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My wife is looking for diet/ health camps. I swear, every fucking place she brings to me is in the most dangerous places in the world for a solo woman. India was one, remote Mexico another. Every single one has had lvl 2 or worse travel advisories. I think the only one that didn’t was Albania, which just had rampant organized crime and sex trafficking.
It’s like she’s trying to speed run “victim in a very obviously dangerous place”
This is perhaps a bit unsolicited so feel free to disregard, but in my experience this kind of fat camp nonsense doesn’t really help long term. The only thing that can do that for her is to address her everyday dietary habits and level of exercise.
The hardest thing about getting thin is staying thin outside the first burst of motivation.
Yup, I agree. Doesn’t stop her from wanting it, though.
Sometimes working on one’s mental health can go a long way towards improving aspects of physical health like weight issues. I’m almost positive that there will be a lot of places with the same problems, but there might be mental health/meditation retreats in safer areas. I’m pretty sure there’s at least a few that will take their patrons out to the Redwood forests in California and plop them down in the nice environment with some solitude for self-contemplation. (I attended such a thing a decade and a half ago, but I don’t know if it’s still there.)
Yeah, that’s really what she’s after. She wants a reset on her emotional state which is leading to bad eating habits. She has had a lot of stress and grief, so it’s understandable.
It helps for a time, but she obviously gradually picks up her bad habits again. Personally, I wish she would choose something more affordable / sustainable like hobbies she can escape into frequently. I’ve tried helping her find something, with or without me, but nothing has stuck, and this is how she wants to “solve” her problem again.
A social hobby that gets her out of the house might be the ticket here. Maybe look into your local community centers and whatnot to see if there’s something like a couples dance class that you could do together or yoga classes. Having ways to socialize that are not food-centric goes a long ways towards building better habits.
The thing those intensive programs are good at is doing a dietary reset, so that you can somewhat get used to eating healthy amounts of healthy stuff.
Saying that they only thing that helps is adressing the everyday dietary habits sounds really pretentious, really. That’s the hard part, it’s really hard to change habits gradually for a lot of people, since dietary issues are almost like an addiction for them. Cutting cold turkey for a while and then reintroducing normal food slowly is a very effective way for some people to adresss their daily dietary habits.
I literally could not control myself while eating for a long while, whatever dish, Pringles bag, fries bag I opened, I finished it on a single go. Whenever I was bored, I told myself that I would eat one or two, and suddenly it was empty. It’s really frustrating because I really was trying not to, and I tried so many times to gradually lessen the stuff I ate, count calories, whatever. It’s all moot. What actually helped me was doing a very intensive process for a week that helped me reset my eating habits, then began eating only healthy stuff, and forced myself to find healthy stuff that I found tasty too.
Basically, those programs do have a function to exist.
You realize “in my experience” means I have done it myself? And let me tell you they are nice and good to drop a few kilos in a structured and supervised environment.
Afterwards you are right back in your normal routine, and there you need to make the actual change happen. Permanently changed eating habits and frequent physical exertion.
If you can’t do that no fat camp in the world helps you long term.
Well, it’s true that they don’t help in the long term by themselves, but they are a huge help to headstart a change in routine.
You don’t need to tell me, as I said in my comment, I too did an intensive program and in helped me reroute my routine. It might help that since I needed to down 30kg there was no way in hell I’d do that in a week, so I focused on what I already wrote in the last comment.
All I wanted to say in my last comment is that they are good to reset a routine so that you can start getting new habits for the upcoming marathon.
I think the only one that didn’t was Albania, which just had rampant organized crime and sex trafficking.
Not just sex trafficking, human trafficking in general, also includes e.g. men being forced to work on Greek farms. Plenty of political will to crack down on it but Albania isn’t exactly in a state to throw tons of money at any problem.
Realistically speaking the risk as as foreigner is approximately zero, you’re much, much more likely to have your pockets picked or caravan broken into. Which might be less likely in say Denmark but also not exactly unheard of. The breaking in part, that is, pickpockets are rampant in any crowded touristy place in Europe.
They’re actually close to EU accession but it’s tied to that of North Macedonia (because lots of ethnic Albanians in North Macedonia and noone wants to create a mass exodus) and while the beef with Greece has been fixed and the beef with Bulgaria is getting dealt with it’ll still take a while. Big-issue items but OTOH it’s all ancient history, think about Germany and France getting into a spat because one wants to have Charlemagne all for themselves. Generally a good idea to address that kind of baggage before EU accession which is exactly why states force those issues with their veto but meanwhile Albania is sitting there on the door sill, rolling their eyes while freezing in the cold.
