Money, money, money..it IS a rich Indian MANs world. Wow India. Pretty much everything is true about the tales you hear. The first things that hit you is the dirt and rubbish everywhere. Then the cows in the streets eating all the rubbish. And then all the animal power - oxen, camels to move freight, donkeys for rubbish, blocks of stone. People building roads through mountains by hand, breaking up rocks for rubble with sledge hammers.

Any country is about the people. The attention can be overwhelming and it resembles the Chinese water torture....drip...hello. drip...Where u from? drip....where u going? drip...come into my shop. drip...photo, photo. photo. drip...money, money / pen, pen / chocolate, chocolate.

You are "my friend" until you do not accept their service, then you are dismissed as dirt. Nothing is for free. Need to know where a shop is 200m away, "No problem sir, let me take you (for a fee)". Need a railway ticket booked, "I can do it for you". You ask "How much?" Answer equal to more than a nights accommodation. What they do not tell you is that the railway booking office is just 500m away. It takes one hour of asking before you get the direction to the office.

You get requests "photo, photo, photo" everywhere you go. But you have to pay for each photograph. there is nothing but money as a form of relationship.

One of the hardest parts is the almost unrestrained begging by children just running up to you singing "money, money, money". some of the kids are desperately poor in the rural areas. sadder is babies just 18mths old who have learnt how to beg from their mothers, mirroring them putting their hands out to you and then to their mouths. Of course mostly only we Westerns get the requests. Indians are asked less than 1% of the time.

The absolute most annoying is the rich Brahmin's kids who, like the Dire Straits song "money for nothing", come up to you, walk and talk for a bit, all the while you wait for the "can you give me some money?" request. One such kid even admitted to having his own computer at home but, poor lad, his "father does not support him". While telling us this in his fine clothes around us men and women are labouring in the hot sun carrying dirt and bricks at construction site.

Taking the good with the bad services are however all there if you want to buy them --- "tuktuk, guide, CD, internet, cold drink, postcard, water" - a never ending cacophony of noise intermixed with incessant beeping of horns of tuktuks. All of course nearly everything paid tourist price for. this is not so bad just part of the stress of the trip. the cost of the Taj for us is $20US, an Indian 50c.

the poverty in India is not as bad for 60-70% of the population as in Cambodia as a country. But those in the slums have nothing and are treated like it by all those with resources. So many Brahmin's we have meet think the caste system excellent for India. There is almost no social consciousness. It is all about "me" and my family. I guess in a land of 1.1 billion and a state unable to look after the majority it makes some sense but until there is a collective concern for others the pollution and poverty will continue.

Just as there is no care for your neighbour, there is also no social conscious. Got a plastic water bottle? Chuck it out the window of the train was the solution. As a result the country is covered in crap. the cows eat some but the plastic lasts for years.

Hard also is the behaviour of men to Western women. Unless you travel in air conditioned cars a western women is license for a crowd of men to gather around and just ogle. Combined with everything else it can get tiresome to have 30-50 men at a railway platform just stare. For a guy alone it is not much of a problem but every women and guy with a lady it is just hard. It is one of "those things" about how they look rather than the looking itself that gets to you.

It is strange but the society is so violent. People are violent to each other in daily dealings, police can lash into a crowd with batons, there are no smiles or courtesy. A smile to them may bring an answering response and break the ice. Maybe because in the big cities the society is almost exclusively male. There can be no trust unless you buy it.

But despite the heat, dust, stare, pushing, scamming, almost absolute total lack of trust in almost every Indian who IS trying to scam you (NB. the hill country is completely different and an absolute joy to be in) the sites are amazing and impressively magnificent in scale. It is also relativity cheap to travel with a day costing around $30-40 compared to $90 in Japan. More of the sites in a following blog bc you have to just get all this out about India before you can concentrate on the actual things you see amongst all the other intensity.

There are good bits about India. It is a functioning democracy. It has a free(ish) press. It does have rule of law. The train system works for 500,000 users effectively and mostly on time. People are very proud of their country and some do want to just talk and even on occasion buy you a cup of tea. And up here in Manali in the mountains it is a joy. Snow covered mountains in amongst pine forests and people SMILE. they laugh, they tell you the truth and give directions for free with a smile. They even keep the cows and crap out of the streets.

So welcome to India, the land of the biggest contradictions on earth.