Since arriving in Goa, I think I have become the world's sweatiest man. I have sweated with similar intensity in other parts of the world, for example when walking the city walls of Dubrovnik or scaling Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. But nowhere other than Goa has the sweating gone on for so long - the heat and humidity are pretty high during the day, and don't even seem to drop much overnight! Don't get the wrong impression though... after three weeks of travelling in northern India I'm very much appreciating the respite that I'm getting from my 'holiday within a holiday' in Goa.
After an overnight pit stop in Delhi, and rendezvous-ing with Hannah and Pam before they headed north to Amritsar for Diwali, on Saturday I flew down to Goa with another Indian budget airline, the slightly less daftly named 'Indigo' (less daft than Spicejet, that is). After a hair-raising 50km ride with a young and enthusiastic taxi driver I arrived in Anjuna, and started settling into a lifestyle of drinking cheap G&Ts at beach-side bars while watching the sun go down...
Of all the beach-side towns and villages in Goa, I'd chosen Anjuna on the basis of recommendations from various people that I'd met on my travels. You generally choose to go either north or south from the airport or main train station, and I chose north. Basically Anjuna is the first coastal community north of the twin resorts of Calangute and Baga, both overrun with package tourists and annoying touts; something like an Indian Costa del Sol, without the towering hotel blocks, and with a very Indian air of generally random development, dusty roads and traffic.
Goa is unlike probably anywhere else in India: it was completely separate from the rest of India until 1961 when the Portuguese, wh had ruled Goa since the 1500s, were politely asked to bugger off. The legacy of centuries of evangelising (and sometimes brutal) Christian missionary activity has left its mark on the people and the culture - although most of the people look just as Indian as in other states, many are Catholic and have Portuguese surnames. You can find pork and beef on restaurant menus here, and alcohol is both cheap and readily available.
I guess the innate friendliness of the Goan people and their westward-facing outlook is what attracted many of the hippies here in the 60s and 70s, so inadvertently starting the tourist trade. And some of those original hippies are still here! There are more than a few very old westerners in Anjuna and other places, sporting enormous beards and wearing faded fisherman's trousers, openly smoking dope at the bars and restaurants.
It was amongst the later arrivals, nevertheless clearly long-stayers, that I found what I thought to be the real Goan hippy cliche. This guy reminded me a little of Roger, the Canadian backpacking cliche we met in Argentina, although he was younger. My suspicions were aroused when, as I sat at a beachside bar drinking a morning's cup of tea, a bedraggled 40-something acid casualty of a woman asked the wait staff in hurried tones if 'ping pong' had been in. The staff were a bit confused so the woman sat down to wait for 'ping pong'. A 40-something white guy, with ponytailed hair and an unidentifiable accent then showed up wearing the most lurid multi-coloured baggy trousers I've ever seen, accompanied by a shirt in similarly multi-coloured stripes that somehow managed to clash completely with the trousers. The multi-coloured hat had a similar effect. I assumed this must be the aforementioned 'ping pong'.
Anyway, back to the sweating. Walking more than about 50m had the effect of reducing both me and my clothes to a sodden mess, so after a day of wandering around Anjuna on foot I hired one of my guest house's mopeds and headed out to explore. No-one else wore a helmet but I wasn't so bothered about not looking cool that I was willing to risk a head injury if I happened to fall off a bike I didn't know on roads I didn't know. I know... I'll never make it as a hippy!
Using the moped I was able to get as far north as the beautifully deserted Keri beach, in the far north of the state, where for an afternoon all that accompanied the few beach shacks set up for the season were me and a couple of Indian families.
Just south of Keri was Arambol: a backpackers' town not dissimilar to Anjuna but with a beach that seemed a little more crowded and so, to my eye at least, a little less appealing: Anjuna and neighbouring Vagator have plenty of beach to go around, if you can avoid the ever-persistent sarong sellers (top tip: hide out in one of the bars!). Plus Arambol has only one road down to the beach: crowded on either side by throngs of cheap sarong / jewellery / T-shirt stalls and others offering 'rasta dreads', meaning you run this gauntlet every time you move from one part of the village to another. I hung about long enough one afternoon to have a swim in the fresh-water lagoon that collects behind one of the beaches, and long enough another morning to watch a pod of dolphins swim by whilst drinking a big steaming cup of chai. And cows wandered along the beach.
I had lunch one day in the pretty Fontainhas district of Panjim, Goa's capital and biggest town. This and the neighbouring district of San Thome contain the most intact remnants of houses and other buildings from the Portuguese colonial era. The street names even appear on the side of buildings as glazed tiles, although I suspect this may in part be a recent act by the tourism authorities. Very few other roads in Goa, or India for that matter, appear to have names!
