This will be my first significant solo trip for nearly 40 years!



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Varanasi

Sunday 6 February


Going to chill out and not do much today, though I started with a stroll along the ghats at dawn.

It really is magical, with the sun rising and reflecting across the misty waters of the Ganges, and the people completely engrossed in their rituals of praying, meditating, immersing themselves, and then washing themselves and their clothes. I felt intrusive, but at the same time, nobody objected. The only people who reacted to my presence were the boatmen, hoping to get their first tourist of the day - "good, morning price...".

Now I'm in the internet place immediately below my hotel. Like so many, it doubles up as a travel agents and also a clothes shop, but it is a smoother operation than the others I have been in. For a start the computers are reasonably modern, the keyboards and mice work (!), and there is splendid broadband speed. The half a dozen computers are in an inside room, and we all have to take our shoes off at the entrance. Its rather nice typing away with bare feet on the cool, clean floor!

Soon time to see if the tailor has made one of my blouses and I can finally get out of my sombre black teeshirt (at last we are having the hot weather I expected, and of course, I dont have enough summer clothes).


Varanasi to Delhi. My last Indian train

Monday 7 February


I was woken at 5am by RAIN! After about an hour it stopped, but I thought, oh well, my boat trip is probably off (I had arranged with four young British backpackers to share a boat with them). But at 6.30, there was the boatman ready to take us. The skies looked pretty grim and I was anxious about crossing the mud to the boat, feeling a bit decrepit.

It was a bizarre trip. Normally at sunrise the ghats are full of people praying, bathing and washing their clothes. This was the sight we had come to see. Instead, they were virtually deserted, with only a small number of intrepid bathers and scarcely any other boats of sightseers. We were rowed right along the line of ghats, with our boatman pointing out various palaces – all now deserted – which had been built over the past two centuries by various important maharajas such as those of Varanasi itself, Jodhpur and Jaipur. Finally, the smoke from damp smouldering fires told us we were approaching the burning ghat. I stayed on the boat (rather chilly!) while the others did the tour I had done the previous day – again with a non-guide guide. As we left, we saw perhaps the first funeral procession of the day arriving. There are apparently two to three hundred burnings a day here, and some more at another of the ghats. Their guide told them that during a heatwave a few years ago, when many of the old died, there was a queue waiting for a place on the steps of this ghat!

The sinister atmosphere was made more so by the unusual absence of people and the storm clouds, which were approaching in a menacing way as we were rowed back to Assi Ghat, at the far end of the town. The boatman rowed hard, but we did not get back in time, and we arrived soaked at the hotel.

My plans to spend a quiet morning catching up with this diary were put paid to by the weather. The torrential rain continued all day long, with spasmodic dramatic thunder and lightening. We only had electricity because of the hotel’s generator, the rest of the town was in virtual darkness. And at lunch time the rain suddenly turned into huge hailstones! Great excitement from the younger hotel staff who had never seen hail.

All in all a most surreal day, spent sitting round a large table with two women, one Australian and the other American, drinking chai and munching pakoras, and taking photos of the two young waiters, who enjoyed looking at their pictures in our digital cameras.

Finally it was time to get a rickshaw to the station. I went an hour earlier than I needed as the American woman was freaking out at the prospect of coping with her first rail trip, having arrived by plane, and she was due to get the Agra train before my one to Delhi.

Outside the hotel, our alley way and the street below had turned into rivers. There was no way to reach the rickshaw other than wading ankle deep through the water, and the rickshaw drove slowly and carefully (thank goodness!), as often the water threatened to trickle up over our feet.

My American friend was indeed traumatized by her first view of an Indian station hall: a mass of humanity standing and squatting, through which you had to push to get to the other side. Luckily I had read my guide books and knew that the tourist office here was one of the best and most helpful in India. We opened its door and there indeed was calm, warmth, a queue of mostly young European or Japanese tourists, and one official calmly and cheerfully giving advice to each in turn. He was the first person I have come across who did not stare at my Indrail pass as if it was a suspicious object; all I needed from him was the train number – the key bit of information for finding out which platform the train departed from.

