Previous Entry | Next Entry

2003-05-06 to 05-08 - Sanjoli (Day 21-23)

Arriving in the afternoon the hotel was deserted and I figured it would be very quite. Just for fun on checking in I went through the hotel book to find that I was the only foreigner who had stayed at the place since it opened. I did see two tourists on the way through Shimla downtown but I am reminded that I haven't seen another western tourist since the first day I'd arrived in India, not one.

In the evening the hotel quickly fills up with Indian families. They appear to all be tourists going north into the valleys and this is the first stop from Delhi. The families are amazing and seem to be very consistent on their composition of a couple of adults and 4 to 5 screaming brats. The children are uniformly loud or crying and spend their evenings running around or even playing cricket in the hall. I really am surprised that with a population of 1 billion in an area smaller then the continental US that almost every family I've seen has 3-4 children. I can't help thinking how smart the one child policy has been in China and how hard that must have been to enforce. Taking almost a hundred years to have real effect, the population decline will enable China to have a growth in surplus year on year which is the true source of a country's wealth. India on the other hand is going to be crushed under a population that is continuing to grow and will be forced to find ever more resources and food just to keep the population alive. The thought that India will just be dwarfed by China in the 21st century just keeps sticking in my head.

The next few days go through a routine I call "morning hell" where the tourist groups which are all together on busses get up and get going. Starting with the driver or organizer banging on all the doors in the hotel at about 6am, the family start getting up. The kids of course start their running and screaming and the adults who are traveling with their friends and associated families are up yelling to each other in the halls as well. Apparently it's assumed that its time to get up and thus there are no reserves on noise. At least once per morning someone, seemingly usually kids tries to come into my room and finding the door locked which apparently surprises them they start beating on the door. I've noticed that most of the families keep the doors partially open and the going from room to room to talk, watch TV or whatever is a representation of this very communal culture. All well and good but it sure makes mornings hell. By 9am, the tour groups are all packed on busses and except for the cleaning guys who also seem to have the need to yell through the halls almost as much as the tourists, the hotel settles down until the buses start arriving in the evening.

I get into a bit of a morning routine of getting up and having a slow breakfast on the balcony and just taking in the scenery. I spend these three days getting the trip photos caught up, and reading a doing practice for the GMAT. I really have brought a full itinerary of things to read and learn and with the Himalayas for a backdrop; a few wonderful days go by.

There is an internet shop a few km back down the road which gets me feeling back in touch with my friends who are following the trip and that and a little HBO, some sunshine and clean air and I'm back to being in a right jovial mood.

Previous Entry | Next Entry