Inland from Panjim along the Mandovi river lies Old Goa, which is essentially a ghost town, having been abandoned for Panjim about 300 years ago. What is striking about Old Goa is the amount of religious architecture that has survived, in the form of the Basilica de Bom Jesus, the Se Cathedral, and numerous other small yet beautiful churches, chapels and convents. The remains of St. Francis Xavier lie in the Basilica and the Se cathedral is said to be the biggest church in Asia, and so both are still important, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm not of course, but I couldn't fail to be impressed; however by the time I'd finished my wanderings I was absolutely exhausted by the heat and so said a few things that were probably ruder than was strictly necessary to the umpteenth person trying to sell me a chess set as I struggled back to the bike!
The weekly 'flea market' happens in Anjuna on Wednesdays, and I went along with the intention of doing all my Christmas shopping in one hit. I don't think I exactly achieved this, but I did manage to buy quite a lot of stuff... some of it I even wanted to buy, surprisingly! To be honest I was a little disappointed with the market: it has a big reputation, and pulls in tourists from all over Goa, so I was expecting lots of variety. While there was some variety, a lot of the stalls sold basically the same thing: cheap printed saris or cheap jewellery. Typically these were the stalls whose proprietors also best possessed the skill of the 'hard sell'. I couldn't help thinking that if they only tried selling stuff that people actually want to buy, they might not have to resort to the 'hard sell'. Interestingly, the very very many stalls selling identical Goa Trance CDs had no kind of 'hard sell'. Presumably their proprietors were too stoned to bother. Or just overawed by the view over the beach.
Back to Delhi now (I'm writing this on the plane) for another quick pit stop before flying to London early on Sunday. Moving back into the flat and then back to work on Monday, cripes. I just hope the box of clothes I posted home from Sydney arrived OK, or I'm going to look a bit of a scruff next week...
Robin
Knowing that the trip from Rishikesh to Mussoorie involved not just my first real taste of Indian public buses, but also a change of bus in a town I'd not yet visited, I set off from my guest house at about 10:30. Not too late, but not too early either. It was only about 45km to Dehra Dun, and then another 35km or so to Mussoorie. I knew the latter part of the journey was supposed to take 1¾ hours, which seemed reasonable as the bus has to climb over 1400m along a series of hair pin bends. So how long could the first part of the trip, on the flat, possibly be? Answer: nearly three hours! This was mostly because of a nasty snarl-up at a village near Dehra Dun: roads too narrow, with too many buses and trucks trying to squeeze past each other. In typical Indian fashion, no-one was giving an inch, resulting in gridlock. I bit my tongue so my fellow passengers wouldn't hear what I thought of their compatriots' driving skills.
After having to wait an hour and a half for my connecting bus, I finally arrived in Mussoorie at about 5:30pm, just half an hour before dark! At this point I congratulated myself at having decided to treat myself to slightly more upmarket lodgings than I'd had in Haridwar and Rishikesh. At over 2000m above sea level, it gets cold in Mussoorie, and my room at my hotel was not only large and comfortable, it was warm despite a lack of any visible heating system: the thick stone walls of this former colonial home retained the heat of the sun accumulated during the day. There is a sizeable Tibetan community in the hill country: dinner that night consisted of tibetan momos and noodle soup. Plus beer. Hooray, finally free of religious constraints I could have a beer. Not that any of the 'bars' (if you can call them that) in Mussoorie had any atmosphere to speak of. At this point I wasn't too bothered.
I spent the next couple of days happily just wandering around and taking in the amazing views to be had all around. Mussoorie is perched on a ridge high above the city of Dehra Dun below. Although the two are 35km apart by road, you can clearly see Mussoorie from Dehra Dun. And at night, the city lights illuminate the valley floor, providing a fantastic view from Mussoorie that you can't appreciate during the day because of the direction of the sun and all the smoke and haze that accompanies any Indian city.
On my last day I took a bus tour out to the village of Dhanolti and the mountain-top temple of Sukhnanda Devi. The latter sits atop another high peak, at over 3000m above sea level. Getting to it involved a steep walk up a good path, ascending probably 300m or so. Now I know I'm not amazingly fit but I found this climb incredibly hard work. Hopefully this was due to the altitude rather than the state of my health! At the top, ceremonial bells hung from gateways leading into the temple complex. I felt like I'd earned the loud ringing I gave them as I staggered to the summit!
