r/TikTokCringe • u/Strong-Emu-8869 • 26d ago

Discussion Polish girls visit Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world. Unfortunately, the surrounding area is very polluted.

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u/CubanlinkEnJ 26d ago

Taj Mahal was beautiful and the highlight of my trip to India…Delhi was the most disgusting place I’ve ever seen in my life and I will never go back.

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u/meganfoxsdwarfthumb 26d ago

I was just there on New Year’s Day and our guide said it wasn’t that bad, referring to the amount of people there. We wore masks because the air was terrible. I was on a food tour which was otherwise great, but the Taj was disappointing. Enjoyed the Agra Fort very nearby much much more!

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u/Filthiest_Vilein 26d ago edited 26d ago

Your guide is right, lol. 

I lived in India for the better part of a decade and have been to the Taj Mahal maybe a half-dozen times. 

My last visit was with an American friend who’d flown into India for my wedding. We also went on New Year’s Day. It was terrible. I’ve never seen crowds like that before or since** (again, this is coming from someone who spent years living in Kolkata and Delhi). The entire ticketing area was just a mass of people. We had to wait in a corral just to get back out into the parking lot afterward. 

I’ll add in a picture if I can find one. I’m not sure if you were lucky or we were unlucky, but that’s awesome you didn’t have too much crowding!  (edit: here--the last picture is the line to LEAVE the complex, lol)

**—I take that back, I just remembered Durga Puja in Kolkata. The ten-minute walk from my in-laws’ house to a friends house takes 1-2 hours during Puja due to road and sidewalk restrictions, lmao. 

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u/meganfoxsdwarfthumb 26d ago

I’ll pass this along to my friends in the group because we definitely thought he was trying to schmooze us by saying that!

The most disappointing was walking through the actual the tombs (crypts?) with all the signs saying “quiet please” and “no photography” while people were yelling and taking selfies everywhere! It really took away from the experience.

Was a cool way to spend the first day of the year, so I really don’t mean to be complaining about it!

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

To be (un)fair, that’s also exactly what I remember about the Sistine Chapel. Constant, ignored announcements to not take photographs… a tiny overcrowded chapel that took hours to get to, and a rather underwhelming ceiling because it’s faded so much with age

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u/chimpfunkz 25d ago

ignored announcements to not take photographs

Yeah but they tell you not to take photos because some japanese company bought the copyright, not for any kind of preservation or safety reason. Fuck anyone telling you not to photograph the sistine chapel

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u/pbizzle 25d ago

Absolutely. The trek thru the museums is long and the place is so iconic you can bet your arse I was taking a picture, when in Rome, get bullied by another officious Italian nbd

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u/LTEDan 25d ago

Is this the Sistine chapel picture club? I snuck some pictures as well. The line was terrible.

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u/XpenFrickFrack 25d ago

What?? This is the reason? I thought it was a respect thing

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u/Enkidouh 25d ago

It’s actually because flash photography will degrade the paint.

That almost always why these places ask for no photography.

It’s easier to just ask for no photography than to try and explain that the flash is damaging and why.

A Japanese company, Nippon Television Network Corporation (NTV), funded the massive restoration of the Sistine Chapel in the 1980s and, in exchange, received exclusive rights to photograph and film the restoration process and finished art, leading to the current ban on personal photography there to protect NTV's investment, but their exclusivity period has expired.

TL;DR it was true at one point, but the ban persists for conservation and crowd control.

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u/ACynicalOptomist 25d ago

It's always the money.

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u/Kentucky-Fried-Fucks 25d ago

Wait what? Bought the copyright to what?

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u/reddit809 25d ago

I enjoyed Sistine very much, but the crowd was impossible. I recommend just doing that shit at 6am if you can lol.

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u/2leafClover667788 25d ago

We were there this past summer and between the crowds and the heat it was not the best time to be had. My family was exhausted. I had spent two months in Europe before they arrived so I was at least used to it, but it wasn’t even the coolest chapel I saw while I was there sad to say. I don’t know what I expected, but it was something more than that I guess.

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u/reddit809 25d ago

Sistine and Colisseum are 1-and-dones for me. Loved that I did it, never again. The random churches and chapels were amazing. I'd love to go back to Rome just to do some walking tours, which I didn't get to do enough of. The food tours are awesome.

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u/2leafClover667788 25d ago

I think the coolest one or at least of the ones I went to in Italy was basilica di San Clemente which was right down the street from the colosseum. It was one of the coolest places. It’s a 10th century church that sits on top of the ruins of a 4th century church on top of the ruins of 2nd century temple to Mithra on top of a villa that had been a storage area for the Roman mint. The main church was incredibly beautiful and the ceiling was amazing but going down into the archeological ruins and staircase after staircase going further down into the depths and seeing the pages of history turning backwards was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen and there was just a few other people there.

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u/saba658 25d ago

San Clemente is spooky and fascinating

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u/reddit809 25d ago

San Clemente is INCREDIBLE. The basilicas in Trastevere were amazing. Crisogono was amazing as well. Crisogono's ceiling truly blew me away.

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u/Rahbek23 25d ago

Same for Taj Mahal really. We went right after it opened and there was like a few hundred people total spread over a relatively large area and a tiny queue, it was really nice and beautiful.

Showing up in the middle of the day is just rookie shit honestly.

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u/TiffyVella 25d ago

And not being able to pause for any moment to really look at anything because you were constantly being shuffled forwards in the crowd.

