North India

         North India. Dangerous- especially for women,being young and being a "foreigner" makes it even more dangerous, or so it may have seemed from the conversations I had with several people from Pune before I embarked on a solo week long adventure to what is commonly called "The Golden Triangle," the cities of Jaipur, Agra, and New Delhi in the Northern portion of India.

        Yet this regional prejudice, almost as common as North and South in the United States of America, was unfounded in my one week experience in North India. I was told to buy pepper spray and to ensure that I had a GPS tracking device switched on on my cell phone (an impossibility on my low tech Nokia). I was beginning to get the feeling people in Pune, Indians, not international visitors, were afraid of Indian people in the North and wanted me to be afraid as well.

       In my twenty years on Earth I have learned that fear is usually not healthy, so I put on my backpack and set off for the airport with a heavy sigh, feeling sad for all of those I'd be leaving in Pune who would spend a week worrying about me, and feeling exciting for my week of travel, by myself, at my own pace, and on my own terms.

     When I got off the plane in New Delhi and out of the cab of a taxi driver who was just as confused as I was about the lack of an exact hotel address on the hotel voucher (lesson learned here- from now on I'll triple check addresses), I found myself in the main bazaar. I wandered around the bustling market and a tourist hotspot, where hotels, eateries and shops line the pedestrian crowded streets, trying to find the hotel I booked online, Hotel Malik Continental. A shopkeeper asked if he could help me, and after telling him I was looking for the hotel, he pulled out his iPhone, looked the hotel up, called it, got an address, and helped me hail an auto-rickshaw driver to take me there. Twelve kilometers later I arrive safely at my destination. This was just one example of the kindness I experienced on my travels.

    Aside from a brief verbal dispute between a rickshaw driver and man on a bicycle who bumped into us, which was quickly resolved when a third man intervened, I encountered no mishaps in my week alone in North India. Not a single dangerous thing happened nor was I in any precarious situations, aside from being faced with the air pollution and lack of public toilets that plague many parts of India. Inside, I was inspired by the kindness of the people, the beauty and historical significance of the history of the architecture, and the peace of mind a week traveling in North India brought. While I acknowledge bad things have and do happen, they happen everywhere, and so debilitating stereotyping is more harmful than good.

And to prove my wonderful experience, enjoy some photos: