Tourism of India

Tourism is up and down, it can last months or decades, it is one project that has a mind of its own. Well technically it’s the people that make the tourists. Some like rich cities, some like extreme adventure, some like roughing it pinching every cent they have. You could have found all this a couple years ago in India with tourism booming from the 70’s all the way through 2018. (People have been traveling through India for over a century.)That is when tourism in India changed dramatically and even I see it with my own eyes. Early 2018 the prime minister Modi had taxed every person more, a lot more and it hurt tourism here. The rich never traveled much to India besides doing business, lots were and still are scared to come so basically your main tourism came from the penny pincher aka cheap people and India was a super cheap country to travel full of adventure. Yet while it is still full of adventure it is no longer cheap, all dorms, homestays, hotels, food, transportation all went up in price. Bare in mind that 98% of the Indian nation think white people are super rich, so they tax everyone (foreigners) extra and now since Modi already has extra tax in you can double that being white. Sad but true! It’s very difficult to find an India friend that is not after your money, of course it can be done, there’s a billion people here, anything is possible.

India still isn’t that bad but who wants to travel and not do things and that is where I’ve seen a huge difference in tourism. I’ve been in and out of India for 8 months have traveled 70% of India and came around the same time two years ago before during winter. It’s now February 2020 and I came in September 2019, two years ago I was here for two months of November-December. I see a huge drop off of tourist. I remember two years ago I went through Goa, Udaipur, Jodhpur, many more that was full of tourists. Sometimes so many it was hard to find a room. In 2020 it is no longer like this. In fact it’s so empty almost every time I got in a dorm I was the only person in the whole building as a tourist. As I was saying people travel they want to see things. Since everything in India went up in price so did attractions, forts, museums, etc… Went up so much that the average cost of a foreigner is now paying 1000% more than the local India. Well great job Modi because the tourists have left and most likely won’t be coming back. Why? So many countries have so much to see and so many countries are now way cheaper than India. Take Vietnam for example which is now one of the leading tourists spots in Asia. You can get an amazing dorm with a/c, rooftop bar, towel, hot water, breakfast and even beer all for around $5. As to the average price in India is now around $6 with nothing. Big difference as well as you can go see many attractions in Vietnam at a third of the price of India. It’s cleaner more welcoming and much more adventurous. I guess India had its time, I’m glad I got to travel it while I can afford but I’m highly against paying so much more than the locals pay, I guess that’s why I wanted to make this blog.

India is just too dirty still, even though so much has cleaned up, now making foreign centers at train stations, thousands more bathrooms on the road ways and the cities are even being cleaned up much more than before. Regardless it’s still dirty and for the prices now being charged will hurt tourism in India for a long time. The next coming years will be hard for business owners so the people can get a feel of how the ‘far’ East and ‘far’ north have to deal with no money, no business, rough expectations of near future decisions.

While most India’s are baffled to see tourism fall right out, I am not. Most come to Asia as tourists because it’s cheap so that mainly leaves in respect that cheap people travel to Asia including myself. India is no longer cheap, taxes on alcohol and cigarettes are extreme now, its hard to find drugs and even that price is doubled. Anyone can go to Cambodia, Vietnam and others to find super cheap cigs, alcohol, rooms and food.

India was a station for the hippies and most hippy people have little money. Most only make enough to survive that’s just the lifestyle they want to live. So when everything in prices double if not triple the hippies can no longer afford. Again it will take a long time for India to recapture its tourism. I would break down tourism in three different levels. The rich, middle and poor. The rich will always travel but they only are obligated to pay certain people so really the rich do very little for tourism in the whole country. The middle class travel but not for long and most get some kind of settlement from insurance or a school program or they get couple weeks off from work. These people select few locations and usually don’t select dirty places. So that leaves you with the poor aka hippies and that was what came to India but as you can see this is no more. Costs is just to high to have any kind of fun. Maybe certain locations can turn into like a Singapore and bring the rich, highly doubt it. If you are reading this and you live or own a business in India. Be aware it might not be worth anything in the next few years. I don’t know the future but I know tourism won’t be picking back up anytime soon.

