even when they have to pay road tax every 30 minutes to drive on a highway.

Traffic chaos – this picture emphasizes the fact that rules are non-existent in Indian traffic with the whole family on one motorcycle

Visiting a wonder

Either way, we visited a little humble building built by a Muslim to his wife. The minimalistic building is also (joke aside) one the world’s seven wonders. Nothing less than the essential Taj Mahal, which was truly magnificent and as gigantic as the expectation. Our guide knew plenty of tricks for photographing and even sang for us to make the whole thing even more authentic. The whole place was extremely remote and the transportation was by electrical vehicles within one-kilometer radius to keep the place clean. Even though the air is like most of Indian cities - covered by a thick layer of smog that gives low visibility further into the distance.

Abandoned city

As we travelled further north we had several hours on the main highway (which is an exaggeration) of what we would consider a dreadful quality. Poor infrastructure is a hindrance for a lot of transport in India, which we can only confirm by today's experience.

We then visited an old abandoned city, Fatehpur Sikri that was pointed out by our Indian guide, Tanveer since the attraction was not the average place to find. The place was very remote and in a large scale. The architecture was beautiful and built by Akbar, who is considered the mightiest Mughal in Indian history. It was an overwhelmingly beautiful construction, even though the heat was immense.  

Even though the old abandoned city and Taj Mahal were distinctively different, one similarity caught our eye. Before we were able to get to the actual attraction, we had to go a long way. In Denmark, we are used to exploiting tourist attractions and leading the visitors to it by signs. In India, it works the opposite way. If we had not hired a guide, we would not have been able to find our way to the monuments. This we think reflects the way all traffic works. No system. As explained earlier, the horns are used for many things including signaling a turn. The roads are not divided into lanes, and there are no guidelines of where and when to drive.

Written by Anton, Ian & Thomas 2.L