That’s right, human trafficking, not specifically sex trafficking. Remembered that wrong.
I think the place was pretty rural too, like 1-1.5h from the airport. Seemed extremely dicey to me, even if, as you say, tourists probably won’t be bothered.
Assuming you’ve brought up the danger the first or second time she found something, how is she still picking dangerous locations?
She thinks she’s invulnerable because she traveled alone a lot in her 20s. And she’s looking for affordable retreats, which unsurprisingly means outside of touristy areas.
i love ignoring travel advisors your wife seems cool
Check to see if she posts any more videos.
She’s streaming right now and it seems it’s her last day there. www.twitch.tv/awkwards_travel
Man, India always has the worst news stories coming out of it.
Man, India used to be a place of beauty and spirituality. Nowadays it feels like a stain on the human population. Don’t get me wrong, I still really love the culture and the food, but there’s a lot of societal problems that don’t get addressed because of poorer government management.
Edit: lmao I tried giving India the benefit of the doubt
Wha-haha?..
That “place of beauty and spirituality” and other hippie perceptions of all those remote countries were and are colonial bullshit. Same as Taro cards, Japanese and Chinese martial arts’ popularity, feel free to add anything I forgot.
Just a heads-up, Tarot cards were invented in Italy, not Asia, Africa or the Middle East.
Another glitch in my memory
Eh, mystics like to pass them off as crazy fortune telling tools from eastern west egypto-japan-istan, so it’s reasonable to believe that’s where they’re from. The reality is that they’re just Italian playing cards.
Well, now I know until I forget.
Me and my sister liked all that mystic\occult stuff when we were kids, for the fun of it, which now feels a bit dangerous since many people on the Web posting about that were absolutely serious.
One could find long texts about identifying vampires around you sucking energy through proximity and all that stuff.
I’d say this worked as a vaccine - too often I meet people discreetly or openly believing in such things, and usually their interests in their childhood were more mundane.
[…] used to be perceived as a place of beauty and spirituality […]
Was it though?
I don’t really know anything about India so who knows, maybe you’re right and everything there used to be lovely.
Seems more likely that in the past things just weren’t reported.
sexual conservatism
Man, India used to be a place of beauty and spirituality.
Pakistan being a thing because they thought a nationalist Hindustan was cringe
Are you talking about the pre-colonial era? Because it’s been the same, probably even worse, since before any of us were alive.
“Pfft, these people! They come to our country and expect to not be gang-raped. How dare they! Asshole elitist YouTube travel bloggers giving India a bad name!”
giving India a bad name
it already had a bad name, we are in a pit of endless downward spiral, our history can be summorized by just “and then it got worse” , since 8th century
Stats say it’s steadily but slowly becoming better in the last ~50 years, but I’ve never been in India.
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I have the receipts.
Let’s see them then
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I have no idea what you’re talking about.
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I took a look at your previous comments and noticed that you seemed to largely be arguing about points of opinion rather than fact. Also, my Spanish isn’t great, but referring to people you disagree with as “gringos” and complaining about political discussions is not going to win you a whole lot of sympathy for your position.
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I grew up in a mostly (75% or so) Hispanic neighborhood and I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word “gringo” in a non-derogatory tone of voice or context. And perhaps sympathy was not the correct word to have used there. I think “empathy” might better convey what I meant as it is my assumption that you are trying to convince people to see the situation from your point of view. Asking someone to empathize and/or agree with your viewpoint does take some diplomacy in many cases, and demanding evidence that is likely not in a language the commenter speaks is not going to be very helpful. While Mexico is an important country with a large population and substantial global economic impact, any news about Mexico that reaches the US in English is unlikely to present the internal politics of the country in a nuanced or detailed way.
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It’s not propaganda when they self report my dude
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One instance? You can look up these self reported stats yourself
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I’m sorry? You are suggesting it’s propaganda that India and UP have a sexual assault issue.
I’m clarifying that you don’t even have to run with western reports to confirm this, you can refer to India’s own publication and reporting on the issue.
EDIT OH YOU EDITED TO DISCONNECT MY COMMENT. LOL.
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Not really doubting you, it’s still the Internet here. There’s always going to be people who belong in c/confidentlyincorrect. I just find it weird when people say they have proof. If you do, why not just show it from the get go?
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… I’m referring to the receipts you mentioned. I don’t know why you’re assuming I’m familiar with whatever you posted recently.
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You’re going to need to give people a little more than “not India”. There are lots of stories in World News that are not India right now. Israel? Ukraine? Argentina? Myanmar?
