Loving, hating and Darjeeling

Whilst I’ve never been a laid back person, the moment I arrived in Vietnam I knew it was time to chill the hell out. When I ended up in Thailand with someone I’d met a week earlier and they invited me along to India, I was never going to say no. Two weeks later I was waiting for a visa in Chiang Mai. Although I loved the go-go-go attitude of the so-called ‘banana trail’, I wanted something ‘different.’

Not even Mark’s horror story of shitting himself and throwing up on himself simultaneously for 7 days could put me off, it just made me laugh: nonetheless, with the constant ‘you’ll either love it or hate it’ reports I was beginning to worry I might actually hate it. But the moment I landed in Kolkata and was told to sit between two rather large men with the gear stick between my legs in a ‘car’ I knew for me, I’d love it and hate it. All the unpleasant experiences I’d been warned of I approached with both tears and smiles. How can you hate something so utterly surreal? Whilst my travel buddy groaned about the hundreds of begging children, I let one hang on to each arm and another jump on my back and ran down the street with them.

Now I’m not saying I actively enjoyed waking up to the realization I’d shared a bed with a somewhat ugly rat, or a week of Delhi belly in Darjeeling, or being repeatedly conned by ‘friends’ and ‘astrologists’, but I didn’t hate it either: where else in the world will you experience that? Where else in the world will you get stoned with sadhus at a ghat of one of the most holy rivers on earth? Where else will you share a nine seated jeep with thirty-two people in and on said jeep staring at you in astonishment for five straight hours? Where else in the world will you drink free chai with strangers at least five times a day? You just can’t help but enjoy all of the utterly bizarre and bewildering delights of India: it’s a county like no other.

Now if you let the loss of 50 rupees or an admittedly severe case of the shits depress you, of course you will leave hating it. To enjoy all the parts of the Indian experience most people hate, you simply have to want it: you have to want a culture shock that is actually shocking, you have to enjoy the ‘bad’ parts or you’ll miss the truly wonderful joys of India which are nothing but magical, you have to trust people because nine times out of ten you’ll make a great friend. Let passers-by take your picture all day every day without grumbling, hand children a few pencils and see them happy as Larry, let your new friend take you home to meet his family over chapatis and chai, and you will never want to leave. I’ve never experienced anything like India; even when I hated it I couldn’t stop smiling, you can’t help it. Wait and see.