Tourist Guides and Domestic Tourism

-

 

There has been a huge change for the better with tourist guides across India. I say this with confidence because decades of domestic travel which began with avoiding tourist guides in the early years to a total respect for the tourist guides I come across all over India is a personal anecdotal experience, backed by inputs from other travellers, and something which, in my humble opinion, has not been documented or written about.


One example out of many - at a particular temple complex in Peninsular India, over 1000 years old, my taxi driver is an elderly man from another religion. I am usually interested in seeing parking lots, especially paid parking lots, to get an idea of the environs. Not much tells you more about a new place than the paid parking lots, if you can spot the gambling, the pushers and the fake "receipts", you have made a start.


So after parking the taxi, our driver asked me how much I knew about this particular temple complex, and I told him that, yes, I had read a lot about it online, so he tells me - would you like to have a glass of spiced buttermilk before going in? (What we call "tadka chaach" in North India, but just with different spices and herbs designed to resist hot summers.) And there began my adventure with tourist guides of the small shopkeeper sort.


Between the cab driver (of a particular religion) and the shopkeeper (of another particular religion), I learnt more about the centuries of humiliation we had undergone in the micro-history of that part of India, identified more by language than by religion, and the way that the people there had fought back also for centuries. Regardless of religion but in the interests of preserving what to them was an open source example of education and information.


Now this has been a subject I have brought up globally - how older buildings of all sorts, the ones that are a thousand years old and more, are like open source repositories of knowledge. And very few tourist guides in the West even respond to this. But increasingly in India, and as I mentioned basis language and not religion, I am getting answers. And then connecting the micro history dots.


Taxi drivers, the elderly sort, shop keepers, the interesting sort, and tourist guides, the intelligent looking sorts - tribes that are growing across India. You just have to seek them, as our forefathers sought knowledge.


What's holding you back, then?





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

India at less than 5000/- per day including travel

-
As the description says, this one will be about documenting and writing about domestic India travel by surface, aimed at a not higher than 5000/- rupees per couple per day all in effort - which is a reasonable number in this post-COVID world. Travel, board and lodging, with sight-seeing. We actually managed that last month, May 2022, Goa - Udupi - Coorg - Bengaluru. 5 days, 4 nights, driving a 9 year old WagonR.  And we've done it in the past too, though COVID put a bit of a gap in the proceedings. Both of us are in our mid-60s and so we also aim at a similar profile of readers, not in a very big hurry, and where the journey is also the best part. If you feel tired - stay another night! Every which way, if you are no longer fascinated by paying vast sums of money for doubtful holiday experiences abroad, then India awaits. The Indian tourist in India is the big focus for the smarter tourism industry - especially outside the larger cities, where real estate is still affordable. Our p...
Read more

Hotels in India and the Art of Breakfast Buffets

-
  Breakfast buffets at Indian hotels are probably the best means of sorting out what the F&B experience will be like at their other restaurants. Unlike with hotels in many countries abroad, the Indian breakfast buffet is usually largely vegetarian, with an egg and dosa counter, as well as a token display of cold cuts and sausages. Marked, usually, with an absence of pork. What are the points to look out for with a breakfast buffet in India? 1) Go for the pre-boiled eggs. Crack one open. The rest of the egg adventures will depend on the colour of the yolk inside and how fresh the egg tastes. If the boiled eggs served are lousy, then the rest of the breakfast is also, probably, a collection of lowest bids. 2) Check out the idlis. If they are fresh-steamed, plus points, but if they are lying sadly neglected in some sort of serving apparatus, then once again you realise that the typical Indian star hotel truly has not learnt anything from the many Indian vegetarian restaurants on t...
Read more

Food safety whilst travelling in India - 01

-
  Contrary to most supercilious, patronising and condescending write-ups on domestic travel in India that many of us may have seen, I have yet to suffer a bad stomach due to food when on the road or in the trains, but then again there are simple basics to follow. Anywhere in the world, incidentally, and not just in India. I love meat. But Number 1 on my no-go list when travelling is meat. Non-vegetarian food, especially mince meat in any form, and especially highly spiced curries and kababs based on mystery meats, are by their very nature, suspect, globally, unless you see the meat with the bone attached prancing or swimming in front of you, or nearby. Anything that has been in transit, cold chain or not, and then stored, has a reasonable chance of being tainted.  I do not say this lightly - storing of food in freezers was amongst the most serious and important cross-domain functions going on ships. The engineers needed to ensure that the fridge rooms (all four or more) functi...
Read more