Celebrating Davy's birthday on Digha beaches

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We pretty much got stuck in Varanasi, wih its post Kumbh Mela crowds. The more we were getting sick of people, the less likely we we're going to go Allahabad to see all the madness. We still got some taste of it when we couldn't get any train tickets to Bodh Gaya, place of Buddha enlightenment and again during the last day in Varanasi when we wanted to catch out train to Kolkata but because of the Kumbh Mela crowds, all the roads were closed, not many tuk-tuks available and the train station overpacked. Our last day in Varanasi was very enjoyable though, went for a lovely walk along Ganga. It was super warm day and we saw a cow munching on plastic bags (which is exactly what I said should happen as it would be a great evolutionary advantage for them to be able to process plastic, as there is so many skinny cows in India and plastic waste everywhere around here) and met real Baba with long dreadlocks who didn't want any money from us and we even got a coke to drink from him. Spent the last evening sitting at the small burning ghat watching the burning ceremony from beginning with its all rituals until the body was pretty much completely burnt and it's strange that one kind of looses the akward feeling of sitting there and watching it as we initially had when we arrived to Varanasi.

Then, luckily, we made it and caught our train and spent another 14 hours on train to Kolkata. It didn't feel that bad as it sounds and arrived to Kolkata at 4 in the morning. After a few hours of waiting and another good while of trying to figure out where to go and how to find our bus, we managed to get the right one going to Digha, a beach village south of Kolkata. As boring as that might sounds, we just wanted to have a few quiet days and celebrate Davy's birthday somewhere nice, free of the craziness of big cities. It took another 5 hours of mad driving, listening to Indian pop music and very loud continuous horning. And of course, our expectations were very different from a reality. I imagined we would find this lovely quiet beach with a nice guesthouse on the beach and a room with balcony and a sea view. We arrived to a village which looked like an Indian version of Italian Bibione. Hotel, hotel, hotel, restaurant, hotel and another restaurant. And then we made it to the beach which was packed with Indian tourists so I even didn't have the courage to change into my swimming suits and ended up swimming in my clothes and there were people coming to stare at us and ask for a picture and it simply didn't seem to be the perfect holiday spot for us. Everything changed the second day when we walked a bit further from the crowds and got absolutely amazing the third day when we walked to a completely deserted beach. It was quite an adventurous journey, it felt a little bit like being in StarTrek or StarGate and exploring a new planet. There were no people anywhere and we had to cross rivers and then we saw these huge fields with red creatures running around which turned out to be red crabs trying to hide in their sand holes. And I completely fell in love with these tiny crabs that make patterns with trails of sand balls. They are like art. Beautiful. And it also feels like their lives have very clear meaning. To make the perfect sand ball and the perfect pattern. How simple 😊 Surprisingly I was able to get a birthday cake for Davy which I didn't expect at all. Lovely chocolate cake with proper candles and I was very happy about it because I didn't have any presents and Davy didn't have a clue so it was a great surprise and it seems it wasn't the worse birthday, being on an empty beach in India and enjoying the sun.



As we were on the bus back to Kolkata, Davy looked very sad about leaving India. You simply either love or hate India. And it's pretty much clear which one Davy picked. Got our AirAsia flight to Kuala Lumpur where we spent two very quick and great days (blog and pictures are about to follow) and we are at the airport again now, waiting for a flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Exciting.

Lots of love from both of us.





Czech version:

Ceska verze se pripravuje a snad bude brzo, zatim kouknete na fotky. Spoustu lasky a pozdravy z letiste Kuala Lumpur a co by kamenem od Kambodzi posilaji Simona a Davy

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