India for the first time
As pointed out in the first chapter, one of things that amazed me on that first trip to the country in 2003 was meeting tourists that had visited India many times. I knew why we had come to India but I was interested in knowing why they had first chosen to visit the country and what it was that kept them returning. So I asked them.
“On our earlier visits to India, we use to zoom about a lot more. If you haven’t been shocked and bewildered and delighted and puzzled and intrigued half a dozen times at least before lunchtime, it’s a most unusual day. One of my favourite things though is just to watch, step off the main street where for a change you’re not being observed and you can just watch others – beautiful. India is charming and friendly but by jove, you won’t be alone for long. There are so many people who just enjoy a conversation with you, the companionship… ‘Where are you from? How many children do you have? How much do you earn?’ They then share their knowledge with you – of where they have visited and, sometimes, a speech from Shakespeare. I’m blowed if I know where it’s from but they are immensely proud of their learning,” says Tony when I asked him what he enjoyed about his visits to India. Perhaps aware that he might be generalising too much, he continued his response but more cautiously. “After all these visits [20–30 times with his partner, Sheila] I wouldn’t say I could understand India or its people very well at all. It’s a vast country, the languages and cultures are different in different parts of India. And sometimes when you talk to people, it is difficult to get the truth. I always feel there are a few different versions of the truth. ‘Yes, there is a train every day,’ says the man at the ticket office. Good, I say. I’ll have a ticket for Thursday. ‘There is no train on Thursdays,’ he replies. But you have just told me that there are trains every day. ‘Yes,’ he replies, ‘there are trains every day except Thursday.’ Oh, I see what you mean, I reply. It’s a new way of understanding,” continues Tony. “And yet India works, somehow it functions. In the West, we believe that our approach to problems is the only way – it’s the right way, the only way. I like India because it questions all the things we take for granted in our country.”
But why India, I had asked Tony. Why did you come here in the first place? What is it about this country that keeps you coming back? Maybe there are similar groups in different countries who are similar long-stay returners – maybe in south-eastern Asian countries, maybe in Mexico or Peru or parts of Africa. There will be another overlapping group from the West who are long-stay returners I guess who have a second ‘holiday home’ in another country but they are somewhat different from Tony’s group. They are not ‘travellers’, more semi-permanent residents of another country. But the boundaries of these and similar other groups will be a little blurred – any further examination risks a more sober discussion of ‘what is a tourist’ and the nature of tourism.
So why did this group of travellers that I talked to happen upon India as opposed to somewhere else all those long years ago? In short and in the main, the answer is by serendipity. ‘Serendipity India’ has a catchier ring about it than other corporate-inspired slogans such as ‘Beautiful India’ or ‘Shining India’. Anyway, destination India seemed to be a happy discovery arrived at by accident. Gina and Mick, for example, in 1991 wanted to go somewhere warm. “It was a toss-up between Africa and India. As the Gulf War had started, we decided to go to India as there were international flight problems elsewhere. We went on a nineteen-day package tour and loved it.” Apart from one year, Gina and Mick have been back every year arranging their own flights, accommodation and sightseeing.
Steven’s first visit to India was a similar ‘accidental’ affair. “In 1992 I returned from Morocco to find a voicemail from my friend Linda who was off to India.” Linda’s friend had to drop out at the last minute due to medical reasons. “As Linda had no travel insurance she decided to carry on with the trip and asked me if I wanted to come out to India with her. I got the voicemail at the weekend – we were to leave on Wednesday. I had no vaccinations but said yes – I was in between jobs at that time. I had to buy scheduled flight tickets as Linda’s friend’s tickets were non-transferable. I stayed in India for five weeks, didn’t come back but have returned every year since 1996.”