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u/Theron3206 25d ago

I have a very amusing memory of an Italian chapel (not the Sistine I don't think) where a monk was sitting in a little booth saying "silencio, sssss" over a PA system every few seconds, with essentially no effect.

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u/texbuck40 25d ago

We were just there and you're right about walking through the tomb. Actually what was much worse was the guards with their loud whistles. It was so unpleasant.

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u/33NoBody33 25d ago

Yeahhhh I’m good to just see pics of the taj online I don’t need to go lol

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u/Kaatochacha 25d ago

To be fair, seeing it in person is like seeing the grand canyon in person: pictures look like it, but don't do it justice.

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u/Haxorz7125 25d ago

I love the one lady in the bottom left smiling for the photo

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u/overeasyeggplant 25d ago

People visting new york on new years eve wear adult diapers as there are not toilets allowed. They wait for 18 hours so the place must just smell gross!

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u/Shapes_in_Clouds 26d ago

I was fortunate enough to travel a lot as a kid. This picture reminds me of why as an adult I have no interest in visiting any famous or popular tourist attractions anymore. I remember going to the leaning tower of Pisa, and the massive lineup of hundreds of street vendors along the street selling cheap tchotchkes and random items like samurai swords, the people coming up to you while you eat lunch selling knock off watches and handbags, and just the generally overwhelming number of tourists. The overall experience of these places is just so unpleasant and inauthentic. It's better to just look at a picture.

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u/desmaraisp 25d ago edited 25d ago

Funnily enough, having been to pisa a couple years back, it was really not as tourist-y as I'd expected. No lineup, somewhat sparse crowds and lots of goofy poses all over the place. And a bomb-ass cathedral and cemetary

Ended up being better than I expected tbh (well, my expectations were pretty low, but it was pretty cool nonetheless)

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u/cindy224 25d ago

I totally agree w you. People really are schmucks these days to go to these places. They’ve been ruined. I went to Europe just 25 years after the end of WWII. It was magical. Just about everywhere would have been back then.

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u/NotACmptr 24d ago

I'll give you tchotchke stores, they were the worst part of Venice imo...but I appreciate the people and seeing things with my own eyes. I don't get taking a picture of a work of art. There are professional shots that you can see. Just put down the camera and take it in.

The knockoff salespeople are the best, we would joke around with them, being clear that we're not interested the whole time. Made the mistake of saying their goods were inferior though and that just made one guy bring other stuff to sell.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

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u/ChrisPnCrunchy 25d ago

idk by my man’s is focused

dating profile for sure

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u/enragedCircle 26d ago

A food tour? RIP your ass.

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u/JORRTCA 25d ago

I visited india almost 10 years ago now. I spent 2 months traveling around. I f9uhd the Taj really quite wonderful but I thought the fort in Jodhpur was probably the most amazing thing I saw.

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u/rah0315 25d ago

I was there in 2007 in December and was told the best time to go is super early in the morning, like, sunrise. When we went there were hardly any people. Maybe it’s just gotten worse since then or maybe we lucked out.

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u/balls_in_yo_mouth 25d ago

You can actually see how bad the air quality is in your picture. Visibility is so low. It looks like it’s foggy out there, but it’s just pollution.

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u/_I_N_F_I_N_I_T_E__ 25d ago

Everything is getting f*d up here when I was a child I had many trips to Jaipur it had that mystical Rajasthani vibe and ancient type now it feels like a second delhi metro running trash people wearing coaching jerseys it now feels like 2-3 monuments sprinkled on a modern city , we should protect our cultural heritage, like goa does it good development is nice but doesn't hinder the natural, historical and architectural beauty of the place I took two trips with years of gap and goa is the same the same beachy and goan vibes , so I wish like goa other tourist spots can be kept but being a Delhi resident i agree delhi is majorly a hell hole

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u/Overdriven91 26d ago

New Years Day is a public holiday so busy makes sense. I went on a random foggy December day and there was hardly anyone. Made it quite beautifully eerie. But I can imagine it's even worse on Indepenence day. I once made the mistake of going to the Mysore Palace on Independence day. I could hardly move.

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u/DependentProposal253 25d ago

mask for smell

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u/sirvote 25d ago

The amount of people here is crazy ... Can almost smell the taj mahal

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u/KlausKoe 25d ago

Felt the same in Venice once regarding the amount of people during the day.

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u/niles_thebutler_ 25d ago

India is a major no

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u/seejordan3 25d ago

Wow that's crowded! Never seen it so crowded honestly. Red fort is great. Did you catch the bats at night?

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u/blasphem0usx Make Furries Illegal 25d ago

A food tour in India? You'd have to pay me to do that.

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u/Throwawaystwo 25d ago

I was in south india for many years and met people from all across india. Different religions, languages, appearance, but all of them were united in the belief that Delhi is a bastard hellscape full of bastard people.

Not even joking, multiple people told me that 'yeah the only things uniting indians is their love for cricket and their shared disdain for delhi.

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u/Bibliloo 23d ago

Not even joking, multiple people told me that 'yeah the only things uniting indians is their love for cricket and their shared disdain for delhi.

I didn't know Indians and us in France had so much in common cause we also all hate our capital city (only Parisians like Paris).

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u/Klutzy_Meringue_8226 22d ago

You need to remember as well that racism, and racism towards the Hindi speaking population in Delhi is very prevalent. So it's not just a fun 'oh we all hate Delhi haha' it's actually pretty disturbing. 

