By TRICIA: My Honeymoon is Over

Yesterday, my honeymoon with India ended. It happened at about 17:15 in the afternoon.

Not to say I'm unhappy or want to come home... not at all. I still love India, it's just that our relationship has changed a bit. I have more realistic expectations and have come to see some of the aspects of traveling here with a new perspective. I think as the honeymoon period comes to an end, denial takes over (that may have lasted a day or so before I realized our honeymoon was over... I still wanted to BELIEVE that train tickets could be had with simplicity, that people could, if pressed, give us the information we needed, that I could say "no, I don't want to buy that sticker/postcard/guidebook/banana/tour/rickshaw/taxi" without being followed...).

The current stage is ACCEPTANCE. I am working on this. I accept this country for what it is, all the 1.1 billion people who live here and must find some way to scrape by. I understand some of the long history and complex culture that combine to limit the mobility of the people of India (in contrast to the world I know in the US and our American dream). I know about the distinctions between the developed and developing world and see how globalization is affecting this country (for better or worse). I recognize the gross income disparity that slaps us all in the face when people like me (RICH people) come to India to travel.

The key, I think, is to remind myself of these truths and to focus on the beautiful things, the parts of India I fell in love with a week ago, and the new beautiful things that happen to put my head over my heels all over again. In some ways, I love the madness, the noise, the smells, the constant crush of people. I love the landscape, the sunshine, the warmth, the food, the generosity of some of the people we've met, their sincerity, their spirituality, their culture... I could go on and on.

This is all happening very fast, I know. We just met a week ago, somewhere in there we connected, wed and took a honeymoon. I'm sorry, India, that it ended. I still love you.... I really think we can work this out.

"Into the Woods to Find the Giant..."
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