The good news about India is the land at one point was a veritable garden of Eden. It still has the potential. The Indian subcontinent has the most dramatic scenery on this earth, more than anyone can imagine. The ecosystems range from coral reefs and tropical forests in the south, through savannas, deserts and forests, all to the arctic alpine wastelands of the Himalayas. Mix in over a billion people, throw in a little over 400 languages, turn up the heat of most of the world’s major religions, cook for over 5000 years and the results will be a most interesting and unique places of all the world.

We were never bored. This place is very intense and very inexpensive, by our standards anyways. The five star hotels Chennai has to offer were very affordable. Travelling here is exciting and fun. This is seeing the glass half empty. Indians do seem to be quite religious, but from conversations with locals and own observations, we found less spirituality than we expected and there was a lot of emphasis instead on social rituals and conventions. In fact, we found it to be materialistic than most Western philosophy. This perception was not helped with the fact that we as Westerners, are on the fringes on Indian society and treated as such. Plus, since the perception is that we are enormously rich, we are also seen as walking dollar trees. Everyone wants a piece of the rich Western tourist. This means that we can expect to pay 5 to 10 times the price for everything.

We have seen beggars chased away with blows because they were seen as a nuisance, and small puppies chained up outside homes with dozens of wounds, which were obviously the results of beatings. We thought Indians regarded all animals as sacred, but have seen the exact opposite. We believe this is why compassion is preached so much for it. Anyways, many social conventions, which worked for better or worse back in the ‘good old days’ of Indian history have catastrophic consequences nowadays when the population has increased to the limit of what the environment can support and also when India has adopted outside technologies.