Archive for December 2007
I arrived to Varanasi last night.
This morning I set out and walked along a 7km stretch of the Ganges River where everyday about 60,000 people go and take a holy dip. Along this same area, 30 large sewers are continuously discharging into the river. At the start of my walk the first thing that I noticed was the smell. The Ganges is so heavily polluted in Varanasi that it is septic and I could not believe that I was seeing people bathing in it, putting the river water in their mouths, and washing their clothes in it. I knew I would see these things but experiencing it is something else. It is hard to believe that there is any life in the river but there is the occasional jumping fish, birds diving for fish, and people throwing fishing nets.
Walking along the river the hassles started immediately. “Where you from?”, “What is your name?”, “I can be your guide.” I have developed a twitch from constantly shaking my head back and forth signaling a constant, NO! But it really does not help keeping the touts at bay.
After I had walked the 7k stretch of the Ganges I walked inland a bit to walk back to my hotel on the main streets. The hassles progress on the streets but mostly from crazed rickshaw drivers. “Why you walking?”, “Where you walking?” “Rickshaw?” My head continued to sway back and forth delivering a constant, NO!
The population in Varanasi exceeds a population of 1,200,000 and it’s not hard to believe walking the streets. My senses have been on overload this entire trip but in Varanasi things seem to have reached a peak. The traffic is mostly motorbikes and rickshaws. The flow is constant and the amount of motion and sound from every direction is disorienting. Monkeys swing from window to window, building to building. Cows and water buffalo appear at every corner. Dogs roam aimlessly looking for scrap. Humans carry other dead humans to the burning ghat. And, there is piss and shit EVERYWHERE. It’s overwhelming to say the least. The only way I can sum it up is that Varanasi looks, smells, and sounds apocalyptic.
In the early evening I took another walk along the 7k stretch and watched various ceremonies take place at the many ghats. About an hour after sun down there was a power outage and at first it was great to see the only lights being that of lotus flower candles floating in the river. Up river I could see the burning corpses. I quickly forgot about the power outage until I started to attempt to navigate my way back to my hotel. The narrow streets are more like shoulder to shoulder alleys that where very dimly lighted by a few scattered candles here and there. It really felt like I was wondering in the world’s biggest haunted house. I was immediately lost, however somehow knew which direction I needed to go but on several occasions would walk down a narrow street that I could not see down and I would look up to see stars but could not see my hand in front of my face. Somehow after twisting and turning and walking from one distant candle to another I made it. Just before arriving to my hotel the power came on and as the lights flickered back to life I saw my hotel sign. Had the power not come on when it did I would have easily walked past my hotel.
After my day of walking the streets of Varanasi the last day of 2007 I can’t imagine what it will be like when this city enters the New Year. How could all this craziness get anymore crazy?
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I left Pushkar this morning at 8:30am and arrived in Agra around 5:30pm. Todays driving was the least stressful of all my drives in India so far. There were some parts where two lanes were dedicated to a particular direction which was nice, but that didn’t stop some drivers from driving on the wrong side of the divided highway.
I am writing this post just outside of my hotel in Agra in a Internet cafe that is more dungeon than cafe. Next to this computer filled dungeon is a narrow alley with several weaving looms with what looks like young teenagers weaving rugs. They have thier bare feet and hands in action. Similar to spiders weaving a web. I wouldn’t call it a sweatshop but it doesn’t look far from it.
Agra is certainly nothing to get excited about. It really seems like the worst of India. The pollution here is extreme. I can’t see much more than 400 yards if that. The only reason I am here is so that I can see the Taj Mahal early tomorrow morning. My plan is to get to the Taj Mahal around 6:30am. The sun will rise around 7:00am. I aim to spend about an hour and half at the Taj Mahal. Then I will drive to the Delhi airport (about a four hour drive) where I will fly to Varanasi, where I will spend my remaining four nights in India.
