What is wrong with Kurukshetra?

1. It is not a place for foreigners.2. The inhabitants are not nice.3. The inhabitants are stupid. This is what is wrong with Kurukshetra according to every Indian we mentioned it to, since Ralf recommended it as an off the beaten but not too off the beaten track destination. I trust the advice of His well travelled Dudeness, so two days after Christmas we left the backpacker hovel Hotel Navrang in the backpackers ghetto of Paharganj, Delhi.

I held tightly onto my little girl as my boyfriend tried to clear a path for us through the touts, rickshaws, filth and grasping hands of beggars, so we could reach the train station on time for our early morning train.

Several hours later we stepped off the train in Kurukshetra train station and blinked and yawned in the late morning sunshine as we took in the usual bustle and bedlam of an Indian train station. Naan bread makers, chai sellers, colourful saris, dogs, cows and the rest of it, but not the touts and only a beggar here and there and rickshaw drivers who took no for an answer.

I handed an orange to each of the beggars and we proceeded unhindered along the station road, until arriving at the first restaruant. We had breakfast without asking the prices beforehand. We knew instinctively that we would be treated fairly.

Our marble floored, cold water hotel room(though hot water would be brought on request to our room, by the bucketful) with the double bed and single blanket to do all three of us was better designed for the baking summer months than foggy December, so we spent the day catching the warmish sun rays on the roof and watching the street life below, while everybody around watched us. They peeked around trees, over walls and from behind street stalls. Now and again, teenage girls climbed onto our roof and petted my daugher and wrote their names with my daughters pavement chalks.

We sent my boyfriend on a mission for icecream, handmade Indian candies, chai, fruit, cigarettes and water. We ran from one side of the roof to the other to catch the best view of an uncharactistically undignified holy cow creating an unholy nuisance. It lumbered along the street mooching in every heap of garbage and knocking down fruit stalls, to try to eat some of the fruit before the fruit sellers chased it along the street whacking it's ass with a broom.

When My boyfriend returned the cow was making it's way towards us again. We peeled our fruit and threw the peels to it. It ate some and stepped on some and ate some more and then moved on to a nearby heap of garbage after polishing off the final throdden into the mud piece of peel.

Next day, we huddled in the back of a chai shop. By now we were yesterdays news, so nobody hovered to catch a glimpse of us. We drank steaming, sweet chai and sweet lassi until it was time to make our way through the fog to catch our evening train back to Delhi.

Thanks Ralf! :) That was a top recommendation. :) So, what's wrong with Kurukshetra? So, what's wrong with Kurukshetra?



PS. The photos are about my entire trip to India and not about Kurukshetra. But I have 'em for a change, so I'm showing 'em :)

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