Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan

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After leaving Kathmandu I visited Nepal's Royal Chitwan National Park. The highlight of Chitwan was riding through the jungle on an elephant. Things got exciting when Dumbo had a turf scuffle with some rhinos. My elephant even did some screaming with his trunk raised in the air to scare them off! Nepal passed without incident, though there were a lot of visible security measures in place, including numerous roadblocks and checkpoints. I eventually arrived in India riding on the roof of a comically overcrowded bus.

Uttar Pradesh: My introduction to India occurred in the country’s most populated state. I had heard the stories, I had seen the pictures, and I even had four months of backpacking across Asia under my belt. However, none of that prepared me for the intensity of travel in northern India. I would describe traveling in the region as ’24 hour travel’, as one just can’t get away from the fact that they are in India, even for a brief respite in a hotel room. It is claustrophobic, chaotic, polluted, filthy, and one is regularly confronted with extreme poverty. Additionally, I had to contend with what is known as 'Delhi-Belly' in colloquial terms, and the daily temperatures were between 104 and 115 degrees. The heat makes the crowds irritable, and Indian’s do not seem to be willing to wait in line for anything. Would-be places for queues instead resemble frantic scenes from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. I have had to fight my way past touts physically trying to block me, and I have had to literally claw my way through pushy crowds just to get a train ticket. There have been power blackouts most nights since I have been here. When the power dies, the narrow streets (which are full of sleeping bodies and cattle) are illuminated only by the flicker of candlelight and rubbish fires. It is eerie and surreal. The charmers and scammers are plentiful, and staying sharp is a must. My first days in India had a tendency to chase me back into my hotel after just a few hours. I was simply overwhelmed by the heat and the persistence of the touts and beggars.

My first stop in India was Varanasi, which is one of Hinduism's holiest sites. Pilgrims come to Varanasi to bathe at the ghats along the Ganges River, or to die, as passing in Varanasi supposedly liberates the soul from the cycle of reincarnation. I was unable to take pictures of some of the more bizarre things I witnessed, so the best I can do is offer descriptions. To begin with, I sat on a rooftop overlooking one of the so-called ‘burning ghats’ where public cremations take place. An Indian guy explained to me what I was seeing as numerous fires roared and I choked on the smoke of burning flesh. Rib cages and bones littered the ground below. The fire of Shiva is located at the burning ghats, and it is believed that this fire has burned continuously for the last 3,500 years. 'Untouchables' of the lowest caste slave in the morbid environment, chopping wood, administering final baths to the dead and shoveling human ash into the river. The hospice upon which I sat was a barren concrete enclave where the dying gathered to await their fate. The next day I took a rowboat down the river and passed a floating human body and a human skull that was floating face up. The skull still contained decaying eyeballs. Nearby, in the same waters, Indians were bathing, doing laundry and rinsing their mouths. As I walked along the ghats back towards my guest house, I passed through a cricket match that was being played despite the fact that there were feces and a human skull on the playing field. I also visited Sarnath to the north of Varanasi where the Buddha is believed to have delivered his first sermon after having attained enlightenment.

When I went to Varanasi’s train station to travel on to Agra, there were cattle on the train tracks eating rubbish, monkeys were running around the station, and there was standing water throughout the building. There were also homeless beggars lying about and crowds of people who were apparently camping while waiting for their train. It was also dark inside the station because the electricity was out.

For the past few months this trip has exposed me to some of the harder realities of life that afflict billions of people in the world. I am unable to point a $200 camera at people who are starving or dying just to accentuate the point, so just take my word for it: extreme poverty is difficult to witness. The strange thing about India is how, presumably, the remnants of the caste system seem to allow for the toleration of extreme poverty and exploitation within contemporary society. Well-dressed businessmen operated my hotel in Delhi, yet just outside the door lepers were sleeping in the streets.

Rajasthan: Translated as 'Land of the Kings', Rajasthan is India's western desert state. The ambiance of the region reminded me of Aladdin. There were camels, oceans of sand dunes, golden sandstone villages, ancient desert forts, and fancy shoes and mustaches that swirled up on the ends. Many of the men wore brightly colored turbans, there were snake charmers on street corners, and oil lamps lit the night. It could also get up to 117 degrees at times. I started my trip in Jaisalmer with a three-day camel safari through the desert. Our guide was a desert dweller that doubled as a comedian. He kept us constantly laughing while he prepared our meals from scratch over a campfire. At night, while I lay on my blanket and studied the night sky, he sang lullabies to our group in his native tongue. I also stopped in the ‘blue city’ of Jodhpur which had a magnificent castle. I am now at a small oasis town called Pushkar which is another site that is sacred to Hindus.

My impressions of India have evolved a great deal in a short time. I confess to initially being overwhelmed and not enjoying it here. I think the cumulative fatigue of this long trip made it difficult to cope with the urban mayhem and the heat. Since then I have fallen in love with the magical aura and exotic history of Rajasthan, and I am very much looking forward to exploring the Indian Himalayan regions in the coming month. I have come to learn that India is essentially a collection of small countries within a much larger state. There are many different ethnic groups, religions, languages, cultures and climates. Perhaps for that reason it seems natural that I could love it in some places and dislike it in others. More than anything, like jumping into a cold pool, I am probably just getting used to it.

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