Tag Archive for: India

23/ 100 Rubbish
Littering is taken to a whole new level in India. There are barely any rubbish bins in public places and pretty much all the food and drink you buy in the streets comes with an astonishing amount of packaging. Although, having said that, you can also buy fizzy cola in nothing but a clear, and very thin, plastic bag.

22 / 100 Kite Flying
kite flying in India is HUGE. For weeks before Makar Sankranti, and for weeks after, people are completely obsessed with it and you will find bits of brightly coloured kites littering every surface. Children especially clamber up to the roofs of the tall buildings in the towns to fly their homemade kites, and, according to our Indian friends, fall to their deaths far too often.

21 / 100 Hanging out the Washing
The relics of the caste system are still plainly obvious in India, despite people telling us it had long been abolished. The owner of this particular B&B wasted no time in introducing himself as a Rajput, a member of the warrior caste that sits right at the apex of the pyramid just beneath the Brahmin or priests.

20/ 100 The Perplexing River Ganges
So here’s what perplexes me the most about the river Ganges. As the river is so incredibly important to them, why do they quite literally treat it like a waste disposal site and toilet? It is worshipped by the very same people who fill it full of pollution and grime.

19/ 100 Chickens in India
Whilst wandering the streets of India we often came across elderly people, sitting in chairs next to the road wrapped tightly in several blankets (we were there in the winter), dozing through the day. I am guessing that there isn’t a great state-run care system for the elderly that is accessible to everyone so, if you could, it seemed common to take your parents to work to look after them.

18/ 100 Baby Shave
People frequently ask me why I love India so much. It is, after all, not the easiest place to get around and there will certainly be times when you wished you were back at home. I've seen some of the most horrible things there, and also some of the most wonderful and on each of our two trips there were times when I would have happily been teleported back home. Not all of those points in time involved toilets, but was certainly a major factor.

17/ 100 Can Cows Climb Steps
Before our second trip to India we were chatting about our previous visit with a friend who was a farmer. The conversation was mainly about the scattering of un-farmed farm animals that were dotted through every city we visited and were free to roam anywhere they desired.
Things got a little heated when he told us it was a well-known fact that cattle can’t climb steps. He said they were very reluctant to walk up them and would never walk down unless forced by a farmer. He said their physiology wouldn’t allow it.

16/ 100 Fishermans Friends
These two young boys magically appeared each day whenever we sat down so that Fiona could work on her travel sketchbook and I could have a mental reset after a hot day walking the streets of Varanasi.

15/ 100 The Dangerous Suburbs of Pushkar
The small town of Pushkar, in the dry and dusty Thar Desert between Jodhpur and Jaipur, was a fascinating place to visit. We arrived into Ajmer on the wonderful Shatabdi express train from Jaipur. Unlike some of the other trains we had experienced this one did indeed offer an express service, and had a great food served to us too.

14/ 100 Do Not Touch The Monkeys
I really liked this scene next to a temple in Jaipur. It reminded me of one of those dramatic Italian renaissance paintings where something terrible has just happened and angels have come down from heaven to tend to the sick. Perhaps there had been a fight to the death over a poppadum.

12/ 100 Scooter Dogs
Alongside all the cows wandering the busy streets of India, there are always a lot of dogs. They are mostly feral street dogs and spend much of their days lazing about the place in the shards of sunlight that shine through the gaps in the tall buildings. On the whole, though, they were quite focussed on trying to keep out of the way of people, who weren't as forgiving of the dogs as they are their giant cattle cousins.

9/ 100 Goats in Coats
On our travels around India we came across quite a few goats wearing clothes. The goats themselves were pretty feral and would just hang about the streets, scavenging whatever they could find to eat and treating the urban landscape like their native mountain homes. They seemed to spend very little time on the ground, preferring instead to perch upon chairs and scooters.