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Published: April 3rd 2006
Chai by the Ganges
Here I am pouring chai tea at our camp by the River Ganges.India really is incredible. A country of bold bright colourful saris, mouth-watering cuisine (just one more garlic naan please) and brilliant hospitality. You really do feel like a royal guest - addressed as 'madam' and greeted with smiles, flower garlands and waves everywhere you go! They say that Indians are the the Italians of Asia - which is spot on. Italians are the only other culture I've encountered with the same enthusiasm for guests, fine food and festivals. However, India also has a certain smell which grows on you - an overwhelming stench of animals, severage, people, dust, incence and exotic spices. It also has an unmatched passion for cricket and all conversations where I'm identified as Australian involve Ricky Ponting or the latest cricket score (and I can assure you that both topics are certainly not my forte!).
The Indian culture is very much coloured by religion and tradition. Hindu and Moslem people co-exist in relative harmony and the Hindu Gods play a large part in home, hotel and tuk tuk interior decoration! Perhaps the most difficult element of the culture for me to understand has been the role of women and the gender inequality that is accepted here.
Sunset over the Ganges
Sunset over the kitchen boat on the Ganges. Dowries are an expensive business (including large sums of money, cars, whitegoods etc) and accordingly most families wish for boys, over girls. This has resulted in a significant gender imbalance - in fact last week a doctor was convicted for aborting female foetuses - a landmark result (despite the law being around for almost 15 years). Once married, a female Indian girl can look forward to some light reading in the form of 'housekeeping weekly' (India's answer to Cleo or Cosmopolitan) and in some households 'purdah' - where a women covers her face from all men/strangers or is confined to the house. Thank goodness the practise of 'sati' - where a wife is burnt alive with her dead husband- is both illegal and no longer the fashion. Despite this, I have met several intelligent, attractive and powerful Indian women in my travels - some of whom are critical of these traditional practises and some who readily accept them as part of Indian life.
The poverty and pollution here is both confronting and absolutely ridiculous. Cows really do freely roam the streets in both city and country and it is not uncommon to see a cow playing 'frogger' in the
Ellen & Sally
Sitting with school children outside a fort near Varanasi. middle of a main road or highway. Tuk Tuks and other traffic simply drive around them. Rubbish is often ankle deep in the streets and the government and major tour operators like Intrepid are campaigning tourists to 'say no to plastic' in an effort to minimise the pollution. This is easier said than done when locals are not educated or inclined to bin their rubbish. For example in Varanasi I saw the contents of my hotel room bin upended in the street outside. There are many beggars - paricularly in Delhi and the bigger cities - and people live and sleep on median strips and round-a-bouts and at train stations. It is no wonder that stomach bugs are the norm and clean toilets are hard to find. Discussion on tour commonly centred around whether anyone had experienced an 'episode', did anyone have spare toilet paper and how did the toilets rank out of ten in the old ITR (International Toilet Ranking) System (originally devised in my 2005 trip to Turkey!). Thankfully I managed to stay 'episode free' this trip and Im still searching for a 10/10 (in case you were wondering!).
A huge part of my trip in this
Sunrise Varanasi
Women washing at sunrise at the ghats in Varanasi. vast country has been the many and varied modes of transport used to get around. As part of the Intrepid Tour we travel like locals and avoid big airconditioned buses in favour of overnight trains, tuk tuks, local bus, camel, boat, jeep etc. My personal favourite has been the cycle rickshaw, but the tuk tuk has certainly been the most hair-raising! One night in what I like to call the 'tuk tuk from hell' we hurtled down the back alleys of Varanasi in a scene similar to a James Bond movie - managing to have two collisions with other tuk tuks (the driver just kept driving) and several near death experiences. Indian trains are often delayed (my favourite railway announcement 'this train has been delayed indefinitely - we apologise for any inconvenience!') and the overnight trains have been a great experience. 'Teeeeaaa, Coffffffeeeeee, CHAI, CHAI' - the vendors screamed as they wandered the carriages all day until late at night.
I began my travels in Delhi - a place which can only be described as pure mayhem. The air is thick with pollution, horns beep incessantly and there are people everywhere! I think I expected it to be more
Westernised than it is and despite some young people dressed in Western clothing, on the most part men and women wear traditional dress. The contrast between new and old Delhi is significant - old with narrow streets crammed with market stalls and new with wide leafy streets and plush hotels and gardens.The Arpit Palace Hotel (I like to call it the smelly arm pit) was the starting point for the tour, though was certainly no palace. Highlights of my time in Delhi were Jama Masjid - the biggest mosque in India and Humayans Tomb - an early building in the style of the Taj Mahal. With our tour leader - the tall and impressively moustached Rajastani 'Chandra' - we were guests at the Gurvdwara Sikh temple where we helped make Chapati and shared lunch sitting cross legged on the concrete floor and eating off tin plates with the Sikh parishoners.
Our next part of the journey was sailing down the Ganges Rivers - a real highlight. Our group of 12 (10 girls - Australian, British, Irish and 2 boys from Denmark) lounged on 3 covered sailboats as we cruised down the Ganges - playing uno (thanks Jess), reading and
chatting. We even had a kitchen boat which served up the most delicious vegeterian delights. The Ganges is the most sacred river in India and our position on the boats really did have a window into rural Indian life. The Ganges is used for drinking water, fishing, washing clothes, bathing and burials and we witnessed all of these on a daily basis. Each night we stopped by the river, tents were set up, as well as a massive rug and cushions where we 'chill-axed' whilst enjoying the ritual of chai tea, singing, storytelling and dinner under the stars.