Irrespective of the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of arriving in India, anyone from the West arriving in India for the first time will never forget those first few days. Even our three children, young at the time and nearly a decade ago, today start gushing as the memories flood back. I have travelled to different parts of Africa, bussed through South America and been to countries in Southeast Asia but nowhere compares to the shock of India on that first visit in 2003–4. The introductory sections of the numerous guidebooks have got it right: “a sensory assault”, an “unmatched vibrancy”, “jarring juxtapositions”, “intractable paradoxes”, “utterly compelling”. Nothing that has been done by way of preparation beforehand – reading the brochures and guides, watching the Indian documentaries on television, talking to Indian friends back home – prepares the international tourist for those few days. For most of these visitors, their first impressions are likely to be of the ‘megacities’, usually Delhi due to its proximity to the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Agra with the Taj Mahal, the ‘pink city’ of Jaipur and Delhi itself. Whether it is Delhi, Calcutta in West Bengal, Mumbai on the west coast or Thiruvananthapuram in the southern western state of Kerala, it is the unrelenting intensity of these Indian cities that usually shapes these first memories that will remain forever. Unlike many tourists, I love cities and especially Indian cities despite the pollution, hassle, noise and hygiene problems. I have never been in a rush to leave as soon as possible. When I do eventually move on, I always have a list of visits, information to seek out and walks that I plan to do on my next visit – always unfinished business. And whatever city it is that you are leaving, within a day’s train ride you are in a completely different setting, be it a quiet rural village, the coast or the mountainous regions that stretch across northern India. Surely, no other country in the world can boast of the geographical and climatic diversity of this huge country – maybe the three million square kilometres is really a continent rather than a simple country. Whatever the time of year or landscape preferred, India welcomes you. Except that sometimes, you are not sure that you are in India. The peoples and cultures along the borders, especially in the north and particularly the north-east, seem more ‘other’ than Indian. Never mind; just more of the jigsaw to puzzle out.
Ultimately, those peoples and cultures of India are for most international visitors the highlights of their experiences of India. The sheer numbers, both in total (1.3 billion) and practically ‘on the ground’, are difficult to integrate into our circumscribed experience. Likewise, the numbers and vastness are difficult to comprehend. Delhi for example has 15–16 million inhabitants spread throughout 500 square miles. Coming into Mumbai on the train seems to take a couple of hours or so once the outskirts have been reached. So vast are the big Indian conurbations that the term ‘city’ seems inadequate; it’s as though they have burst through and beyond common understandings of the term. And any percentage however small of 1.3 billion when discussing for example voting patterns, the middle class, health visits, education participation rates or housing issues still results in mega totals that are difficult to imagine, never mind grasp. Sometimes it is best not to try; just immerse yourself in this ‘massification’ at the market, on the local city bus or simply taking a front row seat at one of the great railway stations and watch.
Then there are the different Indians that are met while travelling – educated or illiterate, from this or that caste, from one of the great religions of the world or from one of the 23 official languages in the country that exist alongside the thousands of minor languages and dialects. And they are busy working you out – where are you from, are you married, how many children, how much do you earn – while you are trying to work them out – where is your home village, how
long have you been in this city, is the Indian cricket team any good, how do you earn a living. Once these obligatory introductions are over, conversations become more relaxed and discursive; a friendship has been established.
So where do tourists go?
I’m not sure where the eight million (today’s figures) foreign tourists visit once they have arrived in India. I suspect that the majority of these visitors are on short-stay visits of around two weeks, are part of a group travel arrangement and focus on a particular geographical area and objective. This might include, for example, a ‘beach vacation’ (in Goa or southern Kerala), the ‘golden triangle’ of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur or a tour to the numerous and extravagant architectural monuments of Rajasthan. As was seen from the earlier discussions with the frequent travellers, many of this group first visited India as part of a short organised arrangement before deciding to return as ‘independent travellers’. On subsequent visits and with more time on their hands, their itineraries were more ambitious and seemed to cover most parts of the country. Andy for example recounts cheerfully, “From Delhi I got the bus to Dharamsala” in the state of Himachal Pradesh (often abbreviated to HP) – a journey of just under 500 kilometres. Bounded by Punjab on the west, Jammu and Kashmir in the north and Tibet on the east, my image of HP is of mighty mountains and abundant apple orchards in the valleys; such are the simple images of the Western tourist! The hill station of Dharamsala, established by the British between 1815 and 1847, struggles today to cope with the volume of visitors. These visitors in the main are interested in Buddhism, meditation or are sympathetic to the cause of Tibet. And of course the town is the base of the Dalai Lama. For those from the West in particular, the Dalai Lama is a popular figure and draws huge crowds to his visits out of south-east Asia, especially North America. In Dharamsala itself, thousands of Tibetans flock to the town together with nuns and monks from all over India and Nepal to seek his guidance and spiritual blessings. “I had an interest in the Buddhist faith, really,” said Andy when asked why he had travelled to north-west India. “It had an element of a pilgrimage. I had seen the Dalai Lama in South Africa. I then went from Dharamsala to Ladakh. This was in 2002. Ladakh was different to the rest of India. There was more of a Buddhist culture there.” Ladakh in fact is often described as ‘Little Tibet’ (or the last Shangri-La) and has all the Buddhist cultural trappings – the strings of multicoloured prayer flags fluttering everywhere, the white prayer wheels and the white coloured chortens at the entrance of villages and monasteries. Ladakh is a region in the neighbouring state of Jammu and Kashmir with the largest town being Leh. Bounded by Pakistan on the west and China and Tibet on the east, the state stretches spectacularly into the Himalayas.
