Please dont take this post as a rant. Also dont use it as an excuse not to visit India. If you travel on a luxury budget you’ll avoid many of the things below (at least they will be kept out of sight). But then you wont really experience the India that people here live in.
To survive India you need to relax any preconceived notions you might have about hygiene. Ha. Lets face it, it can be filthy here. But before you read on, keep in mind one important thing. Most Indians have an extremely high sense of personal hygeine. Rich or poor they are always clean and immaculately turned out. To me its a sort of miracle given the conditions sometimes.
Here are some of the hygeine issues I faced and accepted:
Flies. Everywhere. Especially retaurants. All over the counters, the food on display, the tables. Like hundreds of them. Today at breakfast each table had around 50. So many in fact, even the waiter seemed concerned. Usually they are more of a nuisance than anything. You simply cant think about how unclean they are. And really in any any restaurant, no matter how fancy it might look, you have no idea whats happening in the kitchen. I’ve worked in enough to know. So let go.
Sheets and pillowcases. I’m never sure if they have been washed, or if the splotches on them are permanent or from the guest who just left. I’ve got this hospital green sleeping-bag sheet from Mountain Equipment Coop thats perfect for these situations. You just zip yourself up, think clean thoughts and drift off to sleep. Its paper-thin so you dont get too hot.
Tea cups. In fact tea glasses, its usually served in a glass. At chai stalls, probably in kitchens too, glasses are rinsed in a most cursory way. A splash of water and on to the next customer’s lips. And where is that water coming from? The stream nearby? The river? I think the tea is usually made from water from a better source than the dishwater, but god only knows. (He drinks tea, by the way). Well, at least the tea is boiled and the milk comes from holy cows.
Mice. The first time I ate at the Brown Bread Bakery restaurant in Varanasi there were little wee mice running around on the floor under the tables where I sat to eat. That’s cute, right? The second, and last time I ate there I watched one of the kids that worked there take about 6 live traps out of the kitchen and down the stairs past where I sat eating. They were long rectangular metal cages with at least 6 live little mice. The kid looked matter-of-fact about the whole thing, like it might have been a daily chore.
Nonetheless, the place had the best pastries in town.
Shit. Feces. Dung. Call it what you will, its just about everywhere on the streets. Walk near any wall thats not part of a house or an occupied building and you smell it. Cow, ox, buffalo, dog, goat, sheep and often human varieties. At some point you end up stepping in it, like when you dodge an oncoming Jeep thats pressing you off the road. When you feel it ooze between your toes thats especially challenging.
Lizards, ants, roaches. All manner of creepy crawlies share your rooms with you. But somehow you make friends with them in a way that simply wouldnt be possibly at home. I like the lizards especially. They are translucent, and shy little creatures that dart about the walls.
Rats. In the Jodhpur train station waiting room, the “upper class” one, no less, I watched a rat scurry around, dig into the garbage pail, scurry around on the floor some more. People sleep on the floors in train staions, but no-one seemed to take any notice of this guy, except me. Incidentally, there is a Hindu temple in Rajastan called the rat temple. I didnt go there. But the floor is covered in rats, and the people worship the rats. Hinduism is a very broad religion. God is everywhere. If god is in the sun and the moon, it is also in the rat and the shit.
Garbage. This too is everywhere, except in bins which there dont seem to be many of. It just piles in the street. In Delhi and Bangalore I saw people chuck bags of rubbish from upper floors of flats into the street over me as I passed by. The cows or dogs munch through it, picking out the yummy bits and eventually someone comes along and sweeps it all up and carts it away.