My second and last day in Pushkar was much better than the first. I hired a car and driver to go on a jeep safari. It wasn’t actually a jeep but rather an Indian made TATA that pretends to be a four wheel vehicle but is not. The first half of the journey was in the surrounding mountains where I visited a temple built into the mountain. It sounded great but once I arrived I was far from impressed. Compared to many of the temples I have seen this one looked like a square cement structure next to a mountain side. I was expecting something carved into the actual mountain.
On the return from the temple we stopped in the middle of a canyon where men, women, and children were mining the hill side. I wasn’t sure why we stopped. My driver hardly spoke any English so when I attempted to get an explanation all I got was “yes”. Which didn’t answer my question, “Why did we stop?” A moment later a huge explosion occurred and part of the mountain projected itself across to the other-side. My question was answered. Once the dynamite blasts halted we went on our way.
We left the rocky mountain area for a sand dune area. We were off of the bumpy rocky road and driving in soft sand which seemed really cool and I was starting to dig it just as the car came to a sudden stop. We were stuck in the soft sand. In the middle of nowhere. The first thing that came to my mind was that I didn’t bring enough water. The next thing that came to my mind as the driver was letting air out of the rear tires was why didn’t he just put the vehicle into four wheel drive? But of course, I am in India and that would make too much sense to go off road in a four wheel drive vehicle. We were in a two wheel vehicle that simply looks like it can go off road. I did get a few pictures of the car trapped but I soon had to put the camera away and get my hands dirty. In-fact I got every part dirty since I had to help dig the TATA out. After about an hour of digging and wheel spinning a couple of tractor drivers came driving over the hill. I thought we had been rescued but there wasn’t any rope, so all this added was some more digging hands. We finally got out of the jam after more digging, putting loads of brush under the tires, and lots of pushing.
The remainder of the journey was very rural. First we stopped at the drivers home to share some Chi Tea with the family. I took lots of photographs of the rural living and then proceeded to drive around the surrounding area. Part of which was for me to see and the other part was for the driver to show off to his family and friends that he had an American tourist in his borrowed TATA. It really felt like a freak show and I was the freak. We stopped at about four places where we proceeded to have more Chi Tea. I would sit drinking tea while groups of people would stare at me. It seemed that they wouldn’t blink. After about five minutes of people staring at me I would laugh from the tension, then they would laugh and then they would resume staring.
As the sun lowered in the sky I was able to get some great photos of the landscape of Pushkar which is very beautiful farmland. The people I met where very nice. Perhaps a little too fascinated with my looks but very nice.
Today was a good day.
Last night I arrived to Pushkar. The drive was about 7 hours and the drive had lots of traffic. The last two hours of the drive was extremely heavy traffic and we were continuously weaving around large trucks, taking a few more years off my life from the stress of near head on collisions.
I am not sure I like Pushkar. As I was walking the main bazaar this morning about six Indian girls surrounded me wanting to know where I am from and my name. Before I had a chance to answer one grabbed my hand and started applying henna. “This is for good luck”, she said. I really didn’t want it but once the crap was on my hand I was at their mercy since all I wanted to do was get it off. It was a total scam and they were very good at it. I knew as soon as the crap was on my hand that I was going to have to pay. I let them finish, and as they continued to cover my hand in good luck yuck they told me how poor they are and that they sleep in the dessert, etc. They wanted an absurd amount and I only had a large bill in my pocket and ended up surrendering it. I gave them half of what they were asking for but it was still way to much money. Then I had a crowd of kids following me asking me for more rupees and other girls grabbing at my other naked hand so I quickly darted off into a restaurant to escape and wash my hand. I now have a henna design covering my right hand. Joy. I feel very lucky.
