I have been to Seoul (South Korea) and Bali (Indonesia). However the biggest cultural shocks that I faced were in a place much closer, i.e. Doha (Qatar).
Food
Before this experience in Doha I used to
proudly call myself 'hard-core non-vegetarian'. In Doha they eat so much meat;
there is hardly any green leafy item on the menu. I became sick of meat within
4 days and now I am having cognitive dissonance in calling myself a hard-core
‘non-vegetarian'.
It was made worse by the fact that the food
there is generally dry whereas we are used to eating gravy/curry with
rice/roti. If you order a kebab platter above or any other meat item (all of
which are dry items), it comes with what looks like tandoori roti. I invariably
ordered juice to compensate for lack of gravy.
Traffic
You would not see a single motorbike,
bicycle or even pedestrian walking in Doha. Every person is in a 4-wheeler which
is primarily SUV like Land Cruiser.
No pedestrian meant that the Qatari
government never planned for pedestrian crossings or zebra crossings. So to
reach a shop just across the road one generally takes a U-turn at the next
crossing and return. Instinctively, we found that process highly inefficient.
So once we tried crossing the road on foot to reach the Lulu hypermarket just
across our hotel, literally risking our lives as the average traffic speed is
very high there! Never tried again.
On the other hand, there were so many
Indians everywhere you go (3 lakh Qataris and 6 lakh Indians in Qatar!) that
language was never a barrier. You could ask any brown guy in Hindi for
directions or menu in hotel and get a response. In fact, the service boy in my
room was a Sri Lankan and he spoke fluent Hindi. He said he had learnt it in
Doha! Imagine!
Pic Courtesy: Pinterest
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