After three days of sailing we reached Varanasi - one of the worlds oldest cities and the holiest of the 7 sacred cities of Hinduism. The Ganges water was noticeably more polluted in Varanasi and we saw our first dead body floating beside the boat just before disembarking. Not only is Varanasi a very holy city, it is also dark and confronting. A number of tourists go missing in Varanasi every year and there have been several bombings here in recent times. Despite this, Varanasi quickly became my favourite city in India. For me the most significant and lasting impression of
Amber Fort
Elephants in the River below Amber Fort, Jaipur. Varanasi is the ghats - massive steps leading down into the Ganges where people wash, meditate, pray and cremate the dead. One evening we took part in a sunset flower ceremony where we placed little floating candles in the river - a wish for every candle. The following morning we witnessed sunrise at the ghats (there are over 100 or 6km of them in total) - watching people wash and go about their daily business. Two of the ghats are burial/cremation ghats. All Hindis - except old people, holy men, children, people bitten by snakes and people who die from leprosy - are cremated in massive fires by the sides of the river. Whilst at first this is extremely confronting and even backward to us Westerners - in the end I found it quite natural - the whole process focuses more on a celebration of life, instead of sadness and mourning.
From Varanasi we departed by train for Agra - but not without some dramas. A tuk tuk carrying the two boys from Denmark failed to arrive at the station - so the rest of us boarded the train without our tour leader Chandra for the overnight journey. In
Australian Cricket Team
The Australian Cricket Team, Roopangarh Fort. From India, UK, Denmark, Australia and Ireland! the end, the boys were found (their first tuk tuk had broken down, their second driver took them to a temple instead of the train station) and both Chandra and the boys caught up to our train at 2am. Agra was all about the Taj Mahal - certainly the most extravagent building ever built for love. Emperor Shah Jahan built this tomb for his second wife. The place is beautiful - all white and shining - a haven from the grotty streets outside. A photograph in front of the Taj Mahal is certainly a 'money shot' and touts with cameras snap away at tourists like paparazzi - keen to sell you a picture of yourself seated on the seat made famous by Diana Spencer. Apparently after the Taj Mahal was built by no less than 20,000 workers - the Emperor ordered that all their hands be chopped off so that the building could never be replicated. Unfortunately he did this before he decided he wanted to build a black Taj Mahal on the opposite side of the river. Understandably, his black Taj Mahal was never built and the Emporer was subsequently imprisoned for 8 years by his own son/successor for
Roopangarh
Village Women in Roopangarh bankrupting Agra with his extravagence!
After Agra - we visited Jaipur - a place which prides itself on being 'green and clean' - a nice contrast to the other cities we'd visited. Our Hotel was very impressive - full of antique furnishings, old framed photographs, hunting memorabilia, a wood panelled library and peacocks roamed the beautiful garden. It was all very much 18th century English and we drank lots of tea from ornate teapots on white garden settings. Jaipur also gave us our first taste of Bollywood at the famous Raj Madir Cinema - a palatial old style movie house. However, the highlight was certainly visiting the opulent Amber Fort or pink palace. Home to the Maharaja in years gone by and boasting incredible views of the town below (including elephants in the river) - it was breathtaking.
Roopanagarh Fort was our next stop. The town of Roopanagarh was a bus and jeep ride away from Jaipur, a little village steeped in tradition and simple values. The bone jarring jeep ride into the dusty town was exciting and little children waved and stared at us strange white tourists. The Roopangarh Fort/Resort ended up being nothing short of a
fortified palace! Prince Charles has been here and Sting has also stayed. The place boasted massive rooms, with antiques and patios on all sides and dining here you really did feel like royalty. A tennis court (complete with marble surface) and perfectly manicured lawn were the perfect setting for a cricket match (Australia versus India - we won!) and an early morning game of doubles. Unfortunately if the ball bounced out of the tennis court it risked falling over the walls of the fort and into the town below. Needless to say the match didn't last long! The most exciting and rewarding experience for me was our village visit. Here we wandered around the village and met the locals and were even invited into their homes to see how they lived. This was very moving - amazing how these people have nothing except the clothes on their back - but the women manage to dress impeccably in stunning saris all the time. The kids were great and very keen to shake hands and pose for photographs.
Our final destination was the holy Hindu city Pushkar. A peaceful hippy haven set on a lake in camel territory. This place has a strict 'no meat, no eggs, no alcohol, no party' policy - completely the wrong place to be when one has a craving for a good BBQ steak ... never mind! We spent one night out in the Pushkar desert on a camel safari, which was fun - but no quite what we expected. My camel - Ram - was well behaved - but the camp was under powerlines and beside a road. We sat by a campfire and all slept in the one open tent under the stars, but had a rude awakening by a tractor blaring bollywood music at 4.30am as it past our camp. Back in Pushkar - we wandered the shops, enjoyed the sites and our last days in India.
Having bid farewell to my tour group, I leave for Nepal tomorrow. My Indian journey has certainly given me complete sensory overload and I can see how it would be easy to let the poverty, pollution and gender inequality prevent people from enjoying a trip here. Though as one Indian lady advised me - look up (dont look down) and you will see the beauty of the mountains and the people, instead of the dirt at your feet. I hope that increased tourism and planning for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi will improve the quality of life here - but if certainly has a way to go.
Will I return to India? Absolutely!
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Amelia Peel
non-member comment
Lucky bitch
I already hate you and you have only been gone just over two weeks. The stories you have spoken about sound amazing...keep em coming so that I have some escape at work!