Like the others, I then used this information office as an informal waiting room and sanctuary until it was time to look for my train, listening all the time to the incessant heavy rain and the intermittent bursts of thunder and lightening – which from time to time plunged the whole station into darkness. Then it was time to make my way onto the platform. What a nightmare. By now the huge hall had turned into its nightly dormitory for the homeless of Varanasi: it was a sea of huddled figures on blankets. Just as I was about to clamber over this, there was a big clap of thunder and once again we were in darkness. So I made the trip by torchlight. The platform was even worse, with cascades of water dropping from the leaky roof and turning the platform into a muddy lake. Horrors: my compartment (AC2) was at the far end of the – very long – train, by which time there was no longer a station roof, leaky or not. So by the time I reached my seat I was well and truly soaked for the second time, with no means of changing and no more dry jeans. (Luckily I had one pair of dry socks, which I saved for the night).

My travel companions turned out to be a rather odd Swede, a businessman of about 50 and an absolutely delightful 85-year-old doctor (a specialist in preventative medicine) and his wife. The doctor had been head of health services in Guyana for many years and had obviously travelled extensively.

We talked about this and that, the old man gave us a lecture about healthy eating, and showed us how important it was to slow down with meditation and contemplative breathing. I was amused to see that a younger businessman, who had joined us by this stage, suddenly stopped slumping, and sat upright, imitating theposture of the old man.

We talked about India’s problems and agreed that one of the main ones was overpopulation. The businessman suddenly launched into a diatribe about how the population increase was thanks to the Moslems breeding more than the Hindus. Oh oh. I didn’t need to say anything, because the doctor said firmly nonsense, this was not borne out by the statistics, and anyhow, the main cause of overpopulation was nothing to do with religion, it was do with poverty and ignorance. So the way forward must be education.

Eventually it was time to turn our seats into bunks. There were not enugh bottom bunks for the doctor, his 75-year-old wife, the businessman (who said he had a bad back) and me. I offered to go in an upper bunk, but the business man, who had firmly taken possession of his bottom bunk, said no: the railway company was obliged to give all senior citizens (60 for women, 65 for men) a lower bunk, and he went off to tell the attendant this. It took nearly an hour before finally the old man was allotted a berth and we could all go to sleep. I am convinced that Indians sleep more soundly; every time I take a train trip I am surrounded by snoring, inert bodies, while I turn and turn, waiting hopefully for signs of dawn, I was not helped on this occasion by clear signs that I was developing a cold, plus at 5 a passing passenger decided to throw up in the passageway just beside our berths…

Finally I said goodbye to my fellow passengers and waited for them to do their habitual rush for the exit, before I gritted my teeth and took the leisurely journey over the bridge (yes, once again we were not on platform one) to the facing sea of rickshawmen.


Delhi. A tour of the Hindu gods

Tuesday 8 February


Despite the warnings about the scams at Delhi station, I managed to let my ‘rickshaw man’ take me across the busy road and lead me up a stair to a travel agents – where I firmly said no, I didn’t want a taxi and returned to the station forecourt and got a proper rickshaw. Delhi had also had a rainstorm, so it was another splashy journey to my guesthouse- boy was I pleased to see it.

I am so pleased I managed to get into Master Paying Guesthouse. It must be the nicest, most welcoming place for travelers to stay in Delhi. Vishna and his wife Ushi live up to all the accolades poured on them by the guidebooks.