Later in the afternoon as I was walking around a guy came up to me and gave me a flower to put in the river for some more good luck. His attempt to give me a flower was a distraction and from my other-side another man brushed up against me and put his hands into my pockets. I was on top of it and immediately grabbed the guy’s arm who went into my empty pockets and twisted his arm behind his back and started to yell at him. Mob mentality rules here and luckily (thanks to my henna designed right hand) a mob quickly resulted and was very much on my side. The man was attacked by the surrounding merchants and was whisked off as they realize this will ruin their business if it makes it into the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forum and tourists stop coming. Not sure what happened to him but he did get a few serious kicks to his rear end from various men as the crowd whisked him away.
Today has not been my best day.
Today has been a very relaxing day. I have done very little. I spent the majority of my day reading on the deck of where I am staying that overlooks the lake. There have been a few “Merry Christmas” here and there but for the most part it has been Indian life as usual here in Udaipur. I have seen a few back packers walking down the street with their Santa hats on, and I did see a little Indian kid running down the street with a Santa hat and a beard made out of cotton balls. Some of the hotels and rooftop restaurants have put up Christmas lights but they don’t stand out too much.
On my walk to have lunch I turned a corner and came face to face with an Elephant walking down the street. At first I was not shocked at all since I have seen so much already, and simply gave it the right of way but then after about 10 seconds I stopped and turned around and had to make sure I didn’t just imagine walking past an Elephant in the street. Sure enough, when I turned around to get a reality check there was indeed an elephant walking in the street. It turns out only two people can have an elephant in India in each town. The richest man and the poorest man. The elephant I saw belongs to the poorest man and the elephants home is in a nearby temple. The poor man guides the elephant down the street and asks for hand outs. It is good luck to give out money to the poor. However, there are homeless in San Francisco that don’t even have an elephant so I am keeping my spare change for the poor back home.
I took a sunset boat ride around the lake this evening and as I was waiting to get on the boat I continued being told to wait as boat after boat would receive passengers and depart with me standing on the dock by myself. After waiting for about 20 minutes and several boats later I boarded a empty boat but I was told to get off and again told to wait some more. The boats that tour the lake hold about 30 people but I was being pushed aside while about six people max would get on the boats that I was not being permitted to board. I was standing on the dock by myself wondering what the heck was going on. I finally figured out that these were “special” groups/family’s that have paid more rupees to have the boat to themselves. A huge waste. I would have happily sat in the back and not said a word but I guess that is not how it works here. There was one guy that arrived with his wife and kids and it was easy to tell that this guy was an Ass-hole based on what he was wearing (alligator skin loafers) but it was really obvious he was an Ass-hole when we said to his wife while passing me on the dock, “Honey!, Just shut up and get on the boat.” “Just do what I say!” There were a few more commons waiting for the boat with me at this point and I could not help myself from loudly saying in the jerks direction, “Happy, Happy!”, “Merry Christmas!”. This got a few chuckles from the other commons on the dock. And of course this jerk had to have a private boat.
I have been pondering where to go next in my remaining week, and originally had planned to visit Jaipur from Udaipur but have not received any great feedback from the travelers I have met who have recently been there so I have decided to go to Pushkar instead. The tricky part has been the planning of getting to Varanasi from Pushkar via Agra. I only want to go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal but that’s it so I want to get out of there quickly. Because of the high volume of tourists this time of year the trains are very much booked and since I have not known exactly where I am going to be and when, my attempts today to purchase a train ticket from Agra to Varanasi was not successful. However, it seems that it is going to work out since I have decided to drive from Pushkar to Agra. Spend the night in Agra, get up very early the following morning to be at the Taj Mahal before sunrise. I plan to spend a couple of hours at the Taj Mahal and then plan to drive to the Delhi airport (about four hours) the same day and fly to Varanasi on Airline SpiceJet early evening. I have also booked a return flight from Varanasi to Delhi the same day I fly from Delhi back to San Francisco which is great since I was going to spend a night in Delhi before flying home but this way I can bypass having to stay in Delhi again.
I hope all those who are reading my updates are having a good holiday.
Merry Christmas!