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Put the proof where your mouth is. Show us your receipts!
How about you look at the thread that’s not hard to find and participate there? You won’t have trouble finding it and I’ll be waiting.
First of all, you don’t even specify your country. Am i supposed to find the question and answer myself?
If you’re so eager to discuss, you can always directed that energy to where it does say what my country is in the relevant topic. I don’t plan to recreate it here. Like I said, it’s not hard to find and I’ll be waiting.
You can’t even find energy to discuss. Tell me why I should be doing your side of the argument for you?
I have plenty of energy if you want to test it out. I’m directing you to another thread where the topic is appropriate and relevant. I don’t think that’s hard to understand.
Here I’m talking about these distrustful, accusing and cynical attitudes we get by default without even considering the benefit of the doubt because you’ve been swayed.
For all the times you responded, couldn’t you have just posted the link?
No, and I explained why somewhere.
Coming from a conservative religious country myself, I’m guessing sexual repression and misogyny comes into play but there must be more to this. There are just as culturally repressive countries but you hear fewer cases of this violent and rampant level rape on tourists and locals unlike in India.
Overpopulation.
India being India.
Why gang rape though? Are these like organized groups? Or, a flash mob of rapists forms on the spot?
I have not seen any video of this incident, but I have seen footage out of India before where things can suddenly take on a mob mentality. There are instances where one man starts heckling a woman, and then suddenly other men in the area see an opportunity and things progressively get worse. It reminded me of what looting can look like in the America—one person breaks a window and then 100 people start reflexively robbing the place.
I have no idea why things seem to be this way in that region. Hopefully someone who has lived in India can shed some light on why a mob of guys can rape a human with the same careless impulsiveness as stealing a stereo. It is hard for my moral compass to comprehend.
Does anyone have a good, clear ‘why’ rapes are such a thing in India? Is it is pure power thing and misogynistic cultural issue, or is it also a population issue?
I feel that heavily populated areas tend to have less care for others and women and minorities get it worse.
There’s a lot of reasons why, it’s the things you listed plus a lot more.
Where was the husband during this? Not that he could have done a whole lot, but it mentioned that she was traveling with him and then nothing after that.
Ok then, down voted for asking a legitimate question. She was traveling with her husband, it says it in the article but mentions nothing else about him.
Was he there? Did he try to stop it and get murdered? Was he away and the came back to find what happened?
It just seems odd to toss in the fact that they were traveling together and provide no other context.
I read in another article that the husband was brutally beaten with a hammer. He escaped death by sheer luck. Despite all this, both he and the wife went public defending India and Indians, warning against stereotyping an entire country because of the actions of a few idiots.
I’m sure I’ll get into the line of fire here, as this is a very anti-India comment section. That’s OK, I see a lot of people treat World News as a sporting event, cheering and jeering the teams.
India has a population of 1,428,627,663. If they have 90 (nearly) acts of rape per day, or 32,850 per year. (per the article)
USA has a population of 341,228,401, and reported 531,810 for 2022 (latest year with data).
Obviously the ideal number is zero and the US certainly has its share of problems, but this is reported rapes. I’m not going to paint myself as any sort of authority on the subject, but I’ve read enough stories where Indian law enforcement was complicit or unconcerned. I’d bet the actual numbers are a lot higher
I think this is valid perspective to add color to the discussion around the implicit claim that India has a disproportionately high problem of rape relative to other (usually developed) countirew and not an excuse for this incident. If anything it highlights the extent of rape in the US.
I’m not sure what the difference in rates of reporting is in both countries, but the rate of reporting has been rising in India, so seeing increased rates of reported assault on the short term could also be a good thing.
The whole world is extremely sexist and brutal to women. That is clear and undeniable. The problem is when things happen in PoC countries, it gets attributed to their skin color and wide generalizations are made. For example - https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/2yfd88/indian_student_claims_german_professor_denied/
This is someone who said it loud, imagine how many do it silently.
Are you saying US LEOs are on top of their game when it comes to handling cases? Or that women in the US do not feel repercussions for reporting rape cases?
According to those numbers, US has ~73x more. So even if one in 73 is reported, it will match the US. In the end, all you have is that brown people = rapists, terrorists etc. Not saying it’s you, it’s the decades of racist propaganda.
Remember, transphobia with a feminist slant is still transphobic. Racism with feminist slant is still racist.
No. I’m pretty ACAB across the board.
