A Brave New India

And so it comes down to this... my final post... my final day.


Today, I spent the day in the ominously named 'Sector 18' in Noida. Full of shopping malls, designer shops, cafes, bars and five star hotels. A mecca for consumers, obviously and unsurprisingly the direction that any budding capitalist 'democracy' should taking with fervour! I guess it was a slightly bitter but realistic end to what has been a surreal and amazing adventure... slightly scary to see such a huge place with so much money and momentum peddling such a homogenised future with such power and passion. Maybe it would have been nicer to finish my trip in the dreamlike Varanasi rather than the painfully real Sector 18 but the last week... my last week... has offered me both ends of the spectrum of the country of a million colours. Again, I couldn't have asked for more.

And so I sit here, on my last day in India... about to order my Domino's pizza, watching Ruins (a gory American horror) ... slowly getting myself ready for the return. I've decided to nick my friends Ellen and Duncan's idea of finishing their blog with stats... so as to avoid waxing all lyrical and stuff. It's been a fucking blast!

Days Travelled: 117

Sunny days: 112

Quiet nights of sleep: 12

Total distance travelled by land: 9706km

Total distance travelled by air: 13400km

Town and cities visited: 36

States traversed: 13

Chais consumed: 634

Blog posts written: 34

Photographs taken: 4999 (exactly, that's 42 a day)

Near misses with other vehicles: 253 (more if you include the ones where I was asleep)

Miles driven on the wrong side of the road: 11

Times I literally believed I was about to die on the road: 7

Times ripped off: 43

Times I haggled for 5 minutes over Rs10 (12p): 121

Dogs almost tripped over: 1213

Number of temples visited: Enough to never want to see one again.


Kids talked to: 214

Times left speechless by abject stupidity: Countless

Cows dodged: 76

Fights seen: 2

Fights that made me wet myself at their malcoordinated nature: 2

Pickpocket attempts: 1 (on me, not by me!)

Pairs of sunglasses lost: 2

Hats lost: 1

Days ill: 9

Hours spent on the toilet: 213

Dead cows: 2 (one being eaten by a dog, one at the bottom of a waterfall on its back with its legs in the air... poor hilarious thing!)

Banks I saw which were guarded by octogenarians with elephant guns: 7

MacDonalds visited: 0

Hippie travellers who made me want to commit murder: 132

Ali Baba pants seen: 132

Ratio of ashram/yoga/spiritually enlightened travellers who were also marketing/branding/PR executives: 1:1

Times I had to stop and stare in wonderment: I'll have to spend the next year or so remembering all of those times.
And finally, I've organised some of my favorite photos from the trip into a collection of new sets for you guys.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cosimo-roams/collections/

Thanks so much for reading and looking. I can't wait to see you all.

Much love!