The northeast Indian state of Assam is known throughout the world as a centre for tea production and indeed the fertile Brahmaputra plain, which is the defining feature of the state, is filled with tea plantations (unlike anywhere else in the world the tea plantations here are grown on plains not on hillsides) as far as the eye can see. However, in India at least, Assam is perhaps better known for its oil and its iconic animal, which adorns every company emblem from motor oil to shaving cream: the great one-horned rhino.
The huge, hulking beast (the fat pie can often weight over 2 tonnes) usually makes its home in Assam's Kaziranga national park, where about two thirds of the world's population is concentrated. The park is also home to a healthy population of elephants, deer, tigers, pythons and plenty of bird life. But, like all Indian national parks, it is a bugger to visit. You have to go on an organised jeep safari tour, which follows a set itinerary over which you have no control. This is all well and good for groups of travellers, but for a lone vagabond like me hiring out a jeep for myself is prohibitively expensive (hold that thought and I'll come back to it in a bit). So my only chance is to sit around and wait for a group that would be willing to take me along with them. You'd think that that would be easy as anybody would jump at the chance of having a charming, knowledgeable and vivacious addition to their group (which would also reduce their costs) but I had to wait over an hour and a half before I was picked up (maybe it's the beard). Funnily enough I ended up with a group of three Afghans now living in India. This allowed me to wow them with my Farsi. Okay, maybe not wow, as my Farsi is nowhere near as good as it should be and their Kabuli accent is very unfamiliar to me. Still, it was a bizarre experience to be trundling through this nature reserve with a bunch of middle-aged Afghans (and I don't even know what they were doing there as they didn't seem particularly interested in the fauna) telling me I should visit Afghanistan as it is "really nice this time of year" and it "isn't at all dangerous". But I didn't care, I got to see some rhinos, plenty of pachyderms, deer, a python (being rather boring, just coiled up on a rock), some eagles and a hoopoe (which is a bird I've always wanted to see, just because it has such an odd name).
I wish the day had been perfect but it was marred by the all-pervasive practice of state-sponsored tourist abuse that is rampant in India and which leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm talking about the practice of two-tiered pricing for locals and foreigners. Now I'm not against the practice in principle, like, for example, in Argentina where foreigners pay twice the amount of locals to get into national parks. That's not unreasonable and it means that locals are not priced out of their own national treasures. However, here in India, foreigners often have to fork out 10-20 times more than Indians. For example I would have had to pay $11 just to take photographs in Kaziranga whereas locals only have to pay $1. No exceptions are made for foreigners of rich or poor countries or for students who have fewer means at their disposal (I may not be a student any more, but I feel like one and I do have a fake student card that I bought on the Khao San Road). I also think it makes locals less appreciative and careful of their tourist sites when they only pay a pittance to get in. The priceless treasures seem to have little value for them as they scramble over centuries old statues and wear away detailed carvings with their sweaty hands. What seems odd to me though is that in China the entry fees were often considerably higher than here in India and yet I was more willing to pay them because the prices were the same for everybody and they gave generous discounts to students (and people with fake student IDs). I'm sure there's an interesting psychological phenomenon there somewhere.
The huge, hulking beast (the fat pie can often weight over 2 tonnes) usually makes its home in Assam's Kaziranga national park, where about two thirds of the world's population is concentrated. The park is also home to a healthy population of elephants, deer, tigers, pythons and plenty of bird life. But, like all Indian national parks, it is a bugger to visit. You have to go on an organised jeep safari tour, which follows a set itinerary over which you have no control. This is all well and good for groups of travellers, but for a lone vagabond like me hiring out a jeep for myself is prohibitively expensive (hold that thought and I'll come back to it in a bit). So my only chance is to sit around and wait for a group that would be willing to take me along with them. You'd think that that would be easy as anybody would jump at the chance of having a charming, knowledgeable and vivacious addition to their group (which would also reduce their costs) but I had to wait over an hour and a half before I was picked up (maybe it's the beard). Funnily enough I ended up with a group of three Afghans now living in India. This allowed me to wow them with my Farsi. Okay, maybe not wow, as my Farsi is nowhere near as good as it should be and their Kabuli accent is very unfamiliar to me. Still, it was a bizarre experience to be trundling through this nature reserve with a bunch of middle-aged Afghans (and I don't even know what they were doing there as they didn't seem particularly interested in the fauna) telling me I should visit Afghanistan as it is "really nice this time of year" and it "isn't at all dangerous". But I didn't care, I got to see some rhinos, plenty of pachyderms, deer, a python (being rather boring, just coiled up on a rock), some eagles and a hoopoe (which is a bird I've always wanted to see, just because it has such an odd name).
I wish the day had been perfect but it was marred by the all-pervasive practice of state-sponsored tourist abuse that is rampant in India and which leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm talking about the practice of two-tiered pricing for locals and foreigners. Now I'm not against the practice in principle, like, for example, in Argentina where foreigners pay twice the amount of locals to get into national parks. That's not unreasonable and it means that locals are not priced out of their own national treasures. However, here in India, foreigners often have to fork out 10-20 times more than Indians. For example I would have had to pay $11 just to take photographs in Kaziranga whereas locals only have to pay $1. No exceptions are made for foreigners of rich or poor countries or for students who have fewer means at their disposal (I may not be a student any more, but I feel like one and I do have a fake student card that I bought on the Khao San Road). I also think it makes locals less appreciative and careful of their tourist sites when they only pay a pittance to get in. The priceless treasures seem to have little value for them as they scramble over centuries old statues and wear away detailed carvings with their sweaty hands. What seems odd to me though is that in China the entry fees were often considerably higher than here in India and yet I was more willing to pay them because the prices were the same for everybody and they gave generous discounts to students (and people with fake student IDs). I'm sure there's an interesting psychological phenomenon there somewhere.
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