After the initial negative start and hearing about a girl being gang raped and murdered with a beer bottle the night before, only a five minute drive from the beach where we were staying, India had its ups and downs but as a whole, a fascinating place and seeing as much of the country as we did, it was a real eye opening experience and culture shock! However It wasn't all sunshine (we got caught in the rain quite a few times) and rainbows and 'living the dream', at times we found India extremely stressful, especially with the transport side of it, getting the buses always seemed to be a nightmare, we were either sent to the wrong bus station or bundled on to a different bus, or sprinting across car parks, everything is so badly organised! Also the conductors never wanted to give you the time of day, either just plain ignoring you (at the start we let this go and walk off however after it happened a few times I'd chase them and keep asking the same question, there's no need to be that outrageously rude!) or just not knowing anything! As for the bus rides themselves, I'm surprised we're alive to tell the tales! They drive like absolute madmen, beeping, swerving, over and undertaking or narrow mountain roads, and speeding everywhere, sometimes we could hardly stay in our seats! Here's a fun fact, statistics suggest that one person dies every 4 minutes on Indian roads, this accumulates to the equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing everyday, so we had a right to be a little nervous when undertaking long journeys! We also heard a lot of horror stories about crime (especially towards women) however we respected the culture and we never really felt unsafe but a few places it was obvious that you shouldn't hang around too long, or be around at night! I've mentioned a lot of the negatives but the positives outweigh them without question! The Backwaters of Kerala to the hustle and bustle of New Delhi, from the beaches of Goa and the ruins of Hampi to the Himalayas, from the Taj Mahal, the crown palace of India to the French capital of Pondicherry and from cleansing ourselves by swimming in the Ganges to a thirty six hour train running pretty much the full length of the country, our trip in India has racked up over 3750 miles! In a way, I think we'll miss the chaos and all the stray cows and dogs, also the random places where you'll see dozens of monkeys running riot on the streets, we won't miss people too much, most (65%) were lovely and helpful, some just wanted to take self taken photographs and we'd end up staying for ages as a queue formed (you feel rude if you say no but it gets annoying when you want to crack on with your day!), but others were just rude or impatient and lacking common sense (mainly on the roads, aimlessly beeping and shouting when the car in front cannot move because there's a traffic jam), we found that bus conductors and waiters were mostly the culprits of this, either don't listen to what you're asking for and having no interest in helping you, or want you to order within five seconds of entering the restaurant! Others just want to rip you off, especially tuk tuk and taxi drivers. I feel it'll be one of the poorest countries we'll visit and we won't miss the beggars, the street kids and the way stray dogs are treated, but we will undoubtedly miss the food! We ate so much for so little money, it just goes to show how much profit is made from food back home, most of our meals coating no more than £3 for both of us (In some places we noticed is hotels are actually restaurants and bakers are sweet shops, strange!). We may be a little biased as it's the first and only country we've visited so far on our adventure, but I feel it'll be hard to beat, they call it incredible India, and it's easy to see why! I think we'll return to this amazingly diverse, beautiful and culturally rich yet problematic and corrupt part of the world some day but now, we take our curry stained fingernails to the neighbouring country of Nepal, the home of the Gurka and to the wonder of Mount Everest!
