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Published: January 10th 2009
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Been a while.....
Back online and have many stories to tell at this stage!
Back to Pokhara. We spent the last few days in Pokhara before the epic bus journey to India, chilling out on the lake and eating ourselves silly. we booked a night bus from pokhara to the Indian border. we got this local bus at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and we didn't arrive at our destination 12 hours later at 5 o'clock in the morning. It was very funny looking back now but at the time we were both furious. there was a guy dribbling on Stu's shoulder and an Indian old lady had her smelly feet on Stu's legs! He was not a happy camper! At 5 o'clock in the morning we have to wait in this hotel until about six foe the office to get our bus tickets for when we go through the border to take us into India. Then this Indian dude arrives (AKA: the scammer) and says our bus is not leaving till 11 o'clock, but that the is an earlier bus we can get on but we have to pay and extra 500RS each. In our dazed delirious state we say
ok! Scammer in a fluster puts me in a cycle rickshaw with the 2 ruc sacs and sends me on my way to the border alone. Stu was on the back of scammers motor bike with my passport and disappears off into the sunrise ahead of me. So I'm heading for the Indian border saying to myself" I've no passport, I've no idea where to meet Stu, and how the hell am I going to carry these two bags". when I arrive at the border the scammer shouts at me something in Indian and heads off again with our rupees, never to be seen again.when I find Stu we head over the border to find our bus, but as you can imagine there are lots and lots of buses at the border. we had been had, there was no bus leaving earlier we ended on the original bus that we had paid for leaving at 11 o'clock. then to rub salt in our wounds and Stu ready to snap! Our bus guys tell us that we have to give them 200Rs as security charge for our bags in the boot.
We hobbled into Varanasi at 9 o'clock at night.
The worst time to arrive in Varanasi is at festival time and of course as luck would have it we arrive in Varanasi on the last day of a large festival where thousands of people made a pilgrimage to the holy city of Varanasi! CARNAGE!
Our Tuc Tuc driver obviously didnt take us to where we asked him to take us and wanted to get commission for getting us to stay with one of his friends. We eventually an hour later after walking through the small backstreets of varanasi, arrive safetly in our hotel.
Our first day in Varanasi we took at walk along the Ganges, which is scattered with Ghats. This is where they burn the bodies and put the ashes into the Ganges. Lovely!We ended up at the largest burning Ghat there was about six bodies burning. There was men who's job was to weigh large chunks of wood to try to determine how much wood it would take to burn each body. I think there must be some equation of wood weight to body weight = how long the fire will burn! Then we see these 4 guys walking through the crowd carrying a stretcher with
a dead body on top! They dip the body into the Ganges then place it ontop of the wood.
The muslin ontop of the body burns off and you can see the body burning. I had this hanky over my face because who wants to inhale dead body not me! On the Ganges you have bodies being put in the river burnt and if you are a pregnant woman or a child that has died they put you straight into the river! A few metres up the river you have a guy brushing his teeth in the same water, women washing their clothes. Now there is a DAZ doorstep challenge if ever there was! Varanasi was filthy, people going to the toilet 1 and 2’s on the streets including the cows that on several occasions decided to do poo’s on Stu’s trousers!!(He was not a happy camper). Cows roam the small alleys of Varanasi and you have to push past them and hope they don’t poke you with their horns.
The following day we went to the University and went to a Hindu temple it was amazing to see. Then I started to feel ill and by 12
o’clock that night I was in hospital with a temperature of a 103. I stayed there for 1 week and was pumped with drugs and had every test under the sun done. I had Ecoli, Gastroenteritis and Viral hemmoregic fever! (Lovely). Out of there I thought we would never get. When I got out of hospital we went first class on a train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.
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