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World's Largest Dumpster Fire or, What the Fuck is Wrong with you, India?

lucious leftfoot

By lucious leftfoot
in Daily Texan

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Mrs Whiggins

Mrs Whiggins 13050

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

From the fire, or from the rectums of 1.4 billion people who all eat Indian food every day?

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Maybe not every day, but pass me the punjabi samosa platter and a plate of mutter paneer and stand back.

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texasdago

texasdago 7567

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

It's a large country. Much history, but you're entitled to your opinion.

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I am equal parts "I truly want to visit India" and "I truly do not want to visit India"

I've heard you really have to prepare yourself for the experience.  So much history, culture, architecture, great food, etc etc wrapped into a soul-shocking package.  A friend of mine and her mother traveled there for a few weeks and the tales they told...

Oh No Wow GIF by The Great British Bake Off

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BabaYaga

BabaYaga 15288

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Been there for work.  Bangalore and Chennai.  It's equal parts opulence and abject poverty.  They still have an under-employment problem in many parts.  Our facilities are nice, and the hotel was as nice as I've ever stayed in.  5-star all around, then you get into the city....

I can say Vietnam was worse in terms of poverty, but couldn't touch the amount of pollution and trash.  

And fuck that flight unless you are in premier first class with a pod/cabin with a bed and endless alcohol.  

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BabaYaga

BabaYaga 15288

Posted
Posted
44 minutes ago, texasdago said:

I am equal parts "I truly want to visit India" and "I truly do not want to visit India"

I've heard you really have to prepare yourself for the experience.  So much history, culture, architecture, great food, etc etc wrapped into a soul-shocking package.  A friend of mine and her mother traveled there for a few weeks and the tales they told...

Oh No Wow GIF by The Great British Bake Off

Pretty sure I saw this dude.....;)

SQRF96.gif

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austingirl

austingirl 2191

Posted
Posted

Some of it's gross and some of it's gorgeous. Ooty is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The city roads can be terrifying - somewhere I have a video from when my coworker and I took an auto-rickshaw through the streets of Bangalore and ever time I watch it I just hear circus music playing in my head. And re: the weather, Bangalore's weather in the summer is shockingly wonderful. I was there for two weeks in July and the highest it got was 80 F.

That said, I haven't been to Delhi but I have an American friend who lived there for a long time with her Indian husband and yeah, it doesn't sound like somewhere I'd want to live, between the weather and now dumpster fires. 

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Orale

Orale 1087

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Posted

I went to New Delhi last month. It was interesting to see, but definitely a dump. Just pure chaos. I'm bewildered when people talk about its potential to be a super power. Though I guess China managed to pull that off over the last few decades. 

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Willfully Horn

Willfully Horn 8001

Posted
Posted

The most fascinating country on the planet. Of those I know who’ve visited, they either loved it, or wanted to take the very next flight out of there. 
 

I love novels set in India, with Salman Rushdie’s “the Moor’s Last Sigh” topping the lot, and Gregory David Roberts’ “Shantaram” right up there.

”Don’t you know how high the river rises in your country, Lin?”

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lucious leftfoot

lucious leftfoot 126

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Posted
15 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

The most fascinating country on the planet. Of those I know who’ve visited, they either loved it, or wanted to take the very next flight out of there. 
 

I love novels set in India, with Salman Rushdie’s “the Moor’s Last Sigh” topping the lot, and Gregory David Roberts’ “Shantaram” right up there.

”Don’t you know how high the river rises in your country, Lin?”

Shantaram is excellent.

24 minutes ago, Orale said:

I went to New Delhi last month. It was interesting to see, but definitely a dump. Just pure chaos. I'm bewildered when people talk about its potential to be a super power. Though I guess China managed to pull that off over the last few decades. 

My understanding is the vast majority of China is still pretty India-esque. Like kids pissing on the street etc.

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BonzoMontreaux

BonzoMontreaux 1038

Posted
Posted
On 4/23/2024 at 10:50 AM, BabaYaga said:

Been there for work.  Bangalore and Chennai.  It's equal parts opulence and abject poverty.  They still have an under-employment problem in many parts.  Our facilities are nice, and the hotel was as nice as I've ever stayed in.  5-star all around, then you get into the city....

I can say Vietnam was worse in terms of poverty, but couldn't touch the amount of pollution and trash.  

And fuck that flight unless you are in premier first class with a pod/cabin with a bed and endless alcohol.  