From the top, the views were even better than those I'd appreciated in Mussoorie, or from the window of the bus as it careened around hair pin bend after hair pin bend, causing at least one of the Indian tourists aboard to be sick out of the window (classy). I could even see snow covering distant Himalayan peaks to the north.
After Mussoorie I had to stay a night in Dehra Dun to catch the 6am 'express' train back to Delhi (on which I am killing time by writing this post!). I have decided to rename this city 'Dehra Dump' as it seems to be terminally choked with traffic and completely bereft of redeeming features, apart from buses and taxis to Mussoorie, and buses and trains to Delhi.
Changing the subject completely, I've decided to spend most of my last week in India in Goa. I fly there tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon from Delhi. It should be a bit of a change of scene from North India, and it will be the last chance I get to get some beach action before the summer I guess... the cold climate of Mussoorie and around provided a nice break from the heat of the plains, but I'll have all the cold weather I want once I'm back in the UK...!
Robin
On Saturday afternoon I left Delhi by train for the holy city of Haridwar: like Varanasi, sitting on the bank of the Ganges. Arriving after dark and having eaten a curry on the train, I checked into my hotel and hit the streets for a bit of a wander and to see what 'action' there was to be had in a town which, like Varanasi, serves no alcohol or meat.
To my great surprise, I did find some 'action'... there was some kind of parade going along the main street. It was clearly some kind of Hindu puja but I never found out to what or whom this particular puja was dedicated. There was another one the following night; I didn't find out what that was about either. I did try asking the locals, the upshot being that they either didn't know or didn't want to tell me!
The parade was a mish-mash of decorated animals and various brightly-lit floats pulled and pushed by hand or by tractors. The power for the lights came from generators pulled by hand, with long cables trailing to the floats behind, held up from the street by men with poles. On some of the floats men in heavy make-up depicted scenes from Hindu mythology.
Other floats were basically just sound systems, with nationalistic names and slogans like 'Bharat' (official name for India) and 'Ashok' (emperor from the 3rd century BC). These were also brightly lit and extremely loud! Sometimes these attracted a crowd of madly-dancing youths, sometimes some older guys would dance around a trumpet in front of them.
Lastly I have to mention the brass bands that accompanied the sound systems - they play along with the music pumping out of the speakers, and wear the most amazingly bright uniforms. And none of them seemed to mind me struggling to get decent photos of them!
I was genuinely surprised by Haridwar, as it turned out to be such a colourful place. There wasn't really a heck of a lot to DO there, short of joining an ashram and becoming a yogi, but just wandering around was very rewarding. Just crossing the river in the morning, I was surprised to see guys panning for gold in the Ganges. I later found out that they also look for old coins and jewellery, the latter often coming from the remains of cremations. Nice.
Further upstream at the main Ghat, locals and visitors alike cooled off from the heat of the day by taking a dip in the holy waters of the Ganges, making for another colourful scene.
Having been told a tale or two about the presence of elephants, leopards, and tigers in the National Park that surrounds Haridwar, I keenly signed up for a 'jungle safari' in the afternoon. Unfortunately I didn't see any of the big three mentioned above (this is not unusual apparently) but it was nice to get out into the countryside and we did see a lot of interesting birdlife, like flocks of parakeets that dart past you like fighter jets. As it got dark we saw a few big mammals too, like deer and wild boar.
An unexpected highlight of this trip was visiting a tribal village. The guy who ran our tour (of just four tourists) has been involved with bringing government assistance to these people, who have only recently abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and started using cash instead of the barter system. Hailing originally from Afghanistan, they speak a mixture of Afghan languages, Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi. I couldn't believe that people could still be living like this, so close to the city. They let us into their homes, made of a mix of mud, straw, and buffalo dung, and made us tea, using fresh milk from their herd of buffalo. Yum.
Next was Rishikesh, about 30km north of Haridwar, or an hour and a half of bone-shaking in the back of a three-wheeler! Rishikesh is famous as the place where the Beatles got spiritual with the Maharishi (man). Today it still attracts a sizeable crowd of westerners who want to get spiritual at the many ashrams and yoga halls, most of which sprang up only after the Beatles got disillusioned and buggered off to carry on selling records.
Funnily enough, your average Indian is generally bemused by the swarms of westerners who come to places like Rishikesh to learn yoga. You see, it's just not that, well, cool. According to the 'good book', the sight of westerners coming to Rishikesh to learn yoga is to an Indian what an Englishman might think of Indians coming to somewhere like Devon to learn something like Morris dancing.
