It is said that you can love India or you can hate it

Whoever loves India knows it: you do not know exactly why you love it. He is dirty, he is poor, he is infected; sometimes it is thief and liar, often smelly, corrupt, impatient, and indifferent. Yet once encountered you can not do without it. You are suffering from being distant. But so is love: instinctive, inexplicable, disinterested.

Loving you, you do not feel right; he is not afraid of anything; he is willing to do everything. Beloved, you feel inebriated with freedom; you have the impression that you can embrace the whole world and it seems to us that the whole world embraces us. India, unless it hates it at first, will soon bring this exhilaration: it makes everyone feel part of creation. In India, you never feel alone, never completely separated from the rest. And here’s its charm.

L’ultimo giro di giostra, Tiziano Terzani

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Never as in this trip, I had such a strong cultural shock, shock that probably took a bit of energy making me feel very tired.

When you arrive in India, it’s as if all that seen so far is not comparable minimally, and it’s as if all the first trips you did not have managed to prepare you for a lower shock. Indian cities do not remember the other big cities in the world at all, there are no big marks or known insignia, this country is literal a country that is plagued by people, life, chaos. And traveling to this country is certainly not a simple thing.

India is really another world, it is a country of strong contrasts, a country where there are crowded streets of people walking or on the edge of tuk-tuk and motorcycles that play unceasingly, smells, puffs, cows, in which You have to always look at where you stand if you do not want to risk treading various crap, with lots of open-air waste. This is what shocked me at the beginning and where I could not help but dwell on, poverty that is degrading, very different from that seen in other countries visited. And I understand how a person I loved after he traveled to the country told me that the problem of poverty will hardly be solvable.

Along with this aspect, despite my many trips around the world, many done alone, for the first time I had a feeling of being lost. It’s as if I was blocked from walking around the streets alone as I always liked to do. But not because I was scared of something, Jaisalmer is a really quiet place, but I did not feel safe about me and wanted to avoid asking for information because I did not know how much I could trust the people and the information they could have given me. Because the Indians, especially those in Delhi, are trying to cheat you, and in general for a woman it is not easy to travel and when you walk down the street you will have to get used to looking everywhere and receive various invitations such as “Chai* of welcome”, or phrases like “Can I help you? Can you help me? Want a massage?

Many people say they don’t go to India because they don’t feel ready, but to those people, I say that you will never be ready for the impact you will have on your arrival, you will not be ready for what you will see and what you will smell. Rather my advice is to go if you are prepared and used to travel alone and in Third World countries, obviously, I refer to those who travel like me backpacking, the talk changes if you are traveling with an organized tour in which you can trust everyone and you will never be alone!

And above all, my advice is not to go away if you are going through a difficult time, if you feel fragile because this journey has a strong impact both emotionally and physically.

What is certain is that, after traveling to this country, you will be able to travel anywhere!

It is said that India loves or hates it.

As far as I’m concerned, I think that within a week I went from a stage where I was more shocked than fascinated at a stage where I began to feel the charm of this place, and finally I started walking alone on the streets, to talk to people in the curious spot, and to eat with my hands has become something completely natural!

It is as if India, or in my case, Jaisalmer and Rajasthan entered into me without knowing it, its thousands of colors, its flavors, its smells, the faces of people, especially children who come to you you and take you by the hand.

And then, in what country can happen to be in a restaurant and see a cow entering its entrance ?!

* Typical Rajasthani and Indian drink made of tea and milk with the addition of various spices. Indians drink several cups a day, on average a dozen!

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