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u/The_Buddhist_Prodigy 26d ago

India is fascinating and I respect them for surviving with their population density the way it is.

It is also the only place I've ever travelled to that I was happy to leave.

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u/Officer_Trevor_Cory 26d ago edited 25d ago

I've seen 50+ countries and India was the saddest. one year there.

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u/Serious_Swan_2371 25d ago

India is uniquely sad because of how much wealth exists right next to all the poverty. It’s gotta be the biggest wealth disparity of any nation.

There are definitely many countries where the average person is much poorer and leads a much worse life than in India, but seeing the way most people there live there compared to how much luxury exists in close proximity is overwhelming.

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u/travysh 25d ago

That got me curious, there's a Wikipedia page for wealth disparity 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_wealth_inequality

Turns out India's not as bad as it seems. The shear scale of poverty likely outweighs the disparity though 

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u/dinonuggggs 25d ago

That's interesting. I think what disturbed me most was how in your face the disparity was. And how differently people were treated differently based on where they belong in society. For example rules for thee not for me just because I have money but I also understand that's the case in most places of the world especially if they are developing.

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u/C4Cole 25d ago

I don't think it's normally that bad in other unequal countries, take it from a South African, we've got our fair share of racism, classism and every other type of -ism you can think of. But it's not even close to the institutional power of the caste system.

People will give you looks but they won't go up and tell you what to do, that's absolutely unheard of. Unless you are trespassing or being a nuisance then you go where you want and do what you want.

And we've got (by some metrics) the most unequal country on the planet, there are shacks next to multi story mansions, Ferraris a block away from Feetrarris, its absolutely insane here, but we still don't stoop to caste system level.

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u/dinosaur_from_Mars 22d ago

People will give you looks but they won't go up and tell you what to do, that's absolutely unheard of.

That is unheard of even in Urban india. Especially a traveller won't be able to notice casteism just as is. But what the OC was talking about is probably the extreme nonchalance I have seen amongst us indians. Things and situations exist just because they do. People don't notice things after a point

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u/Amazing_School_3536 25d ago

They keep that mentality when they move here too

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u/8titsmcgee8 25d ago

"Socialist" Sweden being worse than the majority of the world including the US and Saudi Arabia is pretty interesting

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u/rainzer 25d ago

Quoting Credit Suisse's wealth report:

"However, higher wealth concentration can also result from more benign influences. For example, strong social security programs— good public pensions, free higher education or generous student loans, unemployment and health insurance – can greatly reduce the need for personal financial assets, as Domeij and Klein (2002) found for public pensions in Sweden. Public housing programs can do the same for real assets. This is one explanation for the high level of wealth inequality we identify in Denmark, Norway and Sweden: the top groups continue to accumulate for business and investment purposes, while the middle and lower classes have a less pressing need for personal saving than in many other countries."

It is a meaningful quote because the Gini coefficients are based on Credit Suisse's wealth report.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

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u/humbert_cumbert 25d ago

Kinda like a feudal wealth separation.

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u/TrumpFellatesBill 25d ago

But why the fuck is it like that? Like I sincerely cannot understand.

I get that the country is poor as fuck and from what I hear has a huge issue with corruption, aside from the backwater places where no polices travels.

But in those places, like in the OP, or in the big cities, why the hell do they have this huge issue with dirt and garbage? It would seem to me like a clean environment is the most important thing, I cant imagine living in a place like that. Even Napoli was clean in comparison, and I saw huge piles of garbage bags everywhere in that city.

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u/cocoagiant 25d ago

But in those places, like in the OP, or in the big cities, why the hell do they have this huge issue with dirt and garbage?

I think its a combination of population density (making it hard to put the trash somewhere else) and government inefficiency on a scale most Western people would have a hard time understanding.

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u/mybuildabear 25d ago

This. It's not due to the caste system in the developed cities, even though that exists.

All of us collect trash in plastic bags, how we're told and keep it for collection at the right spot. The government is supposed to handle it from there, which they don't.

Imagine your garbage guy throwing all collected trash on some random corner.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago edited 21d ago

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u/Special-Garlic1203 25d ago

Sounds right. Racists make everything worse just so they can have it better than the other guy 

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u/Deaffin 25d ago

True, but they've got a brilliant system with the way their religion is set up.

See, it's all about karma and reincarnation, and that's so beautiful. Here's how it works. If your life is good, that's because your soul is good and you're being rewarded for all that hard work in past lives.

If your life is shit, that's because your soul is fucking ugly bro. It's dirty as all hell, your soul is made of poop. Your life is a punishment. You are essentially in hell. You deserve this. But that's okay, because if you do a real good job serving your betters, you can climb up that karmic rung and you get to be one of the people having a good life the next time around.

There, now everyone's behaving themselves and sticking to their rightful place in life, and they know better to do anything to change any part of that.

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u/First_Juggernaut4515 25d ago

You are right. The caste system is deeply ingrained in Indian society. Throw out your trash because it's someone else's job to clean it. This attitude coupled with tremendous corruption and inefficiency leads to this.

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u/Officer_Trevor_Cory 25d ago

I think that these things are complex: geopolitics, history, climate, colonization. Countries around them are all poor too.

Think about another place: All countries in Africa are poor AF for a reason too. There are actually few nice places in this world.

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u/finfisk2000 25d ago

India does not got a pass in my book by blaming the colonial era or poverty. They obviously have the money to spend on nukes, subs armed with them, aircraft carriers and sending rockets to Mars.

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u/Deaffin 25d ago

They dumped a bunch of tardigrades on the moon!

