lindsaydoigstravelblogs6

[lindsaydoigstravelblogs6]

And now for something completely different......

I have blogged across many tens of thousands of Aussie Outback kilometres, about as many Arctic and Antarctic nautical miles, and thousands more throughout Europe and Asia, even the Americas, but this time, we are off to the mysterious Subcontinent. 

A strange name – why the Subcontinent?  ‘India’ is a lot easier to type and anyway, how do we define a continent, a subcontinent, and the rest of the earth that apparently doesn’t rate a definition?  Third world? – definitely not.  Developing country – maybe, but probably pretty offensive to those who are already thriving there.  And how do we define First, Second and Third World countries anyway – apart from selecting them for arbitrary lists?  And who decides if and when any particular country reaches the threshold to be promoted (God forbid, demoted) to the next category?

A couple of utterly stupid ‘official’ definitions from the Internet place India in the Third World, but I doubt if anyone would seriously categorise them that way today.  We now see the categorisation in economic, rather than political, terms - but for a laugh, these are still two official definitions on the internet.

"First World: Countries aligned with the Western Bloc (i.e., NATO and allies), led by the United States.  Second World: Countries aligned with the Eastern Bloc (i.e., Warsaw Pact, China, and allies), led by the Soviet Union.  Third World: The Non-Aligned Movement, led by India and Yugoslavia, and other neutral countries."

OR (according to another more verbose authority)

“First, second, and third world countries were originally defined during the Cold War based on their political and economic alignment with the United States and the Soviet Union: 

First world

Countries that supported the United States and NATO, and favored capitalism and democracy. These countries are now considered developed and industrialized, with stable governments and economies. 

Second world

Countries that supported the Soviet Union and communism. These countries are rarely heard of today, but the term is still used to describe former communist countries that are between poverty and prosperity. 

Third world

Countries that were neutral and supported neither capitalism nor communism. These countries are now generally referred to as "developing nations" and are considered to be less developed than the major world powers. 

The term "Third World" is considered outdated and may be offensive because the Soviet Union no longer exists. Many modern academics prefer to use terms such as "developing countries" and "low and lower-middle-income countries" instead.”

And just for a laugh, how is this for the definition of ‘Subcontinent’?  We often refer to the Indian Subcontinent, but my research came up with this list of four subcontinents:

Indian Subcontinent comprising Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Asia Pacific Subcontinent comprisingCentral and South Asia, Northeastern Asia, Southeastern Asia, Australia, and Oceania. 

European Subcontinent comprising Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe.  (How did they miss Central Europe?)

Middle East/African Subcontinent comprising the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Southern Africa (Presumably excluding Middle Africa?)

Note that this definition includes Australia as but a small part of the Asia Pacific Subcontinent.  And another reference I saw included the Americas as comprising two subcontinents – North America and South America!

I may (or may not) offer further comment on this topic once our adventures proceed, but as at now, I can’t get my head around India being a Third World country – even an Emerging Economy seems a little deprecatory for India.  And is it just a small part of the Indian Subcontinent?  Some of these references are pretty laughable to a pleb like me, but obviously, there are a lot more clever/more-clever taxonomists out there than I imagined (or not!).

OK, OK, that was just a lot of waffle to set the scene, but absurd international nomenclature aside, what do we hope to do?

We fly via Singapore to Guwati (spelt – and probably pronounced – many different ways) in northeast India/Assam for a cruise on the fabled Brahmaputra River.  We then fly (bugger! – we wanted to go by train, but so many people advised against it that we eventually chickened out) to Kochi (Cochin) in Kerala in southwest India for more adventure, including a few days on a Kerala Backwaters cruise, before taking the scenic rail route to Trivandrum, and flying home again via Singapore.

A few months ago, India was not even on our travel radar, but Heather is always looking for new and interesting places to go and things to do and stumbled on this destination when looking at our next subsequent trip – sixty-one days by train from Singapore to London.  She has been watching for a possible rail trip north from India for a few years and although that is still below the radar, the Brahmaputra cruise emerged, and we needed to tack something on to that to make the cost more justifiable and the flights less painful and here we are, off doing something almost alien to us – in a hot climate among the teeming billions, instead of the frigid isolation of the polar regions. 

We had been watching a series on TV entitled Great Canal Journeys in which Prunella Scales (Faulty Towers) and husband Timothy West explore canals, initially in the UK by narrowboat, but later in much grander places in grander boats, and two that were featured really captivated us – cruising on the Brahmaputra and the Kerala Backwaters.  It is a very touching series, particularly the later episodes where Prunella is falling prey to real-life dementia, and Timothy is nursing her emotionally by continuing their waterway adventures together.  We hope we are not quite yet at that stage of life, but you have to do these things when you can and that has been our unfailing motto for the past eight or ten years.  Who knows? – one or other, or both of us – may not be here tomorrow to continue our adventures together so we have determined to do what we can until we can’t!

I hope you enjoy this short adventure with us,  We have two more overseas excursions later this year but have reserved 2026 for domestic travel in our mobile cubbyhouse.