India photos from trip Dec-Jan, as you like

[Sean]

[ibanezmonster]

Nice photos!

[Artem]

i lie the one with you, bike and a cow. what's going on in the picture after it?

[Sean]

Hi Artem, it's just a street scene, I'm standing by the green box.

Thanks guys.

[arkiv]

Special photos. I have always been fascinated by the Indian devotion, specially Indian Christianity, Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism and tribal polytheism.

[Sean]

Me too!

[EigenUser]

Nice pictures. I especially like the non-sightseeing ones (i.e. streets) because it really makes you realize how different the world can be. I don't like traveling much myself, but whenever I do I generally like to avoid touring popular areas and just (try to) go about my daily life in a different area as if I lived there.

[Sean]

Sure thing, I try to travel incognito and go native.

[jochanaan]

Fascinating.  India is one of those places where it seems that *all* the assumptions we base our life on here in "the West" have to be re-examined.  Or that's the impression I've gotten from my reading and talking to folks who have been there...

[Sean]

Thanks jochanaan, It's probably the main reason I go. I have multiple interests in India dating from 1989, and there's a really remarkable number of interesting things to see. I've made seven main trips and entered about 12 times, first in 1997; get visa, get a bag, get a guidebook and get the hell over there!

[Rinaldo]

Inspiring pictures and a healthy travel mindset. I'm planning a larger trip that would take me through the northern parts of India. I was always a little apprehensive about the Indian culture but that's one more reason to experience it myself.

[Florestan]

I try to travel incognito and go native.

The complexion betrays you, though. 

[Sean]

Best of luck with your plans Rinaldo, and the north I think is marginally more interesting than the south.

Hope you noticed my Taiwanese girlfriend also with light skin Florestan...

[Florestan]

Hope you noticed my Taiwanese girlfriend also with light skin Florestan...

I did. My point is that you are so markedly different in complexion from the Indians that you can´t go incognito as a native.

[Sean]

Well that's true. The natives can even discern ethnic Indian foreign nationals from the way they dress, move or speak, and they get the same hassle as the average dumb westerner.

Sometimes at a Hindu-only temple I try to get in, telling them I'm Hindu, but sometimes I'm stopped. Apparently there's a piece of paper you can get but yes, it's a specific culture all to itself.

[arkiv]

Hope you noticed my Taiwanese girlfriend also with light skin Florestan...

There are also mongoloid Hindus from Northeast India:

[Sean]

Interesting, I didn't know that. Nice picture too. I've been to Assam and Megalaya but no further. However I read that a road is being built between Guwahati and Mandalay so it looks like the Myanmar border will be open once again before too long.

[arkiv]

I didn't know about the border (I only have "traveled" to India by net). There are also mongoloids in Ladakh, the top northern part of India; they are buddhists.

[Sean]

Thanks pal.