Re: Desi London Mayor
 

Why should I be disappointed? I know what I see? How much time have you spent there over the last five decades? How many States have you visited? Were you there in 1947 when 90% of the people had 'nothing' except enough food to keep them alive and just a covering of clothes.
(The entire population is just over 1 billion!!)
How do you define poverty?

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

Now, as I speak from experience:

This place is batshit mental. It's chaos. But like a working chaos that sort of survives and somehow carries on.

It's cool. It's alright, I wouldn't want to live here...we have an 'expensive' office in an 'expensive' tower but it's still fundamentally bang average to shit on the scale of 'good'.

All that being said, it's alright. Big white bloke sticks out like a sore thumb and I'm staggered at how everything I want or every cab is exactly the price of the note I have in my hand or pocket. It's funny how good English language skills disappear when asking how much something is or how much change to expect. But that's not just India. That's everywhere 3rd worldy.

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

What about the toilets?

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

I wondered how you would get on :lol:
Three days, in one city, in one of 29 States!!
A tower block hideous commercial city. Actually Gurgaon is the last place on earth I would want to live also, or anywhere near Delhi for that matter!

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

Apparently our office is in a very expensive tower.

The toilets stink though. Lunch in the mall down the road was decent though, good buffet. Dessert was delicious. Some sort of battered bollock in sweet syrup with ice cream. Amazing.

Yeah, it's hardly the most diverse trip.

It's alright. It's sort of what I was expecting, just louder and busier. I like cities though and Gurgaon has zero order to it, which I also sort of like.

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

As in: how many times has he been yet?

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

20mins ago I finished my first meal in India since landing last night at 2100ish.
It was an indian buffet in a mall.

I'll update you later / shortly.

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

Going to India is the quickest way to loose weight

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

Yes, if you eat unbranded icecream or lukewarm buffet in a mall :lol:

I have only been ill once about 20 years ago when vegetarian relative cooked bad fish (I think she didn't know how to judge freshness).

Seriously, if there, avoid Western style dishes like fish fingers or fish and chips. A lot of hotels are using frozen basa fish from imported from Vietnam and this will only hold its shape for Western style dishes if it is only partially cooked. It is fine in curries where it is fully cooked.

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

10:1 Scampi boy gets Delhi Belly at least once. (Sorry mate, but it's gonna happen...)

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

I'm in serious trouble then.

Probably. I have history in the holiday-shits department. I'm pretty bad everywhere we go.

Still, few hours left and i'll head back to this hotel, hit the bar and drink more of the 9dizzer bottles of Kingfisher....remember - I was told to only drink things that were sealed.

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

You make India sound like Utopia when we all know it's a shit-pot. I think you must either be disillusioned or live a very isolated and privileged life there.

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

I thought we had established that they don't have shit-pots

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

true, they are called pavements. Not that they have pavements.

Re: Desi London Mayor
 

Gurgaon is the 'silicon valley' of India and probably represents the modern face of India better than anywhere else in the country. It's like judging the entirety of the UK by Slough.

But to really see India you have to go elsewhere. Even Delhi. That's when you get to see India face to face, in more ways than you can imagine. It's a fascinating, complex country and an utter shithole at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I like India and I've enjoyed my trips as there are amazing sights and palaces and forts and it's possibly the most colourful country in the world, but it's still indisputably a shithole country. You'll see people do things in public that would send your mind reeling. And the Indian trains? I'll never forget taking the train from Jaipur to Jodphur and I was in the second class carriage, which was the highest class available. It cost me all of £5 or something like that, the carriage had maybe three other passengers on it. The third class carriages, on the other hand, were so jam packed that people were climbing out the windows and sitting on the roof.

Or the time I saw this young Indian man stride towards this absolutely filthy lake and dip his toothbrush into it and calmly start brushing his teeth. Or you turn a corner and see a woman squatting and shitting in the street in full view of everyone.

Mental place.