I have never been to India’s northernmost and sixth largest state, Jammu and Kashmir, although I have checked the weather and security situation many times. Escaping the British winter weather is not a good time to visit this part of India: most of the roads and passes are only open between late June and October. The temperature drops dramatically after October, apparently often to minus 30 or 40 degrees. The attractions of the state, however, are well known. Indeed by the early 1980s, tourism had overtaken agriculture as the main source of income. The subsequent political disputes since then have, until recently, closed down tourism to the state.
Apart from the geography of this north-west part of the country, another well-known feature of this part of India is the intense religiosity of the region underpinned by simmering ethnic-cultural tensions. Around Jammu in the south-west of the state, for example, it is predominantly a Hindu area while Kashmir is almost exclusively Muslim. In the north-east and occupying some 70% of the state are the followers of Tibetan Buddhism. This combustible mixture resulted from the panicky cynicism and political machinations of the British at the time of Independence in 1947, as will be explored in a later chapter. Ladakh became part of Jammu and Kashmir in independent India 1948 following the first of the three Indian-Pakistani wars fought in the region. Ladakhis today continue to push for separation from Jammu and Kashmir.
Steven too had been to Ladakh as part of a package tour on his first visit to India in 1992, and later in 1999 on a tour with his sister. “It was almost pre-Internet days and I remember it being difficult to arrange coaches, flights and things like that. We got a small plane that had to fly half-empty as the high altitude and air density wouldn’t allow a full load of passengers.” Throughout the 1990s there had been a simmering insurgency in Kashmir with atrocities committed by both sides. In 1995, five tourists trekking near Pahalgam were kidnapped: one was beheaded and the remaining four tourists were never found. “It was in the middle of the 1999 war,” continued Steven. “We kept seeing private coffins coming down the valley – poor dead Indian soldiers. At the airport which was not much more than a Nissen hut, they screened all luggage and coffins. So some poor worker who was busy screening rucksacks then saw skeletons go by presumably with a lump of lead in it somewhere. I really liked Ladakh though. We didn’t do any trekking as we had problems of acclimatisation. We hired a 4x4 vehicle.” As would be expected in this mountainous terrain, there are some spectacular roads and passes in the Ladakh region. The famous 485-kilometre route for example, from Leh (the capital of Ladakh) south through to Manali (in HP), reaches an altitude of 5,300 metres. Cycling this highway is popular with up to 300 cyclists each year attempting the route before mid-September when the highway officially closes. Steven, however, took the road north out of Leh to the breathtaking Nubra Valley which is apparently the world’s highest stretch of driveable road. “We had tea at the top – at Khardung Pass (5,578 metres) – and then down the other side into the Nubra Valley. The geology was awesome,” continued Steven. “It was absolutely fantastic – snow, desert, camels, glaciers, everything. On the way back we got to the top and found a British tourist, a hard-arsed cyclist who had actually cycled up there. He had collapsed at the top and was in big danger. He was semi-conscious and we were able to throw his bike on top, lash it down and put him in the back of the 4x4. He would have probably died. No one was particularly bothered. So we took him down the mountain and at various spots he made us stop because on the way up he had been shedding bits of his gear. So he had shed his Primus stove, and left this and left that so that by the time he got to the top he was virtually carrying himself and the bike. An absolutely crazy climb. We had met him in a cafe at Leh earlier in the trip and he had been telling us about his plans so we actually knew him. When we spotted him we recognised him immediately.”
