Hi Everyone. We made it back from Singapore and we had a great trip (a rough return, but I will post details on this later). Anyway, as I said, our mini vacation was wonderful, but maybe a little too wonderful as when the time to depart neared, I started to get a little depressed. Don't get me wrong, I love India and I was looking forward to getting home and back to my friends, but leaving a Westernized country like Singapore was hard, because it was kind of like leaving the US again. So, as a part of my grieving process, I thought that it would be beneficial for me to write down my thoughts about our departure, and taking a cue from Dave Letterman, I thought I would do so as a top 10 list, but I have modified it slightly to top 11 as I thought of another while writing this post.
So here goes, the Top 11 Reasons Why Leaving Singapore for India SUCKED!!!
11. Knowing that I will again be sharing the street with not just 1 billion people, but with their dogs, cats, and cows (along with the poo of dogs, cats, and cows).
10. Giving up the thick cushy hotel mattress with down comforter for a hard mattress that smells like straw (seriously, it does).
9. Leaving behind proper sidewalks for treacherous roadsides littered with people, animals, garbage, rocks, sandpiles, rockpiles, construction equipment, and poo (Watch your step!).
8. Facing once again the smell of rotting garbage and animals as well as urine along the roadside as I make my way home.
7. Returning home to my apartment which I share with thousands of ants and a handful of mosquitoes, cockroaches, and lizards (I saw a total of 2 insects while in Singapore, one ant and one dead cockroach, both of which were outside, where they belong!).
6. Returning to a place where bodily functions such as spitting, snot shooting (which I am proud to say that I have never even attempted), urination (if you are a man), and crapping (if you are a child) are happily attended to in public.
5. Leaving hot water faucets.
4. Having to once again be very careful about what I eat and drink, or spending the subsequent week on the toilet.
3. No more Western food...
2. No more Western clothes (without risking stares and comments when I don shorts and a tank-top)...
And the number one reason why leaving Singapore for India SUCKED is...
1. Leaving behind perfect order, where there are traffic lights which the drivers obey (on our auto ride home when we returned to India, our driver did not stop at a single red light, he blew through them all), lanes on the street which drivers stay within, crosswalks that connect one sidewalk to the next, street signs which direct you to where you want to go, and best of all NO HONKING HORNS (I counted a total of 2 during our entire trip)!
I hope that for our Indian friends, this doesn't offend, but as a Westerner, there is a lot to get accustomed to in India, and sometimes it is hard to get used to some of the uglier qualities of the country. If you are here for a while, you forget what you knew, but we just got a big, fat reminder, and it has brought to the surface some of the more frustrating aspects of the culture. There is still a lot to love here, and I have tried to highlight many of these qualities in my previous posts, but it would not be a "fair and balanced" (taken from my most favorite news network) view of the country if I didn't mention the bad and the ugly as well.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Top 11 Reasons Why Leaving Singapore for India SUCKED!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
India was in the local newspaper this morning! There was a brief article about New Delhi in the Cedar Rapids Gazette that I might have glossed over before hearing of your traffic horror stories. Here is the article:
New Delhi court bans drivers from smoking
NEW DELHI — A court has banned smoking while driving in India’s capital in what is believed to be the first of its kind in any major city worldwide, police said Tuesday.
Declaring ‘‘ New Delhi roads dangerous to human life,’’ the city’s High Court imposed new measures aimed at deterring habitually bad drivers, including the smoking ban and a prohibition on using mobile phones while behind the wheel.
Anyway, just wanted to share it with you, you can imagine how much coverage India gets in an Iowan newspaper! What do you think of the ruling?
Banning smoking and cell phones will not make the roads safer. They are unsafe because no one obeys traffic laws. I should not have to be a fracking Jedi Knight adept in the ways of the Force in order to get from point A to point B.
No you shouldn't have to be, but thank God you are! Beware of the dark side. Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight.
Hi,
I can empathize with you.
Well we are an Indian couple and have lived at various places in India for 29 years of our lives. But having spent just 8 months in Singapore, our couple never wanted to return back to India and exactly for the reasons you mentioned in your post.
No, I don't think that it has to do anything with the fact that Singapore is more "weternized" or something. Let's accept the fact- what sucks with India is the lack of decency & respect for human life, utter lawlessness and civility...and the way people are complacent and even proud about it! This effects any human who wants a peaceful existence-an Indian or an American.
Hi,
I'm an Indian and I can realte all the things written in this article.India is much more UNSAFE and UNHYGENIC than you mentioned in this article. I have lived in some developed parts of Delhi and travelled across various other cities in India and as well as Singapore.And if I had to choose between them , I'll choose Singapore
Post a Comment