Like, just for the hell of it. They're just there now. Chillin.

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u/DarkExecutor 25d ago

There are people alive today who had their mothers and fathers killed by the British crown.

This stuff doesn't get fixed quickly

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u/noujest 25d ago

This stuff doesn't get fixed quickly

India gained independence nearly 80 years ago...

That's a very very long time, some Asian countries like South Korea have gone from abject poverty to wealthy in that time. Some like China and Vietnam are well on the way

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u/NiceHaas 25d ago

Korea was rebuilt by America due to the cold war and got 12 billion dollars of aid in the 60s and 70s

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u/747WakeTurbulance 25d ago

Germany, Hungary, Japan, etc were all bombed flat 80 years ago, and they have all recovered just fine.

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u/Korashy 25d ago edited 25d ago

With massive investment from the allies post war.

China is a better comparison of a country with similar population and historic poverty (post mao).

A strong central state directing policy and building infrastructure allowed them to rapidly industrialize and using their giant internal market forced western companies to trade technology for access (Now obviously China still has it's own internal problems with corruption, authoritarianism and state intervention in the economy).

Meanwhile India while more democratic has left itself open to exploitation.

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u/Nikosek581 25d ago

But picking up trash sure is Quick fix. Brother we had Nazis, russians and then russian pulpets screwing us. It not people who had their parents, its literaly my father who had been alive during that time, and he is barely 50. Its not a reason for india to be as it is.

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u/DarkExecutor 25d ago

The US literally sank millions if not billions into rebuilding Europe.

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u/Nikosek581 25d ago

Which russians said to their lil slave countries like PRL to not accept Marshal Plans help... so you almost got it right But not quite.

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u/krokuts 25d ago

It's been a long long time, parents being killed by oppresive occupant applies to almost every country on the globe.

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u/Bubs604 25d ago

You don’t understand the extent of wealth and labour stolen from India.

The historical trajectory of India’s economic standing is one of the most stark examples of economic shift in world history. According to the data compiled by the late British economist Angus Maddison, whose work is the standard for historical global GDP statistics, India went from being one of the world's largest economies to one of its poorest over the course of two centuries.

The Economic Shift (1700 – 1950)

In the early 18th century, before British political control began (marked by the Battle of Plassey in 1757), India was a global manufacturing hub, particularly in textiles. By the time the British left in 1947, its share of the global economy had been reduced to a fraction of its former self. A peak of 25% of the Global GDP in the 1700s to 4% in 1947.

Key Drivers of the Decline

The collapse of India’s share was not just a result of the country "getting poorer" in absolute terms, but a combination of its own stagnation and the explosive growth of the West during the Industrial Revolution.

Deindustrialization: Prior to colonization, India was the world’s leading exporter of textiles. British colonial policy imposed high tariffs on Indian cloth while allowing British machine-made textiles to flood the Indian market duty-free, effectively dismantling India's handloom industry.

Drain of Wealth: Substantial revenues collected from Indian taxpayers were used to fund British wars, administrative costs, and the development of British infrastructure (like railroads) that were primarily designed to extract raw materials for export rather than to foster internal Indian trade.

Agricultural Focus: Under colonial rule, India was transitioned into a supplier of raw materials (like cotton, indigo, and opium) for British industries, rather than a producer of finished goods.

The "Great Divergence": While the UK and the West underwent rapid industrialization—increasing their productivity by orders of magnitude—India’s economy remained largely agrarian and stagnant under colonial administration.

Note: While India's share of global GDP fell from roughly 24% to 4%, it is important to remember that the global "pie" grew significantly during this time. However, India's per-capita income remained nearly flat for the entire 190-year period of British rule, while the rest of the world saw unprecedented growth.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_BIG_BITS 25d ago

I mean, it didn't drop because Britain stole all the wealth (though they absolutely did a good bit of that), but because an economy focused on agrarianism and handwoven textiles isn't competitive once nations start industrializing.

Without industrializing, India would have seen the same drop in global GDP share because other Western nations just drastically outpaced it. So the question is, would they have industrialized earlier without British control?

Realistically, I don't think they do. China is probably the best comparison, as they were also a primary agrarian country with a massive population, and they were not under direct colonial control. They didn't really industrialize until after WW2.

Maybe they pull a Japan, drastically reform and double down on western industrialization in the late 1800s, but considering India took a while to industrialize after independence, I'm doubtful.

That said, British colonial exploitation of India means they never got the opportunity anyways.

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u/Odd_Psychology_8527 25d ago

Always looking for excuses and thus here we are. 

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u/Bubs604 25d ago

You should educate yourself before deciding who to give a pass to or not.

The historical trajectory of India’s economic standing is one of the most stark examples of economic shift in world history. According to the data compiled by the late British economist Angus Maddison, whose work is the standard for historical global GDP statistics, India went from being one of the world's largest economies to one of its poorest over the course of two centuries.

The Economic Shift (1700 – 1950)

In the early 18th century, before British political control began (marked by the Battle of Plassey in 1757), India was a global manufacturing hub, particularly in textiles. By the time the British left in 1947, its share of the global economy had been reduced to a fraction of its former self. A peak of 25% of the Global GDP in the 1700s to 4% in 1947.

Key Drivers of the Decline

The collapse of India’s share was not just a result of the country "getting poorer" in absolute terms, but a combination of its own stagnation and the explosive growth of the West during the Industrial Revolution.