I arrived just before 8am and almost immediately Ushi was smilingly ordering breakfast for me, giving travel advice to departing guests, and arranging rooms and taxis for others. The only disappointment is that I have the least attractive room: an internal room with windows onto the central lobby and dining room, so it is dark and noisy – but spotlessly clean, and the first place with a bedside light. Very soon I got into the habit of leaving the entrance door wide open and it became an extension of the lobby where everyone congregates. Various soon-to-depart passengers, thankfully left their luggage there. We all agreed that it was so nice to feel one was in a place that felt secure, where one could leave ones camera lying around. One New Zealander said: “I feel as if we have all been vetted to be here, so we are quite safe”. She and her friend had had to move to another place, because the guesthouse was full, but after one awful night there had returned to ask Ushi if she knew of anywhere else that they could stay for their last night in Delhi. “God has brought you here,” she said, and arranged for mattresses to be put out in the dining room.

Vishna apparently lays on alternative tours of Delhi, but the bad weather had meant canceling one. Instead – as it was now sunny again – he proposed a shortened tour in the morning, before he went off to work in the afternoon. I joined in for what was a memorable experience. He took us to a huge, impressive – 20th century, but handsome – Hindu temple and gave a brilliant introduction to Hindu philosophy and religion in the form of a tour of the shrines to the main well-known gods, ending up with us all sitting crosslegged in a circle while he demonstrated and explained the importance of yoga – of contemplation and breathing – to one’s sense of wellbeing and self-awareness. It’s so difficult to describe these moments of religious explanation in India without sounding like a born-again Hindu or mystic- which I’m definitely not. But I cannot help but be impressed by the dignity and profound thinking of Hindus, not to mention the complexity of their ideas about the nature of identity and self. What made this particular morning was Vishna’s energy, charisma and clarity of expression (a mixture of cool Western phraseology and straight deep inner-feeling India talk). He is obviously a first class communicator and now I understand why he gave up being an accountant in order to be a radio presenter.

I then tagged along with an Australian family – a woman in her late thirties with her 13-year-old son (bit crass on occasions, as one might expect at that age) and 64-year-old mother. First port of call: Delhi Station! They had to make ticket reservations and I KNEW from reading my guidebooks that the reservation office for tourists was on the first floor of the station. But they let themselves be guided first by one person to the wrong part of the station, and then by another, across that same busy road, up an almost identical narrow flight of stairs to – another travel agents. So somehow we got ourselves back across the manic road, fought our way past the line of rickshawmen, past more touts, and firmly entered the station hall and found the stairs leading to the another hall, this time full of backpackers. An hour or so later, battered and wiser, the Australians emerged, agreeing that it had been an interesting learning experience.

More stops for money (my superior – just – knowledge of Connaught Place proving useful) and already it was time for lunch. Judy, the gran, and I firmly opted for Zen, a good restaurant where we had an excellent Indian-chinese meal, while Naomi and Jarman went down the road for a – MacDonald’s carryout!

Naomi and Judy wanted to buy woollen shawls and – again – allowed themselves to be drawn into a ‘Kashmir’ shop. Luckily they emerged not having bought anything and we went on to the fixed price government emporium. This turned out to be good, not toooo expensive, and we all bought things, me included!

By now it was dark, we had earlier paid off our driver, and we collapsed thankfully though uncomfortably into a rickshaw (12 schoolkids were seen getting out of a rickshaw this morning, but fourEuropeans is a VERY tight squeeze). Back to our haven guesthouse and in my case some delicious pakoras and chai – and paracetamol to fight my ever developing cold.


Delhi - bunged up with a cold

Wednesday 9 February-11 February


I am spending a morning indoors sneezing and snivelling.

Yesterday I bought a replacement to the book I had bought in Varanasi – and left in the railway station only 20 pages before the end, and I had bought a second copy to give to Ushi. It is called “Difficult daughters” and is about a woman growing up before and during the Second World War, in Amritsar and Lahore, rebelling against the expected role of marriage and dutiful housewife and mother, planned by her comfortably off Hindu family, and somehow feeling that education was her means of escape (even though she was not actually particularly academically gifted). She and her English teacher fall in love and this calls all sorts of problems and does not resolve any of her unhappiness. In fact it is an unhappy book, set against the rising tension preceding Partition, and the main characters are all flawed and the book ends with unresolved problems. Perhaps this is what makes it good.

