My View of India and the Western World, after travelling to India

I have arrived back home in Germany.
Coming back to Germany is a strange feeling. It's like entering a completely different world. Like travelling to another Galaxy.
Physically i have returned home.
But i have to admit that my mind is still wandering through the streets of India.
If you are from Germany and have never been to a country like India you might not understand what i am trying to say. And also if you are from India and have never been to a western country like Germany you might not understand either.
 
I think that many people in Germany are not aware of what kind of privileged life they live. Well I don't know for sure. That's just what i assume, because i myself was not aware before, how different things are here from there.
It appears to me that many people here take many things for granted. Things which cannot be taken for granted in other places of the world. Things like, that here all men and women are equal. That everyone has access to free education. That everyone has the same opportunities, like studying at university. Life in Germany seems less of a competition as it seems in India. In India everything to me seemed like a fight: Starting with simple things, like people fighting to get into the Metro.
Can you imagine 10 Indian men trying to get through a door of 1.5 meter width at the same time? Only in order to get a good spot on the train? Well this image shows how probably things are in real life as well. Everything is a competition. Just like people have to fight for their spot on the Metro, it seems like people have to fight for their place in society. Yes in Germany it seems less like a fight. You know, when you get unemployed in Germany, you simply get money from the state. But  not in India. In India they have all these simple jobs which were unimaginable here at home. Like the "elevator button press job". Imagine going to a shopping mall and going on an elevator. And then there is this man and you tell him to which floor you want to go to, and then he pressed the button for you? Such jobs don't exist here. But they do exist in India. Because in India, if you want to live you have to work. Even if it's just a simple job like pressing the button in an elevator. That from the perspective of Germany.
On the other hand i assume that many people in India can not imagine how the world looks like beyond the borders of India. Many people probably have seen how things might be like on a Hollywood movie. But we all know, that the real life and a Hollywood movie have only few things in common. I assume that some people cannot imagine that there are places in the world were you simply can open your water tab and start drinking the fresh water, that comes out of it. (Assuming you do have a water tab). How it is to walk on a street, and to be the only person to walk on that street: No other people, no wild dogs, pigs, cows or any other wild animals.
How it is to walk on a street, which is not dusty at all, and where you can not find a single piece of trash. That if you walk through the streets, it never smells like "toilet", and that the air which you breath in, is rarely ever so polluted that it feels hard to breath. In some places of India, i saw people handwashing their clothes on the street. Here everyone has his own washing machine and dish-washing machine at home.

I guess i could continue listing up things which are different here from there, endlessly. But i guess i have a better idea. Maybe i should start writing a new blog about life in Germany. To show people from other places of the world how it's like here. I will think about it.

Alright i will close this post with a song, which i stumbled over in India. I kind of liked the melody. Because the beginning sounded very familiar, but then it changed to something completely different, with the strings instruments joining in etc.
Thanks to my friend Maitri for sending me that song =)

Hampi , Gokarna and Goa

Hampi - 12.09.2014

In the evening of the 11th of september i took a night bus from bangalore to Hampi. Bangalore, by the way i had reached 3 days before by airplane. Well Bangalore is relatively far in the south of india, so going there by bus would have just been a torture and it would have taken me ages.

Although i had a great time in Bangalore, spending some time with friends i assume if i wrote about it might bore you. So I'll skip that chapter.

So from Bangalore on the 12th of September i reached Hampi. Hampi is a lovely little village which is probably not bigger than 200 meters in diameter. The village is surrounded by hundreds of antique temples. 

So on my first day in Hampi i didn't do a lot because i was feeling a bit sick from some salad i had eaten the evening before. Small advice: Never order a salad in India! Even if you are in a better or more expensive restaurant. ( Except of course you were born in India ;)  then you might be fine). In the evening i went for some indian cooking class were we cooked some Indian meals, which was fun. The next day, i went on a guided tour until afternoon to explore the most important  temples around the village.  

Temples in Hampi

temples in Hampi

temples in Hampi

more temples in Hampi ;)

In the evening i went to some special location called "the sunset point" to watch the sunset :) . This point was at some temple on top of a hill. At this sunset point i met a guy from ireland and an indian girl, who had the same idea like me. So we watched the sunset together and later went to have dinner together.

me at the sunset point in hampi

watching the sunset at sunset point in Hampi

male cows fighting each other
with sunset in background

more sunset fights

nice colors of the sunset

nice colors AND reflections of the sunset

On my 3rd and last day in Hampi i met again with the Irish guy and the Indian girl to do something together. First we went for a walk along the river.

walk along the river in Hampi

Then we went for a short boat ride on the river.

some temple in hampi-
seen from the boat on the river

And then to see one of the main temples, which i had not yet seen.

