The unexpected kaleidoscope that is India

India has long been a fascinating country, both familiar and obscure, for me.

Familiar because Indian songs and dances from Bollywood movies such as Awara and Caravan in my adolescent days and Three Idiots in recent years, have always been a source of happiness for me.

Obscure because I have never been able to put the jigsaw of information about India together to get a clear and complete picture of the country. Is it on a fast track to catch up with China as an emerging economic power - with its growing IT clout and robust private sector - or is it still bogged down in mass poverty and corruption, which makes any talk about its imminent ascent vacuous?

The urge to get an answer, to see the country and its people, landscape and culture firsthand, prompted my wife and I to finally board an Air China flight to New Delhi for a week-long trip on Chinese Lunar New Year's Eve.

The timing could not have been worse. Just prior to our departure, news about a gang rape on a public bus in New Delhi hit the headlines. China Central Television dubbed New Delhi "the rape capital". It was no surprise that we got repeated, well-meaning advice from relatives and friends, asking us to think twice before embarking on the trip, citing security concerns and hygiene problems among other potential hazards.

So our passage to India started like an adventure.

To avoid scams, we had arranged for a car for the entire trip. Our driver's knowledge of English was not good, but enough for him to understand where we wanted to go and when. The first two days in New Delhi, a city of historical sites, trees and birds, were trouble free. And we expected a smooth journey in the following days.

On the third day, as we were on our way to the World Heritage Site of Agra Fort, our driver stopped midway to pick up an unexpected guest. It turned out that the young man, who claimed to be a history postgraduate, was our guide for the day. We had not asked for the service. Our driver must have misunderstood us, we thought. But to say "no" to an eager young man who only wanted to "enrich our journey with his professional knowledge" for not so high a price - 500 rupees ($10) for each site - was just too "impolite". So we decided to give it a try.

After a compact learning course about Indian history on our visit to the fort, we were driven to a workshop to see how traditional carpets were handmade. Again, it was not on our itinerary. But the host was so hospitable that we did not want to appear rude.

What came next seemed natural: he showed us one carpet after another in a way that we felt compelled to buy something. It was only in hindsight that I realized I should have bargained much harder, for later we found similar products being sold at much lower prices in fixed-price shops. But at the carpet workshop, I felt somewhat guilty to bargain and lower the price, because "a carpet of that quality could cost a craftsman months of hard work to finish".

The next day, we made it clear to our driver that we wanted no more guides. Yet the flow of nuisance did not stop. At each tourist site, once our car pulled over, "licensed" guides would swarm around us, eager to serve us, in such a pestering way that we had to flee out of fear. Our driver still drove us to shops "to just have a look". We ran into some "warm-hearted" people, too, only to find that the uninvited services they offered, such as showing us sights or taking pictures for us, came at a price - they wanted tips.

To be fair, what they asked for was not big money. Like China, India's pool of cheap labor seems to be unending. There are too many people in India jostling to make a little more money by all possible means, but in a much more desperate way than in China. I did not see that sense of desperation in Laos when I visited it in 2009, though its per capita GDP was lower than India's. For instance, in Jaipur, we were offered a rickshaw ride for 50 rupees, only to be told later that the fare was for one person.

Despite these exactions, it was a wonderful trip, a mind-boggling experience full of sounds and colors. There are so many places to see - monuments and palaces so well preserved that they make the many recreated tourist sites in China look cheap; so many things to buy - shawls, carpets and tapestries in all textures, colors and designs; and so many things to taste - a wide-ranging variety of dishes, vegetarian and non-vegetarian, to go with naan, roti, and chapati. We were not assaulted by gangs nor did we feel the slightest sense of threat to our personal safety. The only moment of panic came when my bank card was swallowed by an ATM at a bank in New Delhi, where the staff told me indifferently that I had to wait for days to get it back.

I did not have to wait that long. On my insistence, a manager sent for an engineer who came an hour later to get the card for me.

I had to pay 200 rupees in tips, though.

The author is a writer with China Daily. E-mail:huangxiangyang@chinadaily.com.cn