Rishikesh is strung out along the banks of the Ganges, with the main centre lying some distance away from the more attractive and interesting areas upstream - this is where the ashrams, yoga halls, and most of the westerners are to be found. Oh and lots of monkeys stalking the two pedestrian suspension bridges, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting tourists - one went for my bag! Also to be found, despite the ban on alcohol and meat also in force in Rishikesh, are restaurants and cafes that don't just sell curry or poor imitations of western food - lack of variety in Haridwar became a pain after a while, and this coming from someone who loves Indian food - try as I might, I just can't eat two curries a day!
The 'good book' says that Rishikesh is the kind of place that you either shoot straight through or stay for weeks. I stayed just one night - I managed to walk pretty much everywhere in town on my first day, and the rafting trip that I wanted to go on on the second day was cancelled. Pah. Rafting on the Ganges would have been fun, particularly as I failed to go rafting in both Argentina and New Zealand, for various reasons. Anyway I didn't fancy joining an ashram, and I was keen to push on to Mussoorie before I had to get back to Delhi, so off I set. Little did I know it would take almost all day to travel the 80km or so to Mussoorie... more on that in the next post!
Robin
I just re-read my last post (on Agra) and realised it didn't sound terribly positive! To be honest I think I was becoming a little tired of simply being a tourist (and of course, with my pasty white skin, it's SO obvious to all and sundry that that's what I am). A little respite was in order. And that's more or less what I got in Delhi - staying with Hannah i.e. someone who is not primarily a tourist here, allowed me to see some different sides of today's India.
That's not to say I didn't do any sightseeing. But not before a day of chilling out in the relatively upscale environs of South Delhi. Hannah's flat is actually inside a gated community, which sounds ridiculous until you realise that that is how most of the middle classes live. Hannah and her flatmates are not the only westerners present in their 'enclave' but I would say that their neighbours are probably about 99% Indian. The word 'gated' is probably overstating things a bit too: there are gates, but people pretty much come and go as they please. There is a bevy of security guards, who seem to mostly spend the night hours blowing their whistles at each other. I'm not sure how effective a method this is for preventing crime but hey what do I know.
Anyway, the sights. The modern Lotus Temple was the first 'sight' seen. Built in the 1980s it bears a passing resemblance to Sydney Opera House - the 'shells' of the roof were built the same way (post-tensioned concrete, fact fans... it is my job to know this sort of stuff!). The temple serves the Baha'i faith (look it up on Wikipedia) and as such is open to anyone of any religious persuasion. It was very peaceful inside, a real haven from the madness of the streets outside.
I paid the obligatory visit to India Gate and walked down Rajpath, the broad grassy avenue that leads to the parliament. It was so stinking hot that I was grateful for the shade provided by the trees, and twice stopped to sit down for a bit! Walking on the grass had the added benefit of putting myself slightly beyond the reach of the dodgy auto-rickshaw drivers who ply the streets of central Delhi. Typically there's never an auto around when you want one, and when you don't, there are hundreds!
The tomb complex of Humayun - one of the islamic Mughal emperors of India, was worth a visit. In the evening we had dinner at Karim's in the nearby quarter of Nizamuddin which is a very islamic affair: meaning that after lots of vegetarian meals meat was very much back on the menu! Mmmm, afghani-style barbecued chicken...
The Red Fort was OK; beautiful ancient pavilions inside, but the rest of the complex is falling to bits. And much of it is inaccessible.
The National Museum, with its air-con, provided a respite from the afternoon heat, and was interesting in a 'should really be more impressive' kind of way. To be fair there is a lot of renovation going on there, so they should be able to lift their game a bit. Outside I saw a troop of monkeys clamber over some of the exhibits. That was a nice reminder that I really was in India!
So what about the other sides of today's India? Although Hannah's current job pays poverty wages she showed me how the upwardly-mobile residents of South Delhi shop and 'pass-time': at places like 'M-block' market and Khan Market. At both of these there was a curious mix of the old and the new: spotless stores for western brands like Adidas and Puma, while just outside there might be a guy cutting keys on the street with just a metal file and good eyesight. Sometimes the mix works, other times it works less well. I saw this sign at 'M-block' market, and I'm still not sure what to think!
At Khan market I got myself measured up for a suit. The quality of Indian tailoring is very high and the cost of it is very low, so you can get a decent suit made up in almost any style you want for only a little more than the cost of the fabric. Fabric-wise you can spend whatever you like; I plumped for a very fine English wool. Not the cheapest but who cares. I'm due back for a fitting on Friday.
I also became far more skilled at bargaining with auto-rickshaw drivers, after Hannah tried to teach me some basic Hindi. I can now get them to go left, right, or straight on (after my painful ride from New Delhi station, I took to carrying a city map around with me!).
