Posted by Amanda

As we leave India, I believe the signs on the sides of the tourist buses are perfectly true: Incredible India

India is incredible.It is a land of stark contrasts. It is beautiful and ugly, colorful and bleakly brown, delicious and dangerous, rich and poor. For me it was best seen when we'd drive by neighborhoods of thatched roof shacks with trash filled streets and see beautiful sarees hanging on the clothes lines. Somehow the colors were vivid and fresh even though they had probably been washed using water filled with parasites and scrubbed on a filthy sidewalk.

A country that could think so little of its women that it has to create laws preventing abortions based on sex but can elect a female prime minister long before the US was even ready to consider a female leader.

A country that practically canonized Gandhi for his work towards freedom even though his glorification of poverty probably resulted in more people living a destitute life and the government doing less to alleviate the situation.

To walk down a street and smell sewage in one sniff and lovely jasmine scented hair in the next.

I am also struck by how well China can hide its poverty while India seems to make little to no effort to do so; how Delhi can have lovely tree lined streets and a bus station filled with homeless people.

I truly love India and am already thinking about how to get back to this incredible place.