Very impressive i found the ruins of the old "stores". As the guide had told me one day before: in the past india was a very rich country and in all these stores people were trading gold and diamonds. Many countries came to this kingdom to trade horses against gold. Obviously the king of this city needed lots of horses for the war.
Nevertheless i wonder were all that gold is gone...
It must have been taken by enemy invaders.

the old stores of the gold traders
 of the past kingdom

an antique swimming pool

gold trader stores

In the afternoon me and my 2 new fellow travellers went to a mountain to some temple which some of the locals called "monkey temple". From there we had an incredible view on all the surrounding landlandscapes
.

Landscape around Hampi
seen from monkey temple

monkey temple

me on the monkey temple mountain

Gokarna and Goa

For my last 2 weeks in India i decided to go to some more peaceful place at the sea. 

So the first place i went to is called Gokarna. Gokarna is not far south from the state Goa. It belongs to the same state like Bangalore, which is called Karnataka. In Gokarna i stayed in a hotel at some lonely beach. Lonely i mean in a sense that it was not as touristy and a bit offshore, because in order to get there you have to walk through some small jungle. The name of the beach was "Hudlebeach". This is a picture of the beach:

Hudle beach in Gokarna

From that beach with an about 20 minute walk you could trek to the "main beach" of Gokarna. There you find cheaper restaurants etc, and this is also were the buses depart to Goa.

walk to the main beach in Gokarna

the main beach in Gokarna

the main beach in Gokarna

Himachal 03.09. - 06.09.

In the evening of the 2nd of September me and my friend took a bus to a place called Manali, which is located in the state Himachal Pradesh of India. As you may conclude from the name of the state, most villages in this state are in the Himalaya mountains. So is also Manali, the village we went to.

We arrived in this village on the next day, so on Wednesday at around 12 o'clock noon. Not only this village but most of the places in Himachal are very peaceful. No annoying Riksha driver's begging you to take you to some destination, no street kids trying to sell you a box of crayons, no honking from the crowded traffic. And the air is so nice and clear. Not as dusty as in the streets of big cities in southern India.
Me and my friend stayed in a hotel in old Manali, where we had a very nice view on the valley of Manali. From this hotel you couldn't hear anything except the sound of the river which was running through that village. I must admit that the landscape in Manali reminded me a bit of my home, the black forrest, with all these pine trees.

river running through old Manali

On thursday , the 4th of September, me and my friend went on a one day trip to a lake which i think was in a height of about 4300 meters. The name of this lake is Chandrataal - the Lake of Moon. In order to get there we had to take a pass road called "Gramphu-Batal-Kaza Road" for several hours.

Sometimes on the way a herds of goats and sheep crossed our way. So we had to wait until all these animals had passed by, like in the picture down below. 

waiting for a herd of goats to pass by

Sometimes other animals like donkeys were blocking the road. So we had to honk a bit, until they made the street free. =) Actually i am not sure whether these were donkeys or ponys.

donkeys blocking our way to the lake

donkeys on the road in spiti valley

Some of these landscapes on the way to the lake looked really interesting, almost like from another planet.

About 1 or 2 hours away from the lake, we made a small stop for lunch in a small  hut. There we had some traditional mountain food. I don't understand why but in the mountains even the simplest things seem to taste delicious.

hut were we had lunch in spiti valley

The girl in the next picture is by the way my friend from Delhi, who came to travel to Himachal with me.

my friend having lunch

After lunch we continued our way to the lake, and went trough more moon-like landscaped areas.
(Well of course on the moon there are no rivers and clouds etc...).
The name of the valley we had to pass through was "Spiti Valley".

Finally after, i don't know, maybe 6 hours of driving along these pass roads , we finally reached the lake. Those flags which you can see at this lake are tibetan flags, which have usually prayers written on the flags.

tibetan flags at the lake of moon in Chandrataal

When we arrived at this lake, we had quite good weather, because the sun was shining a bit =) .
So we decided to go for a walk around the lake. I guess at some point we just stopped and enjoyed watching the beautiful landscape.

lake of moon , with mountains in the background

At some point it became really windy and cold around that lake, so i decided to wear that scarf around my head to keep myself warm. I had bought this scarf somewhere on the way to Chandrataal for about 300 rupis.

me at lake of the moon

me again

I must admit that until now , i guess this is one of the coolest trips i have done so far in India. :)
On our last day we went trekking to some waterfall from Manali. But of course the trip we had done the day before, was difficult to keep up with.
I guess this is sometimes a bit pitty. If you travel a lot and you have, lets say, seen the Grand Canyon, then sometimes a waterfall, which is actually quite pretty, might appear a bit boring, compared to the Canyon. I guess it's just important that after doing such trips, you have to keep appreciating the simple things in life, because they can also be beautiful. You just have to give them a chance.