Chaos, colour and cows: what it's really like to travel to India for the first time

When Leonie Jarrett travelled to India for the first time she was overwhelmed in the best possible way.

By Leonie Jarrett

Cows, bumper to bumper traffic, rubbish, rubble, cricket, blazing car horns, crazy driving, colour and more cows! These are my hectic, chaotic and colourful impressions of my first visit to the maelstrom that is India.

Congregating cows are just part of the fam

Immediately after we arrived in Delhi, I saw cows. Cows on the median strip, cows beside the road and cows on the highway. When I journeyed into Rajasthan, the cows multiplied – congregating in groups as if they were holding meetings, wandering through the markets and sunning themselves in the middle of the roads. And no one bats an eyelid!

Cows are holy in India and they are not eaten. There is no beef anywhere on a menu in India; not even at McDonalds! Some Hindus won’t even wear leather belts nor shoes.

I knew that cows were sacred but I asked our guide, Arvind, why they walked amongst the people so casually. “They are our family,” he replied matter of fact.

The crazy traffic somehow works 

The traffic was like nothing I have ever seen. Horns blaze continually. Cars, motorbikes, tuk tuks and pedestrians ignore common sense and just cut across in front of oncoming traffic all day long. Even if that oncoming traffic is a big minivan like my group was travelling in.

The traffic behind slows or stops or weaves. The result is this chaotic zig zagging of traffic which somehow seems to work.

The roads between the cities in Rajasthan tend to be single lane. There is no divider between the lanes. If someone wants to overtake, they just create a middle lane and speed up so that there is not a head on collision!

The driving boggled my mind and the professional drivers truly are magicians. One day, there was actually a double carriageway with a median strip in the middle of the road (rare), yet a truck was coming down towards our minivan on the wrong side of the road! Our driver, Laxman, never even flinched. He just stayed in his lane. Talk about “keep calm and carry on”!

The rubbish is next-level

I was shocked at the rubbish. Everywhere we went. It was mainly abandoned plastic and cans. The cows and other animals gladly grazed on the rubbish. In fact, we often saw cows and dogs sleeping on piles of rubbish.

There was loads of rubble too from what seemed to be half-finished construction projects, which are everywhere. Often, there were piles of rubbish on the road. Drivers just serenely weaved around the rubbish, adding to the general traffic chaos.

The country is obsessed with cricket and kabbadi

I had heard about the Indian obsession with cricket. Being there made it real. Cricket is the most popular sport in India and it’s telecast on many different TV channels all at the same time. Sometimes live and sometimes as replays of every form of the game from Test cricket to T20 to One Day Internationals.

Driving, we saw cricket being played by kids and adults alike on makeshift pitches on barren fields and on dusty laneways. 

I also learnt about a very popular sport that I had never heard of – Kabbadi (pronounced kuh-bud-DEE). This was also on several TV channels at the same time. A contact team sport played between two teams of seven players, Kabbadi roughly resembles the US game called “Red Rover” or the British game known as “British Bulldog.”

Vibrant colour everywhere you look

My enduring impression of India, though, is not the ubiquitous cows or the traffic or the rubbish or even the cricket! It is of colour – amazing, vivid colour.

Colour in the richly decorated forts and palaces – intricately carved red sandstone and white marble adorned with inlaid precious jewels and glittering mosaics.

Colour also in women’s clothing – their saris works of art full of beautiful, bright colours and patterns. Never have I seen so much red, orange, hot pink and gold. Our guide told us that black is for widows and bright colours symbolise happiness. I vowed to banish the black when I returned home!

We witnessed a groom’s procession to his wedding reception – he sat like a king astride a white stallion decorated in vibrant silks, accompanied by a crescendo of loud drumming. He wore a white suit, but his turban was adorned with brightly-coloured feathers.

Colour is everywhere in India, even in gaily-decorated trucks and the remarkably technicolour-bright TVs. Yes, Indian TV is really, really colourful, even the news channels have multiple, bright banners and graphics all across the screen.

My top tips for first time visitors to India

Prepare for bathroom breaks: Public toilets/restrooms (called washrooms in India) are not common. Few have toilet paper. All are wet underfoot. Carry tissues or toilet paper with you and also soap/hand sanitiser. Cleaner toilets are usually staffed. Have some small notes for tips if the toilet is staffed. Beware of what you flush as the plumbing is not always the best.

Carry some cash: Have some cash with you for small purchases and for photos too. For instance, at the Taj Mahal there are people who will take photos for you and show you cute photo tricks. They volunteer to help you but they expect a tip.

ATMs are the cheapest way to access cash. Hotels don’t offer great exchange rates.

See your GP well in advance: Think about consulting your GP a few months before you travel. You can then discuss any vaccinations or preventative medications. That said, there was another Australian couple on our tour (mid 50s, like us) who didn’t see their GP beforehand and they had no issues – so, up to you! 

Travel is arduous: Drives are long (traffic is heavy) so book a comfortable car with air conditioning. Insist on working seat belts.

DO NOT ATTEMPT to self-drive. Engaging a professional driver is worth its weight in gold.

Before I go, a note about ‘Delhi belly’

No one wants to get gastro on holidays. Neither my husband Andrew nor I have sensitive stomachs but neither do we have “iron guts.” So before our trip to India, we visited our GP before our trip and asked about what vaccinations we needed. Our lovely GP told us, “You will get sick. You cannot avoid it in India.”

One Typhoid and Hepatitis A booster, a cholera drink and a prescription for malaria tablets (plus several hundred dollars later), we hoped that we were set!

Despite our GP’s warning, Andrew never got sick and I only had a couple of minor tummy upsets. I swallowed a couple of GastroStop tablets which I brought with me from Australia, ate plain rice for a couple of meals and didn’t have any further problems.

That said, apart from chai (“tea” in Hindi), we never ate nor drank from street vendors.

We had breakfast in our hotel each day and lunch and dinner in hotel restaurants or “tourist” restaurants that our guide recommended. We were also vigilant with hand sanitiser before meals and each time we re-boarded our tour van.

With vigilance, hopefully you’ll have just as memorable a trip to India as we did – for all the right reasons.

So, would I go back to India?

My first visit to India will not be my last. It was hectic. It was colourful. It was chaotic. It was a feast for the senses. It hit me in the face and now I want to see more!

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