india full blast

leaving Kathmandu to Chitawan National Park at first seemed like a nice chance to see the real Nepal. Jungle, animals, village people (not the singing ones). I arrived to a swarm of taxi drivers and found my contact and he took me to the hotel by motorcycle.

I was the only one in the restaraunt upon arrival and the waiter just stood there and watched me eat. Later a group arrived, and happily discovered they were from Poland and we were to experience jungle life together for the next couple days.

There were many activities lined up for us, but the best were bathing with elephants. You get to sit on their back and they spray you with water from their trunks! They also shake their bodies so you go flying right off their backs! The next day we rode elephants through the jungle searching for elusive animals. We only saw one rhino, so some were disappointed, but others didn't care they were enjoying being high in the air on the back of the great elephant.

From here I thought I would travel overland into India. I regret every second of this journey. First 5 hours to the Nepal/India border. Then 2 passport checkpoints later and on and I must buy another ticket from the border to Varanasi. There are several buses, but if they are not at least half full, they don't depart. This means you could be waiting for hours surrounded by flies and people staring at you way too long, all in the mud.

Someone convinvced me there was a shorter and more comfortable bus leaving as scheduled. Stupidly, I purchased this ticket. The bus did indeed depart on time, but was filthy, falling apart with squeaky brakes and when going over large bumps in the road, the whole back of the bus seemed to come away from the axle! 12 hours later at 4am I arrived in the holy city of Varanasi. Again, surrounded by taxi drivers I found one and told him I wanted to change money, take a boat ride on the Ganges, and go to my hotel, and pay only 500 rupees for everything.

I had heard Varanasi was a nightmare. At 4am, it didn't seem as such. Then the sun came out and I realized that the entire city is covered in shit. Monkey shit, dog shit, cow shit, and yes, human shit. People squat right there on the street just like any other animal. So if you dare to tread here, please watch every step.

The boat ride is quite scenic and you can see people along the ghats practicing yoga, bathing, meditating, washing their clothes, cleaning their teeth, right in the Ganges. The ganges is the most disgusting water I have ever seen, it has dead bodies floating in it.

At the far end, you can see bodies being burned any time of day. This particular spot is a place believed the soul goes straight to enlightenment, so families bring their dead here to be cremated.

Feeling the need to flee came several hours later when I realized that I had been cheated out of some money and my good nature taken advantage of. I will not go into the complete story, but I will just say I felt really stupid and for the first time a tourist rather than a traveller and wanted to escape asap.

At the train station buying a ticket to the Buddhist city of Bodhgaya, which is where I am now, is a better place. I am still a huge target for many things, being a tourist, a woman, alone, etc. So looking forward to meeting Michael in Delhi in a couple of days. So far my experience has been really awful, many people lie and cheat, they seem genuine and then you realize they are not. Everyone I have encountered is either trying to get money or sex from me. It will be interesting to see what travel is like with a man by my side.

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