• Indian pop is everywhere!
• No matter how much you try to avoid the puddles and flooding and water running down the street, you will get soaked during the monsoon. You will also wade in unclean water, let yourself get bitten by mosquitos, and do all sorts of other things that your doctor told you not to do.
• Riding on a motorcycle on Hyderabad streets is like driving through a pinball machine, complete with lots of loud honking noises, near misses, and, you guessed it, Indian pop.
• There is more variety to Indian food than you can possibly imagine, and almost all of it is delicious. Just because that all-you-can-eat thali costs 50 cents doesn’t mean it’s not good.
• You may not be a vegetarian, but vegetarian food is cheaper, easier to find, safer, and almost invariably more delicious than non-veg food.
• Even though everything in India is cheap, so are you. However, what you are not is an adept haggler. You will feel remorse over the 50 cents you might have saved on the knockoff watch you bought down the street. Or over the 10 cent tip that the autorickshaw driver hassled you into giving him. You will feel bad about ignoring children begging in the streets, but you know that if you give in to them you will be slowly poked to death by others. Young girls will risk their lives for a few rupees.
• India does not do anything half-assed. If it’s gonna be hot, it’s gonna be really hot. If it’s gonna be wet, it’s gonna be really wet. If it’s gonna smell, it’s gonna really smell. If it’s gonna be rich/poor/tacky/beautiful…
• Danger is a relative term. As is cleanliness.
• If you put white people in museums, you could charge admission to little children in small towns.
• Assertiveness is not a virtue. Unless you shop in the bazaar.
• If you don’t like crowds, you may have come to the wrong country.
• No matter how long you plan to spend in India, or in any part of it, it’s not nearly enough.

Posted on July 10th, 2005 by Lee
Tagged: India