As usual it's been a while since my last post, so naturally a lot has happened. After Auroville, Sahil and I returned briefly to Chennai. From there I headed up to Hampie which I heard was an amazing place. The trip up was far from amazing however. The train only got me about half way there, and after that it was all local buses. Taking the local bus is a difficult process in India as there is nobody who seems to really know which bus goes where. The ordeal of finding the right bus usually goes as follows: You ask a rickshaw driver which bus you have to take. He gives you a definite answer, that being, "25B". You walk to bus number 25B and ask. "Hampie?" the answer will most certainly be "No" and then something like "72A" So you walk to 72A and ask "Hampie" and the answer will once again be "No" and then "37D". The process continues as such until you ask some nice locals who will tell you that you have to first take the 34F to a town close to Hampie, and then transfer to a new bus. Anyway, by the time I was near Hampie, it was around 10 pm and the chances of getting to my destination and checking into a hotel before 12 were looking pretty grim. In order to speed the whole process up and avoid waiting an hour and a half for the next bus, I started haggling with a rickshaw driver. I wasn't doing too well...80 rupee was the lowest I could get. I was seemingly the only foreigner in the middle of some dark seedy looking Indian town, and naturally wanted to get out of there. I was considering taking the offer when the driver said, "or you could see if that girl over there wants to split with you". I looked over and surrounded by a crowd of aroud 8 rickshaw drivers, bargaining fiercely was a small Korean girl. I went up to her and she already had the drivers down to 70 rupee. We ended up splitting the ride for 35 each.
So we arrived at our room around 30 minutes later, (after an incident with a small fat Indian kid (which is rare) grabbing her breast) and got some dinner. For the following 5 days we explored the ruins of Hampie by bicycle, motorbike and the good ol' fashion healtoe express. Hampie is definitely one of the most beautiful places I've seen (despite the normal grime of India). It was super hot so we did a lot of swimming and just hanging out. At one point when we had the motorbike, Shim (that's her name) pointed out that we were driving by a wedding. I parked the bike and we just strolled in. We were immediately taken to the head table as guests of honour, fed more food than we wanted and stared at and questioned (as usual) by all the guests. So yes George, now I've been to an Indian wedding.
Shim and I decided to keep travelling together, so we hopped a train up to Agra, our next destination. The day we arrived, we found out that it was National Heritage day, so we got to see the Taj Mahal and the nearby fortresses for free. The one day of the year where the visit is free, and we just happened to stumble upon it. Normally it would have cost us 1000 rupee each for both sites. (that's around 30 something Canadian...which is a lot of money here). After Agra we went to another town to relax a bit and see some more ruins. At this point we were pretty ruined out, so we just did a lot of hanging out...plus it was deathly hot and Shim got a fever.
The next destination was Varanasi to see the banks of the river Ganges and obviously, loads of dead bodies being cremated. Now it was my turn to get sick. Varanasi was around 45 to 47 degrees most of the time we were there. I got a fever and spent a day hallucinating quite heavily.
The next day I was a bit better and we moved to a new hotel closer to the river. We went to McDonald's, which is something I wouldn't normally do, but it felt like the healthiest choice in the area. On the way there our cycle rickshaw driver was having a lot of trouble, so I offered to change places with him. So I drove the cycle rickshaw, and almost had a few accidents...they're more difficult to stear than they appear, but I got the hang of it fast. We then saw some really stupid Bollywood film called something like "Chan love story hai!". We were both screaming "END!" after around half way through. Unfortunately the film director and actors couldn't hear us.
So we spent a while in Varanasi. Shim got sick again...another fever. I heard later that most travellers who go to Varanasi get sick. The explanation that I heard was that there is "too much death in the air". It seems plausible. We spent the good part of a day in a cafe down one of the labyrinth like back alley streets that surround the river bank. Every five minutes we would hear chanting, look out the window and see a new body being carried by a procession of "mourners" (who are apparently not allowed to cry) towards the "burning ghats".
The thing that's really disturbing is that there are five sewers pumping into the Ganges continually, at least 250 cremations every day (24/7) along with loads of bathers who think that they're purifying their bodies and souls of sin...so much disease there.
Anyway, so it's easy to get sick in Varanasi. At around 10 pm I forced Shim to go to the doctors. We had somebody from the hotel show us how to get there. Again, the old city of Varanasi is like a maze of narrow back alleys full of cowshit, beggars, motorbikes, cows, dogs and merchants. It was even more difficult to navigate at night. At the doctors office, the doctor examined her in front of 5 or six local men. When the doctor told her to get on the table, one of the locals who had been chewing tobacco suddenly choked and spewed out a big stream all over the cramped office floor. He then staggered out into the street where sounds of vomit hitting pavement resonated like a soothing waterfall.
So I took Shim back to the room and now had to find the damn pharmacy at 11 pm. I'll spare you all the details, but as usual when I got there, the meds required weren't on the menu, so I had to find another pharmacy. No surprises as this is just how India works.
So yeah, got back, meds were taken, health improved and after a while longer, we said our goodbyes and I started my long journey to the Kolkata (previously known as Calcutta) airport. I was to take an overnight train from Varanasi that upon arrival should allow me 5 hours to get from the train station to the airport...but this is India, so I was prepared for a close call. I got exactly what I expected.
First the train was 2 hours late to pick me up. Then it was another hour late dropping me off. So now it's 10:00 am and my flight leaves at 12 and I need to print off my itinerary. So I frantically find a net cafe, run outside, get a taxi and start the stressful ride there. It's supposed to take approximately 2 hours to get to the airport, so things weren't looking too hot (besides the weather). We started making good time and I was starting to relax and think "yeah, I might make it" when suddenly a loud crunch was heard behind me and the cab lurched forward. We had just gotten hit by a bus.
So naturally this incident is followed by a chaotic scene involving the cabbie out of the cab, shaking his fists and yelling at the bus driver while blocking 2 lanes of traffic with the cab that I'm in, while I'm yelling at the cab driver to get in the damn cab cause I'm going to miss my flight, onlookers and bus passengers yelling at the cab driver or the bus driver, cops blowing whistles horns sounding and dogs barking just for fun. Next he got back into the cab and started driving at a snails pace and swerving so that the bus (and therefore the rest of traffic) couldn't pass. He stopped and complained to 2 sets of cops while still blocking the bus until finally he got back in and took me to the airport. I ran to the ticket counter and the guy said "Oh! Your plane just left!" I said something like "fffwahat?" and he said "no, wait...it's at the next building over. RUN." I ran and did the necessary security checks etc and basically got on the plane just in time.
So now I'm in Thailand and it's nothing like India. I've returned to civilization. There are white people everywhere...which is kind of boring now. The food is AMAZING here though and I'm quite happy to have a break from the chaos that is India.