India was…. Wow!!
Posted by 7 on Nov 19, 2008 in Uncategorized
Hey all!
I came back from India a week ago and just found time to update you all about what fun I had out there!!
This was the first time that I went to India and I was a little bit anxious about it but I knew I had to go with an open mind.
Before I left so many people had told me that as soon as you get there and get off the plane, the first thing you will notice is the smell. I have to tell you that from the first time I got there till when I left, the smell did not affect me at all…
So it was myself and Jilna who flew together and we met Jilna’s sister Mishna who was out there ahead of us. We got a taxi to the hotel (as we had bags with us) dropped our stuff in the room and then headed out. We got to the roadside and it was manic! There were cars, and buses, and rickshaws and bicycles and people everywhere! For some reason it looked like chaos but when you look closer at the system there really is a pattern about how it works and how the interactions are.
Jilna asked me how we want to go into town and I knew instantly… Rickshaw!
It was sucha brilliant experience! The breeze, the openess, the ride… it was too good! For the whole journey I was just looking out of the rickshaw and taking in all the sites. It is an experience that I think everyone should have! And it’s cheap! Much cheaper than a taxi or a cool cab or anything.
I did try to take a picture but as you can imagine it was really shaky and I couldn’t get a steady shot. I’ll have a look at the other pictures I took to see if I have one in there and I’ll post it later.
We went shopping (because we were getting all new clothes and indian suits, etc) and that was an experience in itself! It’s not like here in the UK. Over there they will open everything for you, making sure you see all their stock, and there’s no problem if you don’t buy much. They don’t mind. They know that if they show you 100 pieces, chances are you will buy at least 2.
And the system they have there is brilliant. They have one salesman dedicated to you to show you all the pieces and 2 or 3 support staff. For example when we went to buy some sarees, there was one person showing us the sarees and opening them up and if we say we don’t like them he’d put them to the side and there would be a support staff folding them back up and putting them back later. Or the support staff would take out the sarees from the shelves so that the salesman would be focused on us. In that sense, the customer service over there is far better than in the UK.
Well this has been one of many wonderful experiences in India. Another post will be going up in a couple of days from now with more info. Pretty soon you’ll know about my whole holiday!
All the best for now!