cicerone imposter wrote:I had the opportunit to visit India in December 2001. Our tour started in New Delhi, and we stayed at the Taj Palace hotel. Having traveled extensively around this world, I must say that the Taj Palace hotel is one of the best.
& i thought u've never visited india and wanted to invite you !
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As with any country, there are things to be proud of and to be ashamed of. That is a universal truth. Let me provide some perspective as a visitor to India.
spot on.
we have many faults as well.
no point trying to deny those.
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India is a country of extremes; great poverty with a growing middle class.
poverty is not something we knew before the poms came.
we are throught known history one of the orignal first world....25% of world's output till 1700ish and all that.
middle class is growing... but could have grown a lot more... and long back.
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India's history is rich - not only because of its religions, but because there is much to admire; their architecture including the Qutb Minar and the Iron Enigma, Taj Mahal, Samode Palace, Amber Fort, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort, Orchha Fort, and Khajuraho (the places I visited). India also produced Mahatma Gandhi, one of the greatest men to walk this planet. He brought democracy to India by peaceful demonstration.
please visit south india next time.
they have the best of indian archetecture.... also most of south indian monuments have escaped islamic destruction.
gandhi was great... but ineffective in his primary agenda - of freeing india.
in the other things he said (trashing caste system and stressing on cottage industry), he cant be faulted. pls read his autobiopgraphy.
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My physician is from India. She trained at Stanford, and I consider her the best doctor I ever had in my life. When I returned from my vacation in India, I showed her my picture album, and the first thing she recognized was the Taj Palace hotel, because that's where her sister got married. She told me whenever she returns to India, she makes it a point to go have a meal at the Taj Palace Hotel.
yes we do produce a lot of good docs.
medical outsourcing will eb a reality soon.
as an ex-manager you'll appreciate that there are a lot of medical stuff (a treatment involves many kinds of jobs) that can be outsourced.
that will reduce the prohibitive medical costs (especially for stuff insurance doesnt cover like plastic surgery and ivf) in the west and also open up new sectors for india.
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Many engineers and scientists in Silicon Valley are Indians from India. We have some fantastic Indian restaurants in our area. However, when I returned from my vacation in India, I told my wife not to prepare curry for 12 months. Many high tech workers from Silicon Valley have started businesses in India, and more young people in India are beginning to earn enough money to enjoy a better standard of living.
yes.
but all that could have been done 30 years ago.
we tried to emulate the soviets and had soviet kind of results !!
till 1990 that is, when india's best prime minister and best finance minister teamed up to launch india on a capitalistic trajectory.
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We also had the opportunity to have dinner at a middle-class family's home where the father and his four sons and their family lived in one huge mansion. There was trash strewn all over the place around their property, but once inside their fence area, it was imaculate, and their home is beautiful with very nice furniture and luxuries. Their home even has an elevator. What surprised me most was the fact that the four son's total income was a little over US$40,000, and at the time my wife at home earned over $40,000 working three days/week as a nurse. I understand everyting is relative, and the cost of living in Silicon Valley cannot be compared to the cost of living in Jaiper.
yes.
converting rupees into dollars does not give the real picture.
for example its about 50 rupees to the dollar.
but the purchasin power parity is achieved at 10 rupees to the dollar.
so that 40, 000 $ actually provides the standard of 200,000 $.
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We also visited the Rathambore Tiger Sanctuary and Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary. Although we didn't see any tigers, we did see deer, monkeys, crocodiles, and many different birds. I remember seeing a statue of Gandhi when we were traveling through a small town, so I asked the driver to stop so we could take a picture. We also visited Gandhi's mosleum in Delhi in the early evening.
nice.
india's best tiger reserves are in madhya pradesh and bengal (sundarbans.. un world heritage site) though.
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I came home from my visit to India feeling very good about my journey to that fascinating country. If I do visit India again, I'd want to visit the southern section of India.
please do.
south india is better in many ways.. though its hot. so make sure you come in winter.
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I have a doctor friend (his parents are from India) in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. He had some rare disease that could not be diagnosed or treated in Dar es Salaam, so he went to India. We communicate regularly by email.
Our tour director's name in India is Ashoke. He explained his name very clearly. He told us just remember the two trees, ash and oak.
haha... thats nopt how the name comes and thats not what it means.
ashok was one of india's grestest kings and the guy who exported buddhism to the far east (he turned buddhist after a bloody war with the Kalinga - today's orissa, rulers. google could tell you more)
ashoke means "without sadness".
shoke = sadness or grief.
"a" = negation.
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Another good trip.
If you like, I can post some pictures I took in India. I also went to Nepal on this trip, and was able to fly to Mt Everest from Kathmandu. The day was perfect for picture taking.
wow.
yes please do.
i went to nepal too and though i didnt see everest, i saw the pristine annapurna range (which murice herzog made famous in the west) from pokhra, in nepal.
it was nice reading your post.
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