What is tourism, really?

The last few posts have been fairly intese, so I thought I'd touch on a bit lighter of a topic today. This is my fifth time overseas, and I've begun to get the sense of what I feel constitutes the best possible overseas experience. In a sense, I feel like there are two major approaches to visiting a foreign country. The first is to go as a true tourist and see the big sites in a country. Yet it isn't museums and churches and temples that make up a country. It's the people--their food, their culture, and their way of life. Experiencing that is more difficult, and takes a significant amount of work. On the other hand, to simply go to a foreign country and experience the people and the culture often isn't enough.

Today was an interesting mix of both experiences. This morning we got up at sunrise to go hiking with Dr. Joshi and Dr. Kelkar. They like to walk up one of the hills in the middle of Pune and walk along the top for exercise. After about an hour or so of walking, Dr. Kelkar had to leave for the hospital for rounds. However, Dr. Joshi didn't need to be at the hospital right away, so he treated us to one of the best breakfasts I'd had in a very long time: cheese dosas, lassis, and coffee (weak for American coffee, strong for Indian coffee). We went to Vaishali Restaurant, which has a legendary reputation among citizens of Pune. It was a lot of fun, and yet we never would have been able to do that on our own.

This evening, however, we decided to try out a Greek restaurant on the top of a nearby hotel. The ambiance was incredible, the food was good, and yet I think all of us felt a little out of place. Aside from not being the only foreigners in the restaurant, the place felt so distant from the India we had gotten used to. There were no curries or chutneys, the waiters all spoke perfect English, and everything was clean and well-kept. Hardly the India we've experienced. I realized that while it's a lot of fun to stay in a nice hotel and eat in a nice restaurant, if you go to a country and do that exclusively, you've missed out on the country itself. A Goan resort is a far cry from the slums of Mumbai or even the small Indian diners tucked away down dusty side streets.

I think as Americans our biggest problem in visiting other countries is a willingness to try new things. We all come armed with our various disinfectants and immediately start establishing the superiority of our way of life. We're too inclined to spend our time in posh hotels, such that we never go outside our comfort zone. It would be a shame to miss out on all that India has to offer--and we haven't let this opportunity go to waste!