Ushi seemed delighted by the present, and says she is going to get her grandmother to read it too, as she was in the same place at the same time, experiencing similar struggles. In her case she was poor, virtually illiterate, but insisted on being the breadwinner (doing sewing and running various small shops) in order that her husband might complete his studies as a homeopath. Ushi clearly thinks she is a very special person.

This afternoon I will go to the bazaar to buy a cheap bag to hold my overflow things – those goodies which I have picked up in Udaipur, Jodhpur, Varanasi and Delhi!

Later...

The bazaar was great fun, a bit like a street market in London. The rickshaw driver put me down near a whole street of bag sellers, and I quickly bought a huge rucksack bag - for under ten pounds! I got talking to a young man also buying a rucksack. He flies to Paris tomorrow and was extremely anxious and nervous about the trip, asking if it would be dangerous for him and what were the French like. Difficult to answer, but I tried to prepare him for the fact that for him it would be a huge culture shock, just like it is for us coming to India. I've given him my email address and urged him to email if he has further questions. It would be useful to be able to give him an affordable hotel name in the centre, if anyone has one.

I continued my stroll and my attention was drawn by the sight of about a dozen women clustered around a food seller. I asked one young woman and her mother whether they were eating pakora and the daughter replied that it was a potato pancake. She got one for me and it was indeed delicious, particularly as she had carefully selected the less hot sauces! The daughter turned out to be an anaesthetist and is hoping to do further studies in the UK. Handed out my email again.

Then back home, to bed.Just emerged, still bunged up, but with enough appetite to be greedy for supper!


Delhi. Last day in India - still with flu/cold - Day 37 of 42


It is a pity to spend the last two days in India feeling rotten, even if this does save me spending yet more money on presents.

I felt well enough this afternoon to venture out and post the French guidebook to my friend Rajesh (see Nawalgarh). This took about half an hour, of course. First I had to queue to ask where to get an envelope. in the post office speaks English, but luckily a customer did and I was told to go across the road and find a stationers. Crossing the dual carriage road is an undertaking on its own... Later, equipped with envelope, with sticky flap that didnt stick, I tried again. The guy in the post office put some glue ontothe envelope, and when that also didnt work, some staples. Then came the difficult bit: posting my envelope. He seemed to haveto consult three colleagues, several times, before telling me that the cost would be 20 rupees. I didnt pay extra for registered post, so we will see if it arrives.

Now to get my strength up for the 2am departure to the airport and the subsequent waits and uninspired travel by Kuwait Airlines.

I'll sign off this trip journal when I reach London


Nightmare journey - Day 42 of 42


My last day in India got worse and worse. As well as the cold, freaking me with fear of burst eardrums, I developed exruciating stomach ache and agonised for hours whether to postpone departure, with all the hassle with holiday insurance involved. By the time I got round to ringing Kuwait Airways nobody was there. Anyhow, I was then VERY sick, and thinking that the worst was over, made my way to the airport at 2am There I got worse again - two dramatic trips to the loo - thought I was going to faint, and summoned the airport doctor, who gave me some pills ("Indian medicine"). These miraculously worked and I survived the trip - just (door to door 22 hours).

Four days later, I am still not well. My cold has spread to ears etc and am waiting to see a doctor. What a sad way to finish the trip of a lifetime. Varanasi, the gods who allowed it to rain and hail unseasonably for 24 hours, you have a lot to answer for......

Next task: as soon as I get back to France, I'll start editing my photos and put them up. I'm particularly pleased with the Taj and Varanasi ones.

Postscript: looking at other blogs, I see that Varanasi has been the downfall (sic - if you know German...) of others. Laughed like a drain at the nightmare on http://www.ballofdirt.com/entries/2856/30693.html.






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