[My thoughts are how I see them, not being negative just truth. I love India and all the historic places, even you run into really good friends. Just writing this for future hope that maybe things could be a little more fair in the country of India]

Scams of India

I will also let you know about some scams in India and you should be highly aware no matter where you travel. I have written a blog called “Scammers of this world” I highly recommend you reading, before traveling anywhere. Not that I want to scare you and most places are very peaceful but you should be aware of the tactics well beforehand.

I just learned from being in Turkey that the herb Saffron can be made fake. I had bought some in Kashmir thinking it might be fake after I got notice so I started looking it up. Sure enough it’s Fake. That immediately has brought my status from Kashmir as a good place to a very bad place. Their lying skills are phenomenal and I got conned. Luckily it’s not poison! It’s truly sad how the tourist industry has become over the years of nothing but lying and scamming people and so many countries wonder why not that many people are coming to certain areas. Good thing I have my blog for people to actually learn some. Everywhere in the world it’s beautiful, but it’s the people that make up the region. And if you go traveling this is the things we have to run into on a daily basis. For all those that say people are so lucky to travel, don’t be a damn fool because it is not all peaches and cream. Lucky for this time I only got scammed out of $14 and lucky I didn’t buy any poison. I would have looked it up on the internet but the internet didn’t exist when I was there. It’s just a crying shame what people do in this world for money. I knew Kashmir was a poor place and I thought I had ran into some pretty awesome people. But honestly looking back at it I was just so overwhelmed by the beauty there, I let my guard down. The worst place I’d say is Pahalgam, not just because I got ripped off but because it was a battle just to get rid of people pounding down your throat asking for money. I got on a horse and got half price for 800 rupees. Great deal but one miserable ride, with nothing but yelling at the horse the whole time, with nothing but people, beggars, approaching you non stop asking you for a guide, a camera man, even children asking for hand outs and on top of it paying a ticket price for a view that Mother Earth made. It truly wasn’t a great adventure and if you go walk, which is highly recommend, put some headphones on until you get far enough away from these scums. Or just don’t go to this corrupt town of Pahalgam, Kashmir. I really liked Kashmir until I came here. Just some words of advice is all. Hope this can help the next traveler out. And also, even though it’s called Kashmir most of your Cashmere clothing is also fake. I know this because I did my investigating before hand. So again do some reading on google before you buy anything any where in the world. Please share so the next traveler don’t get scammed.

India you will have non stop beggars, from babies to old people even fucking monkeys and elephants will beg. Truly an amazing country if you can look past all this. But at the same time being overwhelmed by so much happening my best philosophy not just for India but for the world is don’t even bother looking at these people, don’t say hi and don’t even shake a hand. It’s pretty sad but honestly I’d never think to get pickpocketed and I did giving someone a damn hug at a festival. So if you want to travel don’t waste your energy on these scums of the world. Don’t even acknowledge them and then your travels will be a lot more safer while giving you the energy to protect your own self. Maybe I might be spiteful full towards humans now, but if you want to be jolly and free then don’t carry anything on you to be stolen, if you are carrying something then I highly would recommend you listen to what I had just said. Put it in perspective this way, if you told every person in India the word no in one day, you would have spoken twice the amount of words a normal person speaks on average which is 7,000. When walking the streets of India you walk past thousands of people and thousands of people are begging you, asking you to make some kind of money. So it’s better to save your energy, walk past all this and get some space and then maybe talk to one or two for the ride you need, or meal, attraction or what every you are searching for. It truly can become a disaster unless you have space and I learned the hard way in life so I hope you don’t have to learn to hate people as much as I do now. Space is the necessity for survival. Take a plant for example, when it gets covered up or taken over by other plants it dies, or fades away slowly. Keep your space and demand your space, save your energy to keep this distance to keep yourself safe weather you are a man or a woman.

Share this for the next traveler so they don’t have to go through what I have been through.