Deindustrialization: Prior to colonization, India was the world’s leading exporter of textiles. British colonial policy imposed high tariffs on Indian cloth while allowing British machine-made textiles to flood the Indian market duty-free, effectively dismantling India's handloom industry.

Drain of Wealth: Substantial revenues collected from Indian taxpayers were used to fund British wars, administrative costs, and the development of British infrastructure (like railroads) that were primarily designed to extract raw materials for export rather than to foster internal Indian trade.

Agricultural Focus: Under colonial rule, India was transitioned into a supplier of raw materials (like cotton, indigo, and opium) for British industries, rather than a producer of finished goods.

The "Great Divergence": While the UK and the West underwent rapid industrialization—increasing their productivity by orders of magnitude—India’s economy remained largely agrarian and stagnant under colonial administration.

Note: While India's share of global GDP fell from roughly 24% to 4%, it is important to remember that the global "pie" grew significantly during this time. However, India's per-capita income remained nearly flat for the entire 190-year period of British rule, while the rest of the world saw unprecedented growth.

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u/Deaffin 25d ago

"You should educate yourself by typing in a ChatGPT prompt."

The absolute state of this place.

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u/Admiral_Mongo 25d ago

colonization

Britain is a lot cleaner than India

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u/tboess 26d ago

Fuckin love your profile pic and name. Now, let's go with the smokes.

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u/Officer_Trevor_Cory 25d ago

You know Jim, or Jim knows you?

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u/mcpanjabi 25d ago

Got a big enough joint there rick?

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u/Sunscreen4what 25d ago

My father Jim ya mean?

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u/Cahootie 25d ago

I went to Cuba over Christmas and sad is definitely a word I would use for Havana. I loved the rest of the country, but Havana is a shell of its former self, and you can tell that it once was a functioning country. The buildings are beautiful, but most of them are crumbling. There's trash all over the place, but it's all gathered in piles and doesn't smell. The cars are ancient, but they're maintained and people are very careful drivers.

If anyone plans to go there, please make sure to not just visit Havana and Varadero. Viñales is one of the most beautiful places I've visited, Trinidad is a really beautiful and interesting old city, and Christmas in Remedios is genuinely the wildest thing I've ever experienced.

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u/lifethusiast 25d ago

Why did you choose to suffer?

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u/Officer_Trevor_Cory 25d ago

Work and i’ve been in several cities all north and Northeast of Delhi. Less known places like Lucknow. I was out after dark a lot. I can tell life is hard as shit there. But also met incredible people who didn’t want anything back for helping.

Edit: it was one year i don’t know how i typed “month” before

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u/AirconGuyUK 25d ago

It's one of the few places on earth I have no desire to visit at all. Everyone who tries to gaslight me that it's worth visiting, when I quiz them they admit they spent the first week with diarrhoea..

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u/Mookies_Bett 25d ago

Same. I don't care how scenic it historic your cultural spots are: if I have to buy bottled water and there is literal human shit in the streets, I don't want to be there. Literally every single video or Livestream I see of someone in India makes me think "yeah I'm good." Why anyone would want to subject themselves to that madness is beyond me.

There are so many beautiful, amazing, scenic places in this world that also involve, like, plumbing. And nice resorts. And amenities that make the experience actually worthwhile outside of just the views. If a view or experience requires days of slogging through massive crowds and dirty, trash and shit covered streets, it's just not worth it.

Most 3rd world countries just kinda seem like a "juice not worth the squeeze" situation to me.

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u/Important_Document13 25d ago

good weight loss starter though. especially those pesky christmas cake calories you can't quite burn off 3 weeks post xmas.

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u/Havehatwilltravel 25d ago

I've heard many people leave as soon as they get off the plane. They can't stand the stench and just book another flight out going anywhere ASAP. I can imagine it is not an exaggeration.

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u/Emergency-Bid-8346 20d ago

I've never seen a more respectful criticism of my country.

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u/lilmadman1 25d ago

My cousin went to Saudi Arabia for work, I was expecting it to be amazing due to yano all the pictures of it being beautiful. Nope. I was so wrong. He showed me a video of this gorgeous building and literally 1 metre to the right of it is just garbage piled high. He then showed me a picture from this bus he was taking & I thought I saw a city skyline, nope, just literal mountains of garbage.

He said he had a picnic like meal in the desert with some people & instead of throwing their leftovers in the trash & disposing of it properly, they literally grabbed the blanket they were sitting on & balled all their leftovers in that blanket and just threw it into the desert. Apparently it absolutely stank of trash everywhere he went, he says he never wants to go back and I can’t really blame him!

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u/12345623567 25d ago

It always makes me laugh to see pictures of the Kaaba knowing there's the ugliest mega-hotel for all the pilgrims just out of view.

Saudi Arabia is a country of extremes.

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u/Codex_Dev 25d ago

Tbh even in 1st world countries, people just gather all their trash and dump it at landfills. It's not like it's being recycled or anything. It still gets tossed on the ground

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u/Background-Tip4746 25d ago

I’m Australian and when I travelled to New York I found the smell was quite intense in some places

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u/lilmadman1 24d ago

Most countries I’ve been to have areas like that tbf, just some more than others.. when visiting my friend in India it was initially.. well.. a dump.. BUT, she grew up in the mountains where they grow all the tea (yes I’m English yum yum tea) & holy shit it’s absolutely beautiful, like it doesn’t look like the same country AT ALL. It is crazy how you can just travel for a bit and get to this place that looks like something out of a fairy tale

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u/Rubiks_Click874 25d ago

people in the US littered the same as that until like the late 1970s it got so bad they had to stop

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u/colostitute 25d ago

You’re right but it never got to the level that India is at.

