Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller
(Post 482173)
India. Permit me to jump on this one:
Go. Once. The sensory overload is worth the gastric distress. Yes, you tell yourself, that was a tattooed camel followed by a painted elephant. Random things to know and do:
1. See a "trave'medical practice" before you go. You WILL have stomach issues. Immodium to quell,immediately upon symptom onset, and Cipro to cure. Over two weeks, the three day cycle is feeling fine, feeling hideous, feeling dehydrated, repeat. I have eaten street food in Beijing, Taiwan, and, alas, Cairo. Do not do this in India.
2. I was not a fan of Mumbai. But the Golden Triangle tour of the Mughal Empire in Dehli, Aggra, and Jaipur is astonishing. Hire a driver through a tour guide, and a local guide in each city. Insist on absolutely first class hotels, and eat there. The Amber Fort, outside Jaipur, the Red Fort, the Qutab Minar, the Ghandi memorial, and the Lotus Bahai Temple in Dehli, and many other regal redoubts boggle the mind. Special amazing site: the observatory Jantar Mantar in Jaipur.
3. To get to the Taj Mahal your driver will go to a parking lot and park. You take a bus to the gate. Last stop, before seeing what is arguably the most beautiful building in the world: A facility, with a sign with two foot tall letters, announcing that it is a leprosy hospital.
4. You will see human deformity the likes of which will sear your eyeballs and remain with you forever.
5. Driving from province to province, where in the USA one might pay a toll on the interstate, your driver may have to get out and fill out some paperwork. The lovely prostitutes on the traffic island, in two pounds of makeup, and beautiful saris, often, upon closer examination, have hairy chests. Stay in the car. Even if your tastes run to that sort of thing.
6. Read Shantaram when you get back. It won't seem like fiction. Well, at least until the Afghanistan part.
Yours in globehopping,
FerretsinWashingtonDC
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