Screenshot-2023-11-17-185053.jpg?strip=a

I have never been so miserable in my life.  Had tickets in steerage to and from Bangalore.

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Js1

Js1 85275

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I literally thought I was going to suffocate in Mumbai. I could only be outside for about 20 minutes at a time. 

But the time that I went, Delhi was not that bad, pollution-wise. 

I took the Qatar Airways flight and got lucky I had an entire row to myself. 

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Vertuzzi

Vertuzzi 1369

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Posted

Was just in Delhi and Jaipur last month. An incredible cultural experience and I’m wanting to go back to explore more of the country. With that said, it’s the most disgusting place I’ve ever been (including all of Asia). Literal fields in and around Delhi where these nothing but dirt and trash, with cows grazing said trash. The people are incredibly nice and welcoming but I was just disgusted anytime I walked around both cities. I’m honestly shocked that fires do not happen more often considering all of the shit that is just tossed on the ground and the amount of small fires I saw burning from people living on the streets. 

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GenXer

GenXer 2850

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I’ve been on two separate biz trips to bangalore. I stayed at a company house each time. Bangalore has higher elevation so its temperature is comfortable. We had a driver to get us to the office and back to the guest house.

The commute to and from work was the most fascinating thing. The morning commute had intersections filled with buses with people sitting on top and riding the bumper, auto rickshaws, cars, motorcycles, a cow or two lounging in the intersection, and a six year old wandering between the traffic. Mayhem.

The evening commute is dark so it’s not the visual extravaganza. I usually took a nap to the make the 1.5 hrs go by faster.

Every day the route would be different as the drivers would let each other know which route was the “best”.

You would see modern office buildings next to a neighborhood of houses made of cardboard. You can’t really call them homeless because that was actually their multi-generational home.

On my first trip, I took a weekend and flew from bangalore to new delhi, took a train to agra to see the taj mahal, took an overnight train to jaipur to see the city, took a train back to new delhi and flew back to bangalore. When I got off the train in agra, a guy offered to give me a tour of the city to see the taj, mini taj, agra fort, take me to eat for the day. $20.

My second trip I got food poisoning that set in minutes before my departing flight from bangalore to frankfurt connecting to dallas. I got on the flight and suffered my way back to dallas where the flight attendants forced me to deplane in a wheelchair. I had spent the entire flight from frankfurt to dallas in the bathroom. They periodically checked on me to make sure I was still alive.

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0xdeadbeef

0xdeadbeef 1645

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20-some years ago when I worked for a Fortune 500 Tech company, the VP of Engineering took 3-week visit to our offices in India. Nothing unusual about that, except he chose to ignore all the recommendations for Vaccines boosters.  He got something nasty and was out for almost six months.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4896562/

Quote

Traveling to India possess a threat to travelers with waterborne diseases like bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, and typhoid fever; vector borne diseases like dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, and malaria; animal contact disease like rabies.

 

 

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TKthunder2

TKthunder2 4985

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23 hours ago, BonzoMontreaux said:

I have never been so miserable in my life.  Had tickets in steerage to and from Bangalore.

Business class is the way to go if you/your company can afford it, but on my last trip in Feb I could only get premium economy and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. But I would absolutely refuse to go if I had to fly basic economy.

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956 Worldwide

956 Worldwide 34701

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Posted (edited)

I lived in Karachi and while I realize that comparing India and Pakistan can start fights, the fact is the subcontinent has a lot of similar characteristics. In a broad brush, Pakistan and Karachi is likely cleaner than large Indian cities (astonishing after you see the level of pollution and trash in Karachi) while the security environment is worse in Pakistan. I know India is bad for women travelers, I don’t think that Pakistan is better so much as women travelers basically don’t try it alone; there are no yoga retreats or gurus or backpacking infrastructure. Rape and assault of local women was a constant drumbeat in the news. 
 

My gut has never recovered, and while I was there low-grade discomfort was the norm and true good poisoning happened about once a month. Sweats, shits, vomits, sleeping hugging the toilet.  The smell of the city was unreal  when the wind came off of the lagoon where sewage and runoff drained (most of the time); the sky was a flint gray and filled with small raptors (kites) scavenging carrion and garbage. I went to a city beach and it was covered in garbage and it seemed to be garbage with a layer of sand mixed in all the way down. People offered camel rides and horse rides and the animals shit on the beach. No one was swimming, exactly, but lots of wading in oil-slicked surf with garbage and the occasional visible turd floating by. 
 