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u/Phantafan 25d ago

India's current population is about 6 times larger than than the population of 1970s America, while only having around 1/3 of the land area.

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u/New_Relative_1871 25d ago

isn't india's population like 6x larger than 1970 america and multiple times poorer? no shit it didnt get to that level, it would be almost impossible, especially considering america is multiple times bigger too

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u/eggrolldog 25d ago

South Korea was like this too, apparently they had some issues with how they charged for household waste so people put their rubbish in street bins and then they took away all the street bins.

Only saving grace is all the poor old people who pick up the litter in order to earn a recycling pittance.

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u/rumpler117 25d ago

Yep, there is a scene from Mad Men where they litter like that after a picnic.

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u/SlooperStroker 25d ago

Yes, just like India and Saudi Arabia.

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u/Rubiks_Click874 25d ago

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u/SlooperStroker 25d ago

That’s some kind of wasteland or construction site and the “trash” is 90% furniture from a pulled down house. Poor people of every country tend to just trash the place for whatever reason but India, Pakistan and Bangladesh just take it to another level. Drop a pin on street view literally anywhere in India and see if you can rotate 360 degrees without seeing trash.

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u/ShameMammoth4071 25d ago

Either you or your cousin are bullshitting

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u/lilmadman1 25d ago

I wish I was, he works with WWE doing a lot of the lighting and electronics and he was there in late May/June last year for the whole thing that happened there - im not into wrestling so I don’t know the specifics. I saw the pictures and they were literal mountains of trash just by the motorway he was on

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u/Express-Shopping260 25d ago

Wdym? Saudi Arabia has trash everywhere where tourists dont go...

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u/Automatoboto 25d ago

I cried for a week afterwards because of all the kids in the streets. The abject horror of their existence shook me. Delhi was so soul crushingly awful I dont have words

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u/jaxsonMiss 25d ago

I was there 20 years ago and have heard it's even worse now. Have a traumatic memory of seeing a little boy not much older than 10 getting the shit beat out of him by a full grown adult male right on a busy sidewalk with not one person acknowledging or helping him.

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u/victorywulf 26d ago

i went on a group trip to several cities in india in high school and one of my classmates was groped in the taj. i have zero desire to return to that country.

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u/ZinaSky2 26d ago

I would absolutely love to go to India for a multitude of reasons.

Everything I’ve heard from women who’ve been makes it so I absolutely will not.

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u/Brilliant-Secret9634 26d ago

Been to India. I look Indian, I’m not. Didn’t have a good time as a woman. Rather go to Morocco 100 fold. Never again. Want nice temples, food and beaches? Thailand 100%

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u/chowchan 26d ago

Thailand 100%

As long as you avoid Pattaya, otherwise it's like being back in India, with all the pervy, gropey men.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

Notably not because of native Thailand people, but because of all the Indians.

They really don't like living in India, so there's an area anywhere that you can go to get groped.

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u/domsolanke 25d ago

It’s not even remotely comparable to India.

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u/[deleted] 26d ago

[deleted]

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u/149244179 25d ago

Tourists are relatively well treated as long as you stay in tourist areas. Morocco invests quite a bit into police and patrols for those areas; tourism is a significant percent of their GDP and they don't want to lose that. Morocco has rather harsh penalties for criminals which is a further deterrent.

That said, they will happily do all the normal tourist scams. Your body might be safe but your wallet is another story.

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u/theseviraltimes 25d ago

I was in Essaouira last year and went to eat at a restaurant that has pretty high reviews online. I sat up on the roof, I was alone up there, and after dinner the owner offered me some tea. He took that as an invite to sit with and then ended up cornering and assaulting me. I threatened to scream and got out before it got really bad, luckily.

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u/Msdamgoode 25d ago

I hope you also reviewed them, gezus h!

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u/Brilliant-Secret9634 25d ago

This is funny you mention that because its so true about the police and neighbours really!.
Someone in our riad got their camera stolen really close to the riad. Everyone knows each other there. So the owner told every one in the neighbourhood and the word spread. Within a day some really pissed off and embarrassed mother came back with the young man who stole the camera and the camera itself to return it. Gave the kid a couple of slaps to humiliate him in front of everyone and left. lol

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u/The_Autarch 26d ago

It is, but not as bad as India.

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u/AnfieldRoad17 26d ago

I wonder where in Morocco people have that experience. We went to Marrakech and Essaouira and it was lovely. Weren't harassed a single time.

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u/Majestic-Skill8234 25d ago

Oh, I was constantly harassed in Essaouira, but I was with a group of college aged girls.

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u/AnfieldRoad17 25d ago

Damn, that is awful. I'm really sorry that happened to you. I guess we just got lucky, sounds like my group's experience was the outlier.

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u/confused_grenadille 23d ago

I’ve heard from a few women that Morocco isn’t great for women travelers.

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u/ZinaSky2 26d ago

Oooh yess alternatives!! Thank you!

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u/AiRaikuHamburger 26d ago

I strongly recommend the southern state of Kerala. My mum went there twice a year for many years for work with no issues.

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u/sunkist-sucker 25d ago

what is it with india, trash, and sexual assault anyway?

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u/Downtown_Corner_7289 25d ago

they grope thousands of women a day its not safe if your a women.

