Tourist Species

India is well known for its huge diversity in almost everything; languages, religions, cultures, people, nature and so on. A careful observer might also notice the diversity of different tourist species among all the other things. These can be found all over the country, the highest densities being in special tourist areas where the tourists prefer to gather during specific times of the year. The best time to spot as many different tourist species as possible is during the tourist season (november to february) but many species can also be found througout the year. The different species can be distinguished be outer appearance and behaviour.

The Besserwisser is a kind of species that knows everything worth knowing. It wants to enjoy its own smartness to the extent that it is always teaching others. It loves to teach especially the tourist guides by asking questions and then answering them itself. Some bessewissers also overestimate their own English skills and try to correct the Indian people's pronounciation. This is funny to observe as the bessewissers themselves quite often have a very strong and weird accent. You could say that some bessewissers have a lack of social intelligence and are not able to see themselves from the outside. Besserwissers are hard to distinguish only by their outer appearance since there is a wide variety of different looking individuals. But their behaviuor reveals them even faster.

India Expert s know everything about India after they've been in the country a couple of days or weeks. They know exactly what India and the Indians are like after only having a short encounter with them. India Experts make fast conclusions about everything and tend to mix their on own prejudices in their statements. You could almost say that this species is the expert of generalizing. The India Experts do not necessarily spend a long time in India and during their stay they tend to only strengthen their own prejudices about the country and its people. They are also very convinced of their own countrys superiority to every other country and therefore fail to learn anything knew from their journeys. India expert are also hard to distinguish by outer appearance. Most of the tourists have traces of the India Expert behaviour in the beginning, but many loose these while spending more time in the country.

The Naive Saviour came to save the world and the poor. It brought its old shoes and toys to the poor slum children. Also wild dogs on the beaches and cows on the street are a part of the this species saving program. The naiv saviour has huge pity for everything in the country and feels sorry for everything that is not the same as in its own home country. It thinks that the only right way to do things is in its own manner and feels sorry for the local people not realising it. The Naive Saviou has sometimes a hard time seeing the reality of things and is overly convinced by its own ability to save to world and make a difference.

The Careful (neurotic) Traveller always carries around cleansing wipes and a variety of hand desinfection bottles. These items are used every ten minutes. The Careful (neurotic) Traveller is therefore easy to spot in the crowd. This species is afraid of virtually everything and takes serious safety precausions in every action. It have taken food supplies from home, not to be forced to taste the tasty local cuisine. The careful (neurotic) Traveller never takes risks and prefers to plant its journeys very carefully. Quite often this species manage to miss very many nice experiences such as delicious local food, local culture and traditions and so on.

The Typical Backpacker has its own holy book: the travel guide. It might be lonely planet or some other nice book with lots of nice advices for the traveller. The Typical Backpacker can be distinguished by its huge backpack and dirty hippie-tourist clothes, and of course the travel guide. Backpackers tend to gather in specific places called backpacker paradises. These are highly recommended in the tourist guides. The backpackers form their own communities and might even stay in one place for a longer time. The backpacker paradises are places cut from the real world and the populations consists of foreigners only, since many backpackers tend to have prejudices against the local people. Some backpackers however manage to break away from the rooster coop (expression borrowed from 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga) and succed to experience the real side of the country as well.

The Volunteer Tourist (sometimes even Voluntourist) knows what the 'real' India is like. This species do sometimes feel superiour to other tourist species as it have stayed in the country a longer time and lived the local everyday life. Eventhough sometimes arrogant towards other tourist the Volunteer Tourist is more humble towards the locals than many other species. It have realized that things can be done differently in different cultures and that something being different doesn't mean its wrong or bad. Sometimes the Volunteer Tourist might however be blinded by its own big understanding of the indigenous culture and fail to reflect rationally and independently on things. The Volunteer Tourist is constantly torn between its own culture and the local culture and therefore has to find its own way of coping with all the differences. The voluntourists don't like tourist places in general since it they don't like to be treated like normal tourists. The females can be distinguished by wearing local clothes as sarees or chudidas, the males sometimes weare loongis.

Unfortunately my time is running out now and I have to leave some other species to be described an other time. Here you can still get an overview of some of the different Indian Tourist species. Please note that many Tourists tend to be a mixture of many species and therefore obtain features from many different species. You can also try to find out which species you would be yourself, or which combination of species. As a conclusion I would also like to note that all the species are nice and beautiful in their own way and it is always nice to meat different species on your journey!