Every “-ism” you listed isn’t solely the dominion of white folks. You’re sort of falling into the same mindset you’re accusing me of possessing by calling me out for saying India has a problem. The US also has a problem. Both suck and neither excuses the other, but I have firsthand accounts from femme friends who have had sketchy encounters in South Asia. As someone who is not white and has a non binary partner, you are free to eat the entirety of my brown ass
Namaste
I explicitly said it was not you but propaganda lol.
femme friends who have had sketchy encounters in South Asia
So we went from stats to “trust me cos my friends told me”. Let me guess, your friends also clutch their pearls around sketchy (read “anyone who is not pure white”) people?
who is not white
Cannot think of why someone who is not white would do such mental gymnastics to defend blatant racism. At best it does not help and worst leads to things like this - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/09/german-professor-rebuked-for-discrimination-over-indias-problem
So the article (from 2 presidential administration’s ago) details someone who wouldn’t accept male Indian interns due to the country’s reputation. It does nothing to debunk the argument that rape is not an endemic problem in India, just that some shithead German professor threw the baby out with the bathwater. Okay, fine. We can get #NotAllIndians trending even tho I’m pointing out that it’s a cultural issue, not a race thing like you keep trying to shoehorn into this discussion.
By your arguments you’re saying article like this are bullshit hysteria with zero basis in reality? Cool. That take is super chill and not victim blamey at all. I mean, these “victims” were probably asking for it. Got it
Anyhow, I’m also not going to travel to the horn of Africa, chunks of the middle east, North Korea, Belarus or Gary Indiana for that matter. I’m just too closed minded I guess.
that it’s a cultural issue
So when white people say racist things, it’s a one off shithead person. But when brown people do crimes, it must be in their culture, got it.
We can get #NotAllIndians trending
How about we don’t make it about their skin color or “culture” so that we wouldn’t have to do?
By your arguments you’re saying article like this are bullshit hysteria with zero basis in reality?
Not bullshit, never claimed that. Only thing I’m saying is that violence against women is a problem everywhere, not special about Indians. And making it about them is unhelpful and harmful.
That take is super chill and not victim blamey at all. I mean, these “victims” were probably asking for it. Got it
Oof damn talk about putting words in my mouth. Crazy that you want to die on this hill so bad and all based on “the data is wrong” and “my friends said they were sketchy”. Since you are resorting to things I didn’t say to attack me, I’ve realized that this is a waste of time. Good luck - make sure to practice your bigotry in silence, though - unlike this shithead professor but like thousands of professors who are not shithead enough to put it in writing. That will definitely help everyone.
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India should be doing something about this. Why should the rest of the world be the ones to solve everyone else’s shit all the time?
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What measures would you propose the rest of the world to take?
Designate India as an “unsafe” tourist destination and suggest people travel elsewhere instead. Advise businesses to avoid sending staff there for any reason and recommend (not mandate) that they look at reducing trade and presence there.
I’m no economist, so I have no idea how blunt that instrument is or how it would affect domestic or Indian economies, but it’s an idea…
Can’t speak for other countries, but Germany explicitly warns about the danger of sexual violence: Ausländer, insbesondere allein oder in kleinen Gruppen reisende Frauen, sind vereinzelt von gewaltsamen, auch sexuellen Übergriffen betroffen, auch in Touristenzentren. Dazu werden teilweise Drogen oder K.-o.-Tropfen über Getränke verabreicht.
“Foreigners, especially women traveling alone or in small groups, are occasionally affected by violent, including sexual, attacks, including in tourist centers. Drugs or knockout drops are sometimes administered through drinks.”
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Isn’t that essentially what articles like this are? They’re spreading awareness of the dangers. Without getting into international politics, which is a murky thing
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It’s easy for the rest of the world to do something about Japan’s whale killing. You send your ships out into the international waters where it was happening to protect the whales. (And, for what it’s worth, “the rest of the world” didn’t do all that much about it. Independent organisations did so in a legally grey act of essentially vigilantism.)
It’s much, much harder to do something about what’s happening within a country’s own territorial boundaries.
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I mean, people certainly should do what they can, and those trying should be commended for tehir effort. It’s just that the ability to have any meaningful impact is inevitably going to be very limited, so you shouldn’t expect it to have much of an effect.
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It’s not an unpopular opinion. What’s unpopular is the idea that I as an Australian, or you as an American, can do anything meaningful to change this. Or even that our governments can. They can and should provide some political pressure (possibly in the form of not doing photoshoots with India’s Prime Minister*—which should frankly already be the case based on a whole host of other human rights abuses), but when a country has such a huge internal cultural issue, you can’t expect external pressure to actually fix the problem. That has to come from within.
I’m doing my part by never going to that shit hole.