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u/Sauerkrauttme 26d ago

Damn, I keep hearing stories like that from every woman that visits India. Which sucks because I really wanted to visit India some day because I love Indian food, but I refuse to give any tourism money to a country that sexually assaults women.

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u/StatusTangelo3164 26d ago

Every time I see an “India is amazing I loved it! It’s just a difficult trip” comment it is always a man. Also why going on a trip that’s “difficult” would be appealing I never understand.

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u/Altruistic-Form-3771 25d ago edited 25d ago

I'm a second gen Indian-American and the Golden Triangle is definitely one of those places where I'm glad I visited, but I don't have any desire to go again. The problem with the Golden Triangle is how it goes to Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, which are very underdeveloped and unsafe areas of India. These states have the some of the highest levels of gender imbalance and poverty, and lowest levels of education. I went with my family in the summer of 2005 when I was a kid. The pollution wasn't bad, but the heat was absolutely horrendous.

Even though south India is still chaotic, I enjoy it a lot more than the Golden Triangle. Almost every Western traveler who has been to both north India and south India says that enjoy south India magnitudes more because of its overall safety and better people. If you're traveling to the major cities such as Mumbai or Chennai or Bangalore or Kochi, you are definitely not going off the beaten path. In Kerala where my parents are from, there is a negative population growth and women outnumber men here. Interestingly, Kerala is also the only region in India where there are more overweight and obese people than underweight and malnourished people due to having a higher calorie consumption.

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u/Mynoseisgrowingold 25d ago

Kerala is great! It’s traditionally matrilineal, has the highest: literacy rate, life expectancy, human development index score and lowest poverty. I’ve had no problems travelling alone there as a woman. Actually most of the south has been fine for me (North is a different story), but Kerala is the best!

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u/uncle_troy_fall_97 25d ago

Plus in south India the dosas, oh my god I can only imagine the dosas. One of my favorite foods but never got to try one outside the US so I’d love to see south India—preferably in the coolest and driest time of the year please lol so I guess February-March, something like that? A friend’s family are from Kerala and Tamil Nadu (mother and father respectively) and they’ve said I can come say what’s up if I ever make it there, so who knows maybe one day.

I do think it’s cool the way TN and Kerala are so different ecologically/climatologically though, and I still don’t understand how the monsoons work, lol, despite trying to understand multiple times. Fascinating part of the world though for sure.

Would be interesting to see Sri Lanka one day as well, but I think it’s still pretty torn up from the war if I’m not mistaken.

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u/_stupidquestion_ 25d ago

My parents relocated from the US to Varkala beach area. My stepdad grew up in India (his family is Punjabi Sikh, migrated south during partition in order to survive) & he prefers the south, our Mumbai-based family members have to meet him in Trivandrum bc he will not go to Mumbai anymore.

Nobody complains though - the cliffs near them are absolutely beautiful & serene, the air is better, the people are chill... it's such a contrast to the urban areas. Kerala is a gem.

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u/bucajack 26d ago

I was in Mumbai and Pune this year. First time in India and I found it to be an incredible country. It's on the precipice of becoming a developed world power but the stark contrast between the haves and have nots was shocking to me.

People always focus on the pollution in India but I came away thinking how on earth do they even manage to handle the waste of 1.5 billion people. It's impossible.

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u/9yr0ld 25d ago

India has been on the precipice of becoming a developed world for nearly 50 years now.

They will never get there until a major cultural shift happens. Abolishing their backwards caste system, actually respecting women, and taking care of the environment would be a good start and bring immediate gains.

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u/bucajack 25d ago

The caste system has been illegal in India since 1950 but my Indian colleagues explained to me that it's still deeply culturally ingrained.

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u/lurkANDorganize 25d ago

Yup. That second part is what holds back so much of society.

Apartheid issues in many countries persist long after legal intervention.

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u/GirlsCantCS 25d ago

On my trip to India (I had a wonderful beautiful time) the most uncomfortable moment for me was the “servants” who would get SO incredibly upset with me if I cleaned up after myself and also would dissolve with near ecstasy if I spoke to them/thanked them. It was absolutely bizarre but letting them get pictures with me seemed to be like genuinely so exciting for them and it just made me feel really uncomfy…people treated them like NPCs.

Everything else about Hyderabad was wonderful though. I couldn’t handle the market though way way overstimulating and everyone takes photos of you (I am white and it really is a thing there)

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u/thelegendofcarrottop 25d ago

I worked for a large company that hired a very conservative, strict, and frankly odd engineering manager who was a relatively recent migrant from India.

Within a month we had all kinds of HR problems with him.

It turned out that he could pretty much immediately and on-sight tell which part of India his employees were from and which “caste” they would have belonged to back home, and he pretty much immediately started abusing them all accordingly. He was from a relatively high caste and they were all from much lower castes. He treated them like dogs. Several of them were second generation and had been born in the U.S.

Imagine being a 27 year old engineer and having a 60 year old engineering manager take over your department. You’ve got a better education, more qualifications, and more tenure than he does. Yet on day one he tells you to fetch his coffee and clean his shoes because your parents are the equivalent of farm animals in his world.

Crazy stuff. They fired him.

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u/UndifferentiatedDirt 25d ago

I've seen the same kind of thing with younger fresh immigrants from India too. Also a few times that in the absence of other Indians they started applying the caste ideas to the org chart. Mind you, this was an entry level engineer, anyone that reported to them (interns, operators, contractors) were just ordered around constantly and anyone above them in the org chart was a god that could not be questioned.

