The seventies Hippy Trail 8

17-5-1974
New Delhi, India

Hello Everybody.

I just got your letter yesterday and I was so stoked to get it. I have not had any mail since Bali. It must have got mixed up on the way. Mail services get a bit slack sometimes in the east. We just arrived in Delhi yesterday and we have been in India for about four days. There is a rail strike on here and it is really heavy - the strikers sabotaged some trains and one was derailed and eight or nine people were killed and a few more injured. One paper said eight - another one said nine.

India

India has got so many problems you would not believe it. For a start there are sixteen states and each separate state has a recognised language but there are many more. The national language is Hindi and English. A lot of educated people speak English very well(exactly like Peter Sellers). So you can imagine the language problem when a huge percentage of Indians are uneducated and illiterate. So many of their problems stem from their population(600 million +).

Now it is summertime and it is really hot and dry and North India is like a dust bowl. There is hardly anything growing in the fields. The towns are really filthy. At the railway stations there are hundreds of people sleeping there and in the parks and streets they just throw their things down and sleep. We had to wait a whole day for one train which was supposed to leave at 9 am and we caught one at 6 pm. It was really crowded and we had to sit on our packs in the aisle.

We met these students on the train who were doing Engineering at Technical College and one was a doctor whose father was a top notch trump in the air force and he got ninety dollars per month. So you can get some idea of the living standard here. It is really low. Inflation is making it really hard for people and prices have gone up about one hundred per cent in a year. India has disallowed the Colombo Plan because of brain drain, which is a bit silly.

Well, these students work really hard at Technical College and when they finish they cannot get a job unless you know someone. So there is untold unemployed highly educated people around or they drive taxis or serve in shops. It is really slack. India is so inefficient you would not believe it. It is in a real mess. Even the banks here try to rip you off and hassle you. It really gets you down sometimes. ( continued in next page... )

India Resources

The Hotel Bookings Desk at Mumbai airport is very helpful if you arrive late at night or early in the morning like I did. They will help you to find a cheap hotel at the location that you need. The reception at teh Booking Desk can help you to book the hotel and may able to find you a lift to the hotel. Around the airport is the region called Andheri and has some reasonably priced hotels to stay the night until you find a hotel in town itself. Most travellers stay in the Colaba area in downtown Mumbai.
It is best to go to the hill stations such as macleod ganj from september to December or March until July.

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