Leh, some 3,500 metres above sea level, continues to attract numerous tourists today primarily as a busy base for arriving in the region as well as a base for exploring further parts of the region. It is helped as a tourist centre through its airport links to Delhi, Jammu and Srinagar. Sheila and Tony had also visited Leh, “some twenty years ago. It will be so different now – full of video shops and that.”
More recently, Janet and Mike were in Kashmir. “It was quite modern,” they recalled. “We were there in 2005 when the earthquake hit.” This was October 2005. A 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck Kashmir killing some 73,000 people and injuring hundreds of thousands more in the India-Pakistan region. Srinagar ‘the beautiful city’ is the summer capital of the Jammu and Kashmir state. Situated in the fabled Kashmir Valley and with huge snow-capped mountains pressing down on three sides of the city, this predominantly Muslim city is home to the famous houseboats and floating gardens on the city’s two lakes, Dal Lake and Nageen Lake. Together with the intricate ornamental gardens, water fountains and terraced lawns from the seventeenth-century Mughal period, Srinagar remains a magnet for intrepid travellers. “We were up there (Kashmir) for about ten days,” continued Mike. “I had this uneasy feeling in Srinagar so we left. There were no trains. We left at six in the morning and three hours later the earthquake hit. We got the news that Srinagar had shut down – no water, no hospital, nothing.” It wasn’t the threat of the earthquake that persuaded Mike and Janet to leave
Srinagar. Instead, “We were uneasy in Kashmir and in Srinagar. You wouldn’t want to be out in the countryside overnight; basically, you get back to Srinagar. Srinagar itself wasn’t that welcoming, perhaps because they hadn’t seen tourists for some thirty years. We had a look at some of the houseboats on Dal Lake but they were not in a good state of repair. We saw lots of Indian army and police walking around with Second World War rifles. We’re Americans and sometimes we get paranoid. Where are you from, we’re asked, and we say America. USA is not on very good terms with these folks. In most parts of India we feel very welcomed but in some parts, we feel we’re not too welcome due to the way our government operates but as individuals the locals want to welcome you, talk with you and be friendly with you. Part of the problem is that basically everyone you are dealing with is a young male – not with people our age or with women. The countryside though was beautiful. It was autumn and we drove up the road to Jammu. They were harvesting the apples and all the trucks were full of these apples – it was very beautiful.”
Maybe one year Susan and I will get to Jammu and Kashmir. We like the mountains and all the written and filmed accounts of the region suggest that this is a very special place. Above all, I think we would enjoy most the cultural and religious diversity that historically characterises the villages and peoples of this most north-western part of the country. We have, however, visited briefly the neighbouring state of Himachal Pradesh. We travelled from Delhi on the train to India’s most famous hill station, Shimla, a few years ago. The summer capital of the British at an altitude of just over 2,000 metres is an attractive if sprawling town popular with local tourists coming up from Delhi. A significant part of the attraction for us was the Shimla ‘toy train’. Before ever riding or seeing this 96-kilometre narrow-gauge rail, I felt a ‘television’ intimacy with its tunnels, bridges, stations and employees. The BBC seems to show its four television episodes of the Indian toy-trains every couple of years – I must have watched them about three times. Eventually, when we did manage to board the train at Kalka I was always on the lookout for some of the employees who starred in the Shimla episode. We visited in February with the weather politely put chilly. We had come up from humidity-drenched Kerala in southern India but in Shimla it was a case of buying jumpers in the market and not moving out of them for the duration of our stay. The ‘freshness’ of the weather, however, didn’t distract from the pleasantness of wandering along the Mall to the main square and savouring the historical distinctiveness of the town. The Ridge was where everyone congregated, and we too sat and watched the strolling tourists, horse riders and children playing, all against the backdrop of huge white-capped Himalayas. While the British architectural presence was still clearly visible in the town, the once-tiny village is now a major holiday resort for domestic tourists. Like the British in the old days, many of the visitors were up from Delhi to escape the sweltering heat and dust. The bazaar was as busy as ever and the Mall (main street) retained enough of its Raj features to provide a glimpse of the past. We were eventually off to Nepal for a trekking adventure; the locals were aghast that we were not pushing further north in HP to trek around the popular Lahaul area (at around 5,000 metres). Next time, we promised them.
Banyan Tree Adventures Page 5