I can also say that I want to go somewhere and ask 'how much?'. Unfortunately I don't understand the reply if its in Hindi, but English is often used for numbers so this isn't too difficult. The international language of a cross face or a thumbs up works well, although I haven't mastered the odd Indian side-to-side head nod yet!
I also got a bit braver with the food, even digging in to a lunch with my fingers, using roti to capture the dhal and paneer curries that we'd ordered. Hannah showed me the way... it's not too difficult but it is messy... make sure hands are clean and don't hold your food with the left hand even if it is clean - this is considered bad manners, and if you don't know why I'm not going to tell you!
Ultimately it was good just to take some time to chill out in South Delhi; as it's not a tourist area I got zero hassle - so when I was out I felt like I could let my guard drop a bit and be more inquisitive, so I might actually learn something. In the more touristy places showing an interest can lead to all kinds of scams, which is unfortunate. I can't help thinking that more tourists would come to India, and would probably spend more money, if there weren't so many shysters about...
So now I have about two weeks left in India, and to escape the heat of the plains I'm heading up to the temple towns and hill stations at the edge of the Himalayas. First Haridwar, then see what happens! I'll be back in Delhi on Friday for the suit fitting, and then I'm thinking about flying to Goa for my last week... it's not that it's convenient for Delhi (I have to return to Delhi for my flight back to London) but I think this might be my last chance to get some beach action before the northern hemisphere summer...!
Robin
I only spent one night in Agra but had two whole days there, thanks to the wonders of the Indian railway system. It seems like you can get to a bewildering number of destinations from pretty much any major town. It was thus that I found that a night train runs from Varanasi to Agra once a day. However this is a pretty popular train so rather than the air-conditioned sleeper carriage that I had been hoping would be my introduction to Indian railways, I had no option but to travel plain old 'sleeper class'.
In 'sleeper class' the bunks are stacked three high and air is provided by big fans and open windows behind steel bars to stop thieves climbing in during the night. But I had a reserved bunk up on the top tier, and actually I got a reasonably comfortable night's sleep. But this was not before the police moved through the carriages and made all the foreign tourists read a 'guidance note' on how to avoid being drugged and robbed (top tip: don't eat or drink anything you haven't paid for!). Oh good. And the 'good book' made the point that trains to/from Varanasi are particularly vulnerable to crime. Oh good again. My pillow that night consisted of both my bags, chained to the bunk itself.
I woke up before dawn, for the third day in a row, as I wanted to make sure I didn't miss the stop. I needn't have bothered as with a little help from a fellow tourist (a german civil engineering student... ooh we had a right riveting conversation!) I discovered we were still a way off. Nearly two hours delayed in fact... turning a 13 hour ride into a 15 hour one... welcome to India! To be honest this didn't matter - it really is a tad ridiculous to try to check into a hotel or guesthouse at 7am, and aside from the Taj Mahal and a few other things there isn't THAT much to do in Agra... two days was plenty. And anyway the next morning I saw the same train rolling in about four and a half hours late, so it seems I got off lightly!
Anyway, back to Agra. You could probably sum up Agra as a city of total contrasts. Thanks to history it has been blessed with the Taj Mahal, which is a truly beautiful building, as well as Agra Fort and some other sights which are equally distracting. Unfortunately the city of today that surrounds these sights is a dump. Even the good book describes it as 'one of India's least prepossessing cities'. Thankfully my chosen guest house was very nice indeed.
I didn't go to the Taj on the first day because it was Sunday, so there would be loads of domestic tourists. Plus, it looks best either at sunrise or sunset, and it's boiling hot in the middle of the day. But hang on, that advice goes for pretty much everything else I've seen in India! In both Varanasi and Agra, the phenomenon of the mid-afternoon lull is known... that time when you've exhausted your morning's buggering about, had lunch, but then it's too hot or too early to go do the next thing. Resolving to avoid this if at all possible, I got the nice people at my guest house to charter a taxi to take me out to Fatehpur Sikri for the afternoon. The drive took almost an hour and a half each way, to cover just 40km. Again, welcome to India!
Hannah wrote back in June about her visit to Fatehpur Sikri with Pam, and noted how frustrating it can be to visit sites of such beauty while being constantly harangued by touts, beggars, hawkers, and 'official' guides. I paid over the odds for a guy to show me around the large mosque - which was truly amazing - and when this was over he started to lead me back down the hill towards the access road. 'Hang on' I said, 'you haven't shown me half of it yet!' Realising the scam was up, I paid the 'official' guide his money and headed over to the old palace buildings, which were thankfully a lot more serene, maintained as they are by the Archeological Survey of India and protected by a big fence. Needless to say, I had another guide to 'accompany' me around the site.
