It's the small things...

The thing which gets you about India are the small things.

Take for example, my hotel. A suitably high class hotel in the middle of nowhere (otherwise known as Udipur - the same place they filmed Jams Bond's Octopussy) it is blatently designed for the foreign or higher class Indian tourist. Every glass has "sanitised for your protection" written on it, and the toilet is wrapped in similar paper. Like a reverse biohazard label I suppose - they know us western tourists are worriers evidently!

Now comes the Indian part: they leave on the "fragile, handle with carelabel which was wrapped around the bath when it was installed, so that it's actually cemented into the bathroom (see picture below). Mornings always involve a cold shower (3 out of three mornings anyway) . I could ask for a bucket of hot water, but it would take so long I cannot be bothered. Then there is the rubbish.

The rubbish is so amusing it warrants it's own section, although some would argue it needs a whole book. Every morning you will find a shop-keeper sweeping up his shop, as they do in the UK. The difference in India, is that they sweep the dusty pile of crud from one stone onto the adjacent stone. One stone is theirs, the other one, is the "streets". Resultantly, when the car drives past, it blows it back onto their shop. That's lunch's work sorted then!

Next to every tourist sight you will find a huge deposit of rubbish. That's because somewhere along the line, some poor soul has been asked to clean up the rubbish. So they take it from the tourist destination and drop it. However, they drop it on the first stone which isn't technically the tourist location.

The person in charge below just thought that tipping it over the wall was the best way forward.

...or the main entrance to an ancient temple, with rusting poles for free. Nice.

Then there is disorganisation and irony, both in large measures around every city...

...followed by the association that anything good must be English (i.e. English Medicine shops, English wine shops etc...)

One of the campest man alive (he posed for two photos and insisted I wait whilst he "composed himself") !!

....and the final shot to let everyone know that I'm still breathing :-)

Yet it all still works, and it is this crazy nature which makes it so appealing. So I say bring on the rubbish and cold showers, as long as it comes with the character and charm I have come to expect :-)

That's all for now, but we are heading east over the next couple of days, and hopefully increasing the interest in our tour, as the tourist trail begins to wear thinner.....