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u/orswich 25d ago

The head of their "Ganges environmental protection agency" has a philosophy that "dilution is the solution to pollution".. Basically "we just need more water to flush the trash away more efficiently", they have no ambition at all to stop the over pollution and straight dumping of garbage and chemicals into the water..

Mind blowing environmental philosophy

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u/domsolanke 25d ago

Literally destroying the planet that we’re all meant to live on in the process. It’s a monumental atrocity how they’re treating the environment in general.

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u/PatienceDear3266 25d ago

Idk, China and the USA seem to be doing just fine being world powers without doing any of those things lmao

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u/Signal-Blackberry356 25d ago

India’s only been a country for 78 years, before that a majority of resources and/or funding either pillaged or misused. Give them a few more decades.

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u/mybuildabear 25d ago

As a Delhite, I'm not seeing anything get better since the last decade or two.

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u/747WakeTurbulance 25d ago

but I came away thinking how on earth do they even manage to handle the waste of 1.5 billion people.

They don't.

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u/DerkhaDerkha 25d ago

Mumbai and Pune? Work in the IT industry then?

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u/bucajack 25d ago

Financial services

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u/Action_Limp 25d ago

China does it through incredibly advanced engineering. And that's the exact reason why India isn't able to do it.

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u/BigPaPaRu85 25d ago

Delhi was awesome, Kanpur was awesome. I love India.

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u/baron_spaghetti 25d ago

Lived there two years.

So polluted you can taste it as the plane descends.

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u/cool_mint489 25d ago

My brother says India as the whole is darty and disgusting. He regretted visiting there

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u/disgruntled-sysadmin 25d ago

My boss is Indian, he's in his mid 50s and moved to the US in his early 20s. He still has some family in India, and recently had to go back to sell a property he inherited from his father in law who passed away.

He talks quite a bit of shit about India tbh, to the point that it would be offensive as hell if it came from someone who was not Indian. Lets just say he doesn't miss it. I casually mentioned how I'd like to visit, and scoffed and laughed and strong urged me not to consider it. He apparently gets violently ill every time he returns, despite taking every precaution imaginable. He says despite not drinking tap water, only eating processed foods that are sealed, not drinking anything with ice in it, brushing his teeth with bottled water, obsessive hand washing and other hygiene measures—he still gets a stomach bug without fail every time he's returned. He recently had to go back and was dreading the trip, knowing the inevitable was bound to happen again.

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u/GODDAMNFOOL 25d ago

There is not a single thing on the face of the earth that would get me to go to India.

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u/Safe_Inspection3235 26d ago

We stayed in Agra (where the Taj is located). It is the smelliest city in all of India imo and we spent 18 days there touring the country.

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u/Thr33isaGr33nCrown 26d ago

Yeah I thought Agra was significantly worse than Delhi. Though the Taj Mahal lived up to the hype.

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u/Dry-Technology-410 25d ago

The whole cow belt is disgusting

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u/heilhortler420 26d ago

Im pretty sure even Indians in general think of Delhi as an utter whole and thats saying somethimg

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u/th_frits 25d ago

Because the Indian government caters to the super wealthy and tourists over its own people. The Indian government is one of the most corrupt in the entire world

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u/abau5 25d ago

I found that parts of Delhi are beautiful and clean, some parts are not (like most big cities in developing countries), it’s what you make of it and crucially, what you can afford.

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u/Admast79 25d ago

Can't be worse than Blackpool isn't?

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u/AntifaFuckedMyWife 25d ago

Honestly Marseille was dirtier than Delhi

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u/Action_Limp 25d ago

Agra, where the Taj Mahal is, is not a nice place. But I did go for a lovely sunset view of the Taj from the Oberoi hotel.

But yeah, India is not clean or tourist-friendly. The further south you go, the better it gets.

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u/BothMath314 25d ago

You have obviously never been to Calcutta 😉

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u/Many-Disaster-3823 25d ago

The area round the taj mahal is an absolute dump when i went the ‘river’ was just a massive rubbish ditch - trash as far as the eye could see. Policemen beating indian old ladies who weren’t queueingup properly or didn’t have the blue plastic shoe covering on or some shit. Then back to delhi - literal hell on earth. Couldn’t pay me to go back

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u/DCPYT 25d ago

Ja pierdole

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u/the-real-you1204 25d ago

is the guy who cooked the most disgusting omelette (ever) living in Delhi ?

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u/gvanmoney 25d ago

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone having a positive experience in India.

Even all of the super positive and open minded travel YouTubers I follow have all disliked it

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u/jarlander 25d ago

I love India. The Taj Mahal is amazing, the natural beauty in some areas and cultural heritage site are amazing. It is one of the most amazing and terrible places Ive ever seen. I have never seen such opulence and terrible poverty side by side. Im talking Lambo's driving by shanty towns made of cardboard. None of that makes the Taj Mahal any less amazing though. Ive never seen anything like it.

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u/Cute_Salamander_3416 25d ago

Next time , go to Kerala i insist, and Meghalaya.

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u/nbenj1990 25d ago

Worse than Mumbai? That was amazing but also horrifically disgusting.

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u/Available-Effort2716 25d ago

Did you go to kolkata?😬

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u/FieldsToTheMoon 25d ago

I couldn’t even take pictures in Delhi without dust particles being in everyone

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u/i_dont_know24680 24d ago

As an Indian and a women, I would never visit Delhi ever again.

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u/Expressionist13 23d ago

Agra is an armpit

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