The next morning I rose before dawn for the fourth day in a row, and got down to the Taj to try to make the most of the early morning light. I was unlucky that the water features dividing the lawn had been drained, but I think you should be able to tell from the photos below that I didn't leave disappointed.
I then had a whole day to kill before taking the evening Shatabdi express train to Delhi. There was no point getting to Delhi earlier, as Hannah was flying back to Delhi from Orissa the same day, and had said she wouldn't be home until 9 or 10pm. So I got an auto-rickshaw to drive me around for a couple of hours, crossing a ridiculously congested and narrow bridge to the opposite side of the Yamuna river, to see the Taj reflected in the river, and to visit the 'Baby Taj'.
The 'Baby Taj' is called thus because it is smaller than the Taj Mahal and in fact predates its big brother by about 30 years. It's also a tomb, housing the remains of Mumtaz Mahal's father (Mumtaz Mahal being the woman to whom the Taj Mahal is dedicated). Nearly 400 years old, it still represents one of the finest examples of islamic Mughal architecture in India.
After lunch I waded through the by now familiar mass of touts, beggars, hawkers, and 'official' guides to visit Agra Fort. Much bigger than the Taj, I spent a couple of hours here; wandering through the maze of buildings erected within the fort was very rewarding: beautiful white marble palaces juxtaposed with red sandstone ruins. And a view of the Taj.
I still had time to kill before my train so I farted around on the Internet for a bit, and ate dinner at my guest house. I had checked out at 10am and was by now feeling quite sweaty and skanky! Bored, I arrived at Agra Cantonment station a bit too early, and headed to the platform. Where I was besieged by scammers and begging children. So I left and went outside, only going back down to the platform about 5 minutes before the train was due to pull in. This tactic worked up to a point, that point being that the train was an hour late! By the time I got to New Delhi station it was midnight and I was an hour and a half late.
Note: New Delhi station is one of the worst places in India for the tired and weary traveler, and midnight is an exceedingly bad time to arrive there. A taxi tout latched on to me, and despite my colourful language he would simply not f**k off. The 'official' pre-paid taxi office wanted 1300 rupees to get to GK1 i.e. Hannah's neck of the woods. I laughed at them and left. The taxi tout changed his tune a little and we eventually agreed on a still quite inflated 500 rupees. Then despite the fact that my taxi driver had a mate along for the ride (this happens with auto-rickshaws too... still no idea why!) we got hopelessly lost trying to find Hannah's address. Only after I rang Hannah, and she spoke to the driver's mate in broken Hindi, did we make some progress. I had hoped to get here about 10pm, and it was now quarter to one in the morning. Again, welcome to India!
Robin
Varanasi is a long way from Mumbai, situated as it is in mid-north India on the banks of the sacred River Ganges (and called the Ganga here). So I flew to Varanasi, which also meant touching down in Delhi and sitting on the tarmac for about an hour and a half. Essentially the journey took most of the day and it was dusk when I arrived at my guest house, where my room has a balcony overlooking the river and the famous Ghats. Fearing to venture too far away from the guest house through the narrow alleyways of the old city after dark (power cuts are common!) I ate dinner at the guest house's very own rooftop 'restaurant' and watched boatloads of tourists (both Indian and western) return upstream after watching the nightly puja / ceremony at the main Ghat, just downstream.
My first reason for coming to Varanasi was to rendezvous with Hannah, who had planned to meet her friend Sarah there for a couple of days. Sarah works in Orissa state on the east coast, so Varanasi seemed like an ideal halfway point for the two of them. Plus it just so happened that it fitted in well with my nascent plans, which until that point consisted of not much more than 'hit Mumbai, then either go north or south for a bit'. Not fancying a 26 hour train ride, I booked a flight. However no sooner had I done so, Sarah's employers advised her not to go to Varanasi as it would be festival time. Thus the plan was changed. In the mean time I had done some more reading on Varanasi, was still keen to go, and had found a place to stay (all this while still in Australia). So here I am!
I wasn't disappointed that I came. Although on the first evening I slipped down some steps near the guest house, so bruising and grazing my right arm (and getting covered in mud, shit, and god knows what else in the process). And then I spent half the night fending off all manner of creepy crawlies - apparently from the end of the monsoon until Diwali - basically most of October - Varanasi is flying bug city. So it's fair to say I didn't feel like I was having fun on Thursday morning. But by the evening I definitely was.
