No you’re totally right! I also went to India a number of years ago and my friends and I all bought a Sari/Salwar Kameez whilst we were out there. We wore them to the Taj Mahal and people were asking for photos of us with their children because they’d never seen blonde white girls, let alone ones in traditional dress. They liked the fact we were honouring their culture, but I still wasn’t 100% comfortable with the attention. I would have been mortified if that attention had been because we were being DISrespectful!To me it’s about respect but also from a personal perspective, I’d feel uncomfortable. Not wanting to generalise but I did a trip to India with a friend of mine. I am tall and she is petite and blonde. We dressed conservatively in terms of covering our shoulders and wearing longer skirts/trousers, and we still got an insane amount of staring. People would take photos of us from 2 meters away like in a cafe or on a ferry. They’d come up and ask for photos and just stick their cameras in our faces. The men would literally gawk. Again, not a generalisation on those cultures but I would feel SO uncomfortable if I’d have been wearing a tiny crop top and shorts. It’s just gross.
on that same trip, we also did some pretty serious hiking (that we’d trained for) in the Himalayas and we all had to buy proper hiking gear. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable I’d have been wearing a crop top and tiny cycling shorts