The homes in elite areas and dedicated military housing were clean and tidy with well-maintained streets and gardens. There is an awe and love of the military, which maintains British customs and unit naming conventions and order. It is everything the rest of Pakistan is not and almost all Pakistanis save the Islamists love it deeply. After military bases, madrassas and rigorous Islamic schools are also the cleanest and most orderly oases.  The local unauthorized shrines and mosques are oases of tolerance but also complete chaos and grime. One can see the appeal of militant nationalism or Islam.

Eid-Al-Adha, when Muslims sacrifice, is a time of joy and celebration and fun but to an outsider is a horror movie. The animals are simply slaughtered in the street with a dull knife and entrails left behind foe dust men in some neighborhoods and dogs or kites in most. I saw the city of 20 million from a rooftop in the late afternoon and understood what the sack of Jerusalem must have looked like after the first crusade when you read about knights wading through blood. 
 

Provincial cities were if anything dirtier.  Only the desperately poor villages of straw and mud huts were tidy. Almost every town and neighborhood flew flags on every rooftop declaring loyalty to one or another political party or Islamic school. You did not see different flags next to each other. 
 

I understand some of the high mountain villages and towns in the north, in Gilgit-Baltistan are truly lovely and pristine. One of the most beautiful, sophisticated, smart, and tolerant women I have met anywhere hailed from there; they share much with Tajiks and other Central Asians. Quite safe and welcoming if you can get there, which is the whole rub.  But I cannot recommend Karachi or Sindh for much all. And I didnt love what I saw of Punjab. Lahore is quite historical and has good food.

Edited by 956 Worldwide
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Txangel9910

Txangel9910 217

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

Business class is the way to go if you/your company can afford it, but on my last trip in Feb I could only get premium economy and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. But I would absolutely refuse to go if I had to fly basic economy.

IMG_6519.thumb.jpeg.ed2a4b7ede514aaccb55ade900792245.jpeg

Former company only let VPs fly business.  SUCKED. Nothing like landing at 3 am in Bangalore, arriving at hotel at 5...taking a quick shower,  having breakfast, then straight to the office.  VPs were well rested; rest of us the walking dead.  Absolutely paid to upgrade myself after that.  🤦🏾‍♀️

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crash_davis

crash_davis 23100

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You know there's a rapey problem when an airline will alert women if they are going to sit next to a man on the plane.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/07/indigo-allows-women-to-avoid-booking-seats-next-to-men-on-flights.html

India’s biggest budget airline IndiGo has been trialing a booking feature that will allow women to avoid booking a seat next to men on flights.

The feature, the first of its kind for an airline, works by showing female travelers a pink seat at the seat selection page if it will be occupied by a female passenger, a company representative told CNBC Travel.

Male travelers, however, will not see this information, the company said.

 

An IndiGo representative told CNBC Travel that the new feature is designed to make flying “more comfortable for our female passengers.”

Many users on social media platforms X and Reddit commended IndiGo’s new initiative, with some commenting that it is “such good news” after having bad experiences when traveling alone, and they are “glad it is available,” citing personal experiences of being touched on flights.

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B00M

B00M 6413

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, crash_davis said:

You know there's a rapey problem when an airline will alert women if they are going to sit next to a man on the plane.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/07/indigo-allows-women-to-avoid-booking-seats-next-to-men-on-flights.html

India’s biggest budget airline IndiGo has been trialing a booking feature that will allow women to avoid booking a seat next to men on flights.

The feature, the first of its kind for an airline, works by showing female travelers a pink seat at the seat selection page if it will be occupied by a female passenger, a company representative told CNBC Travel.

Male travelers, however, will not see this information, the company said.

 

An IndiGo representative told CNBC Travel that the new feature is designed to make flying “more comfortable for our female passengers.”

Many users on social media platforms X and Reddit commended IndiGo’s new initiative, with some commenting that it is “such good news” after having bad experiences when traveling alone, and they are “glad it is available,” citing personal experiences of being touched on flights.


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Ten Bears

Ten Bears 2480

Posted
Posted
On 7/31/2024 at 12:42 PM, nnm said:

 

 

On 4/24/2024 at 3:33 PM, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Before we get too high and mighty, Austin has had a giant pile of shit catch fire before too. 

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2013/03/19/compost-fire-to-cost-austin-at-least-2-million/9796357007/

spacer.png

 

Metal salvage place in on fire in north Austin right now too

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