The periphery of Varanasi is a common Indian mix of shops spilling out onto half-tarmac half-dirt streets crowded with traffic morning noon and night. However the heart of the city is the maze of extremely narrow alleyways (galis) that pass for streets, leading down to the Ghats. The galis are very atmospheric and often crowded not just with people but also with cows and the more than occasional 'two wheeler' i.e. a motorbike / moped. Still the comparative lack of continually blaring horns, and the shade from the burning hot midday sun, makes the galis are a fun place to explore. I tried to get a decent photo but none do them justice!
The best way to appreciate Varanasi however is from a boat on the Ganges itself. This way, you not only get a widescreen view of all the goings-on on the Ghats, but you (generally speaking) avoid the touts and the scammers. Due to the large number of tourists, Varanasi has its fair share of these, oh yes.
My first boat ride was taken at dusk, which gave us (me and my fellow tourists) the opportunity to watch the nightly ceremony at the main Ghat, from the river. That Thursday night, it just happened to coincide with Durga puja, when the mother goddess Durga is honoured by chucking effigies of her into the river, dancing about a bit, and setting off tons of firework. Both things were going on at the same time, at the same place. Truly a bonkers spectacle, but it made for some great photos.
On Friday I visited Sarnath, which lies only about 10km from Varanasi, but takes 45 minutes to reach using an auto-rickshaw due to the city's hellish roads! While Varanasi is extremely important to Hindus, Sarnath is important to Buddhists: it was here that Buddha apparently gave his first sermon. Despite its importance the site of the city that was built after Buddha's sermon is now a ruin, albeit a neat, ordered, and well-preserved one.
The scam I rode out this particular day was my rickshaw driver's demand for 'baksheesh' despite the fact that on the way back into town he actually managed to crash the damn thing into a couple of motorcyclists (no harm done though!) and then dropped me about a 20 minute walk from where I wanted to be! Cheeky sod. I just laughed at the ridiculousness of it and walked off.
The good book says that no visit to Varanasi is complete without an early morning boat ride, and so on the Saturday morning this is what I did, getting up before dawn to make sure I got the best of it. Devout Hindus traditionally come down to the Ghats to bathe in the Ganges at dawn, and the light at this time makes for some unforgettable sights.
The other thing that has to be mentioned about Varanasi is the 'burning' Ghats. There are two in the city; these are where the dead are brought to be cremated before the remains are interred into the Ganges. This happens in the open air, in full view of anyone who cares to watch. Quite an emotional spectacle really. No photos allowed out of respect for the dead of course. Now I knew that this is the way that Hindus dispose of the dead, but what I didn't know is that some people (e.g. children, holy men - sadhus, pregnant women) are not burnt - they are just taken to the middle of the river and dropped. Apparently the fish eat the remains. I wondered if they also eat all the rubbish that the locals literally throw into the river every day too, sadly.
Surprisingly enough, I didn't fancy a dip in the sacred river myself.
Robin
My arrival in India was inauspicious. The plane had departed Sydney late and then just as we prepared to land, amidst a thunderstorm, at Mumbai, the plane veered sharply upwards from an altitude of about 100m. "Sorry about the missed approach" was the explanation from the flight deck. By the time I was on the ground I was about 2 hours late but then hey... what does that really matter? I'm on holiday!
Bags collected and pre-paid taxi voucher acquired, I stepped out from the air-conditioned world of the arrivals hall into the throng. Not so much the heat but the humidity practically knocked me sideways, as I headed off in search of my taxi. At least I had a 'friend' to carry my backpack... I've only been in India for three days now but there never seems to be a shortage of people keen to carry things or generally 'help' (depending on your definition of help) for a 10 rupee note. This amounts to a grand total of 12.5p so why not I say.
Back in the UK I am sure that I will look back on India with fond memories. But after a long flight and a bad night's sleep the night before I was totally unprepared for the sight of the 'taxi'... a battered yellow-and-black rustbucket whose boot was secured with a chain and padlock. And they were all like that... not just at the airport but all over Mumbai! I dare say it's the same all over India. Actually after a couple of days catching these things became rather fun, once used to the rhythm of convincing drivers to use their meters and trying not to look annoyed when the driver stops during the journey to do anything from go to the toilet to top up brake fluid (both of which are kinda reassuring in their own way!)
This photo is actually a better example of the typical Mumbai taxi:
Next: the roads / traffic / driving 'situation'. I have never seen driving anything quite like that which I have seen so far in India. It's very difficult to describe; lanes on highways mean nothing. Pedestrians weave in and out as though guided by some divine force, seemingly oblivious to the death on wheels screaming past in all directions. Buses, trucks, hand-pulled carts, pushbikes, motorbikes, cars, taxis and rickshaws all jostle for space, with only inches between them. This is all partly explained by Mumbai's terrible roads... to get from the airport to the heart of the city, at the end of a long peninsula, takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. The distance covered is something like 30km. So the roads are just something that you have to deal with in this city!
