It's just under 2 weeks until I will travel to India for the first time. I am excited. It is the expected destination of an intrepid traveler such as myself. I also have my doubts.
My first doubt is for the shear size of its population. I don't like crowds. It is Christmas right now and just on Friday (21 Dec) I had to leave a Brisbane city shopping centre because I couldn't cope with the crowds; they stress me out: I am a country girl. I need my space.
My second reason of doubt is over the men. I have been told and have read that, with curly blonde hair and blue eyes, I can expect to be constantly stared at, have suggestive comments whispered in my ear, and to even get groped on occasion.
Perhaps it won't be so bad... could they be as bad as Peruvians? (12 comments from 12 passing men in 30 minutes on a morning in Lima when I was already annoyed enough to decide to keep count).
But I also have personal experiences, a series of events, to make me feel this way... Not that I have met at lot of Indian men in Australia (aside from Taxi drivers I mean), but I can say that 6 have hit on me in ways that I think imply that they thought I would sleep with them ... And yet I had done nothing to deserve this low opinion from them.
Let's hope that the Indians I meet, if sleazy, actually like women.
Despite my treatment in Peru, I always felt that Peruvian men liked women. In contrast, Dubai is placed as the place I have least liked of all that I have ever been to; because there I felt that the men don't actually like women.
So, I am excited to be going to India, and a little worried about the crowds and the harassment, but this time I'm not traveling alone.
Ali
