Barcelona!

Back in the Catalan capital after a couple of nice days in Amsterdam that were only marred by the fact that after 3 months of illness-free travelling through Africa and India, I got sick on the day we left Delhi... Damn you Delhi Belly!

More on the last stages of the trip (Udaipur, Bundi) soon!

Some Varanasi, Some Delhi

So the trip to Delhi from Varanasi was quite the odyssey... First, our train to Agra was cancelled outright on account of heavy fog (they take trains out of commission to lighten traffic for the important routes, I guess) and then we got ye olde rigamarole trying to buy tickets for any train that evening that was heading to the capital. Helene braved the crush at the ticket wicket a couple of times (women are allowed to bud here) but in the end, it was a mixture of persistence, sweet-talking a Tourist Office dude, using Denise's grey hair to our advantage and, yes, bribing the train conductor, that got us on a train about to leave... and in 2nd AC class even! So we had very comfy digs, which was good because instead of taking 12 hours, the journey stretched out to 21... oof!

So no Taj Mahal. Oh well.

Delhi, though, is great! And so clean and orderly! People look at us funny when we say this but, hey, compared to Calcutta, Delhi is Geneva on a Sunday.

The guest house we stayed in (and to which we will hopefully return next week before our flight back to Amsterdam) is very nice and homey. Thanks to Monica for the recommendation!

We had a very nice time traipsing around the capital in a cab that we had rented for the day. Here is some of the photographic evidence of what we saw (after a few extra Varanasi pics).


Colours on the Ganges


Near the burning ghat.


Folding on the banks.


Out on the boat.


PG detail of Nepali Temple.


X-Rated detail of Nepali Temple.


Humayun's Tomb


Inside the tomb.


Nice lattice work at tomb.


Arcade at Red Fort.


Detail at Red Fort.


Sepia Red Fort


Rickshaw view of Old Delhi

Thoughts on Varanasi...

I know that for a lot of people, Bodhgaya is a moving spiritual centre and it is peaceful, but if you’re not Buddhist, my impression is that you can’t appreciate it fully. Varanasi, on the other hand, is a place that touches you whether you are Hindu or not. The fact that, ultimately, amongst all of the other rites and rituals happening here, this is the place where life and material existence ends and one is cast back into nature (the Ganges) makes it a universal gateway.

The main burning ghat is about 250 metres from I am sitting right now. There, wood is carefully weighed (apparently it is quite an art to be able to judge the perfect amount needed to incinerate a corpse) and then built into pyres upon which the silk-clad bodies are placed to be rendered into ash and bone. Many bodies are burning at any one time and you can see the process at different stages as you move around the ghat. Skulls burned clean, leg bones sticking up blackened and everywhere the deep smell of woodsmoke mixed with burning flesh. It is an incredibly powerful experience to see this. A great South African couple that I met in Calcutta told me that Varanasi is a place that every human being should visit and I agree. It’s not everyday that Westerners get to see—in the same day—both poles of existence: daily subsistence struggle and then the very public end of one’s physicality. This is certainly “bare life.”

A few people have written me and, while not wanting to sound trite, have asked if India has “changed me.” I think that anyone with critical faculties cannot help but be affected by what you see and feel here. One thing that I didn’t expect, though, is to feel even more alienated from organized religion than I was before. Seeing, for example, the Catholicism of the Sisters of Charity who teach acceptance of one’s suffering--which they do seek to mitigate, of course--but certainly not by addressing the root causes of that suffering through any sort of social justice-centred inquiry. Or the caste system inherent to Hinduism here. Life is certainly a struggle for millions and millions in India but the alleviation of the exertions and pain can again, only come in the afterlife and its eventual negation… what about now?

Onwards... to Varanasi/Benares

View from the hotel balcony in Varanasi.

Well, we weren’t sad to leave Gaya.

Typical street in Gaya.

Typical open sewer in Gaya.

Before that, though, Bodhgaya was nice – especially the Mahabodhi Temple complex and the area right around the Bodhi Tree, where the Buddha was enlightened – but with so many other temples from other Buddhist countries and a constant flow of people in and out, the town did have a bit of an Epcot Center feel to it. To get there (if you’re not flying in to the airstrip) you have to hire an autorickshaw from the station in Gaya and then it’s a rough ride through town followed by a relatively smooth one 13 kms along the (dry) river’s edge to this Buddhist “mecca.” Once there, we had some hot tea to warm up (by the way, has everyone noticed that it’s been weeks since I whined about being hot? : ) ), visited a bunch of temples and then headed back to Gaya before it got dark because traveling at night here is dangerous even for the locals, apparently.

Giant Buddha in Bodhgaya.

Ceremony in Bodhgaya.

Flags near Cobra statue.

Two of the many, many monks making the rounds...

Main temple, Bodhgaya.

Part of the temple complex.

Meditating near the Bodhi tree.

Buddha shrine (a lady was vacuuming the carpet when we were there...)

On our way back to the (nasty) hotel, we stopped to do some internet at a café that we thought was much closer to where we were staying than it actually was and so in the end, there we were, trudging along the dark roads, getting an even closer look at a place we were all ready to leave. Good news, though: we did pass a liquor kiosk and managed to pick up some Kingfisher to drink while eating chips, cookies and puffed lentils and watching Jaws 3 in fuzzy black and white. Note: the fact that when we got back the main light in the room had stopped working was actually a blessing in disguise because it made the grime charmingly decadent… ha!

Up at 4am or so to catch the train to Varanasi. The train was some 40 mins late but we had reserved seats in Sleeper class (the class below 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd “climate controlled, ie: “AC and heating” but above General, which features wooden seats and overcrowding). We were relatively comfy (although since the windows didn’t close totally, it was pretty cold) sitting across from a nice old Tibetan couple on their way to Sarnath to see the Dalai Lama. After a ride of some 6 hours, we were in Varanasi and being helped by the extremely friendly man who works at the tourist information office in the station. Standing over in that corner has the added advantage of the tourist police keeping the touts away, which is nice when you’re tired.

A bit of a mix-up with our room reservation at a nice place on Scindhia Ghat but that was resolved and after many, many stairs (poor Denise!), we were happily installed with an amazing view over the Ganges and the nearby ghats (piers/steps into the water).

Lalita Ghat

Sitting on the ghat.

Me and my new friends. (I took a picture for another family and then the daughter of this one came up and asked for a picture with me [!]. A big round of photos then took place.)

A New Worst Place I've Ever Been...

The previous holders:

Los Mochis, Mexico: The place where my old buddy Clark saw kids poking a dead body in the middle of the road with a stick... Dusty, mean and just in another time zone so that it screws you up when you're travelling, Los Mochis is a place that you don't want to hang out in. Unless you're trying to take the Copper Canyon train... I remember buying some wine and drinking the whole bottle myself in a vain attempt to make my time there go quicker.

Algeciras, Spain: Port city where you take the ferry to Morocco or the Spanish cities in North Africa. In the early '90s it was full of smugglers, prostitutes and ne'er-do-wells. Palpable sense of danger and foreboding. Never went back and never missed it.

The new champion:

Gaya, India: Not only is Gaya in the somewhat lawless state of Bihar where bandits still operate, but it is DIRTY -- filthy dirty. If you had seen the first room that the hotel tried to give us... Mold, wet mattresses with hairy and moist linen... grimy walls... and big holes around the pipes where rats could crawl... SO NASTY! The vast stretches of strewn garbage in the streets, open sewers and mean dogs don't do much to help this place, either. I am literally counting the hours until I can get on the train to Varanasi (where they perform public cremations... should be interesting...)