The alternative for many people, including many western businesses, is to set up shop away from the old city in suburbs like Bandra, which are close-ish to the airport but far enough away from it too. This is what Arup have done with the recently-established Mumbai office (total staff = five), which I visited on Tuesday afternoon. As my taxi struggled through the afternoon traffic (I arrived an hour late for my appointment) it seemed that Mumbai's chronic traffic appears to be sucking the life out of the old city. Indian and western businesses set up shop 20km out because getting in and out of the city is a huge hassle. And if all your clients are doing likewise, what is the point of going into the city at all? It will be interesting to see whether the colonial architecture of the old city will just be left to crumble while the glass and steel towers sprawl across the outer suburbs, their air-conditioned comfort and blandness keeping the fascinating yet dilapidated old city at a safe distance from the suited classes.
So apart from spending a lot of time in taxis, what did I actually do in Mumbai? I arrived too late Sunday to do much except get a quick drink and a light dinner at an 'upwardly mobile' cafe/bar around the corner from my hotel. The hotel was not cheap - none in Mumbai are - but it had great views from its position on Marine Drive, overlooking the 'back bay' of the Arabian Sea to the west of the old city (photo below). In the mornings a guy brought me newspapers and a simple breakfast with loose leaf tea. The air conditioning was good (an absolute necessity) as was the shower. Plus I had a balcony and wireless internet... everything I could ask for basically!
On the Monday I basically just had a general wander, trying to soak up the atmosphere of one of India's biggest cities without getting run over and/or contract food poisoning. Not yet brave enough to try the 'street food', I stuck to restaurants recommended by 'the good book', as I shall be referring to my Footprint India travel guide from now on.
One thing I really wanted to see was the crush of commuters arriving in the morning rush hour at the main train stations, Churchgate and CST. I'd also hoped to see the famed Dabbawallahs, or tiffin box carriers, who deliver home-cooked packed lunches from housewife to husband all over the city. But I didn't see any. Got some 'interesting' photos though.
In the afternoon I wandered down to the famed Gateway of India, built in 1906 for the arrival of the King and Queen for their Indian tour. Situated on the quayside, it's also the point from which the last British battalion departed India after independence. And today, it's probably the most heavily touristed part of the city, where anyone with a pale face runs the gauntlet of the various touts, beggars and vendors of tat. I think I need to work on the art of politely saying no whilst achieving the desired outcome of making said tout, beggar or vendor bugger off. I haven't yet offended anyone (or so I think) but my success in losing hangers-on has been limited at best!
The Gateway itself was pretty enough despite being half covered by scaffolding, as were the brightly painted ferries anchored close by. The incredibly expensive Taj hotel overlooks the whole scene, which sadly includes a huge amount of rubbish and pollution in the harbour. It does make you wonder for the health of the kids jumping off the quay walls into the murky water. Unfortunately this theme of general rubbish and pollution was repeated at the otherwise quite appealing Chowpatty Beach, where many local families gather to chill out around dusk.
Other than visiting Arup, I spent Tuesday on a trip to Elephanta Island, abut 11km offshore towards the mainland from Mumbai. This meant I got to go on one of those brightly coloured ferries I mentioned above, which was half the fun of the trip!
Upon arrival at the island I was immediately accosted by a local guide and offered a tour. Given that I was short of time and actually quite interested in having someone explain stuff to me (I have been trying to mug up on the Hindu religion with the help of the good book but really I haven't got far) we agreed a fee and set off. I hadn't bargained for having to buy the guy a beer and snacks too, but what the hey. I imagine 'cheeky' doesn't translate into Hindi too well. Krishna the guide was actually very knowledgeable about the 'caves' at Elephanta, cut from solid rock many centuries ago. Even the religious images inside the caves were cut from the same monolith. Very impressive. And that's despite the damage and occasional bullet-hole left by the Portuguese army, who at one stage used the caves as some kind of firing range!
There were quite a few monkeys on Elephanta island too. I'm sure that there are monkeys to be found all over India, but I will never get tired of seeing them monkey about, so long as they don't nick my camera or something equally worthless to a monkey but valuable to me. For a while I watched them preening each other, play fight, and generally monkey about.
So that was Mumbai. Just a brief taster and off again Wednesday morning, flying to Varanasi with the oddly named Spicejet. More on that in the next post...
Robin
