India. You either love it or hate it. It’s an assault on the senses. Its loud, smelly, chaotic and crowded. It is also incredibly beautiful. I love India for that. It doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t.
Travel for me is about experiencing the new. If I wanted predictable, clean, safe I would stay at home where I speak the language, know where to buy the foods I like to eat and how to get about. But I did that for 20 years. I was a mum, I raised my kids in Brisbane, Australia and after they were done with me (this is another post) I left Australia to discover the post kids Jodie, and more of the world that I live in.
My first trip to India was in 2014 for a meditation retreat after my dad died. I didn’t really see much of India – I arrived in the dead of night, caught a bus to the ashram in Chennai, meditated and washed dishes for 14 days and caught a bus back to the airport. I saw the villages outside the bus on the way to and from the airport. I saw a woman get run over by an ambulance and a cow get hit by a car, chickens and goats, kids in the street and rubbish, plenty of that. I was there for a purpose, to meditate, and that’s what I did. That is not my ideal type of travel, but as I mentioned, I was there to meditate, not see much of India on that particular visit.
Some people are afraid of travel, and need to have everything printed out, planned and scheduled and always go with a group. I don’t like that kind of travel. I much prefer the fly by the seat of my pants way of doing things. Sometimes a tour is nice to see a certain thing but mostly I hate being organised and fitting into another person’s schedule. It actually really annoys me. Luckily my partner and I travel really well together. Mark has done a lot more travelling than me, but he had never been to India and so in 2016 we decided to go and spend a couple of months there and see what we could discover. We booked flights to Dehli, a couple of nights accommodation for when we arrived and return flights to Australia in two months time. And the rest…well it was to take shape after we arrived.
I’m not going to give you a blow by blow of our trip, because that’s just boring, you need to get out there and see what your India looks like, but I am going to talk about the things that stuck out for me about travelling in India as a woman. I’ve had single female friends that have gone to India together and hated the way that they perceive women are treated there. These are ladies that live in Australia and England, are used to women having a say, being listened to and actually taken notice of. And so for them India and its ways really annoyed them. But I must say I loved it.
A few days before we arrived there was an issue with currency and we couldn’t get any money. All $50 and $100 indian rupee had been recalled and atms and banks had closed. So we were travelling to a country for two months that we potentially could not get cash in. Credit cards where fine but most of India survives on cash. What to do. We arrived in Dehli and stood in the line with hundreds of other travellers and Indian’s trying to get money so that we could get a taxi to our accommodation. This was the first indictor on how India was going to be. We stood in line, men jostling each other. There is no such thing as personal space in India. Mark and I stood together and the line eventually got to the front. The clerk ignored me and dealt with him. At first I was a bit taken aback as I was not used to this but we were given $200 rupee each (they were only allowed to give out money in $200 rupee lots) and moved on. And this became the way that things happened in India for the rest of the trip.
If we went into a restaurant, wanted to buy water, hire a bike, taxi, or find out about accommodation, Mark was the one who made the plans. It became the normal. And it was so relaxing for me. I didn’t have to do anything. All the discussing, negotiating etc was done by someone else, all I had to do was enjoy myself. We met other travellers along the way. Couples, solo men and solo women. Even though India can be dangerous, there are a lot of solo women forging their way out there travelling about. And good on them. It’s great. But the thing that we quickly discovered was as soon as something wasn’t so great for them ie. they needed a male to help out with organising something, they quickly looked for a white man (anyone near by) to help them out with it. Mark became a source of assistance for many.
Again I don’t have an issue with helping out fellow travellers but the thing was that they were adamantly travelling alone. They were making a thing about it. “I’m an independent woman, I can do this”, but clearly there were situations when they couldn’t and then they had no issues with batting eyes to get help, to then turn away and “independently” travel on again. This happened at the train station in Varanasi . We were catching the train to Khajuraho and our train had been delayed and so we were waiting on the platform with 300 or so other people. Girls laden with luggage and guitars (why would you take your guitar, it seemed to be a thing) approached us and asked Mark to help them with carrying stuff, finding their platform and getting train tickets. We didn’t know what we were doing either, we were just waiting for a train, and when we couldn’t help one of the ladies out, she muttered under her breath and stormed off. It just screams entitled traveller. Travel alone, enjoy your own space, do your own thing but don’t expect that just because you need a thing, that everyone around you is going to be able to help you out.
Mark got incredibly sick twice in our travels and the men that ran the inns that we stayed in totally took care of everything. As there was no cash we had a running tab across Khajuraho’s restaurants and shops for water and food so that “he” could sort it when we left. They made sure that everything he needed was catered too. They asked me each day as I left for a walk how the boss was and if he liked his breakfast!
Every country has its own ways, its own flow. To arrive in a country and expect to be treated the same way that you are in your own country is ludicrous. Solo travel isn’t the issue, its the attitude. It can be incredibly freeing to go where you want and do what you want without having to cater to another, but it has a down side. You don’t have anyone to help you when you need it, and travelling in countries that are more male dominated in their ways makes this problematic and potentially unsafe at times. Travelling with a partner made it easy for me – Mark was able to handle everything. And also having a partner meant that the Indian men left me alone. I wasn’t harrassed or bothered by them as he was there. And it meant that I was free to engage with people wherever we went.
Jodie's blog 