The Rest of My Time in India - Part 1

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Place: New Delhi, Varanasi and Agra

So here is the short summed up version of what I did for the rest of my time in India. From the 8th to the 11th, I went with a SAS group to various other cities in India to sight see. I woke up at 3:30 am to meet up with my group at 4:14 in the Union. Our group was 58 kids (I think). We took a bus to the airport which was an hour away and took a flight from Chennai to New Delhi. The flight was really short (around an hour) and they gave us all this weird food. It actually tasted pretty good, but I felt kind of sick afterwards.

We arrived in New Delhi around 9:30 and took a transfer flight to Varanasi. That flight was also really short and we ended up getting there around 11:45. Once we got out of the airport, we took a bus to our hotel to check in. We stayed at the Ramada Plaza JHV. It was a really nice hotel. I was surprised, but then I realized that it was through SAS and I didn’t think anything of it anymore! It was weird that I wasn’t camping outside. I’m not going to lie; it felt really nice to finally stay somewhere nice for once (when I say this, I mean a hotel and not a shack, beach or jungle). They gave us all flower necklaces when we got there and fruit juice. What was different about this hotel than the ones you stay at in the US, is the security. We all had to have our bags scanned through an x-ray machine and metal detector. Finally, we had to be patted down. Something weird that I forgot to mention is how they go about patting you down in India. When we were in the airport, they have separate lines for males and females. The female line is longer because they need to pat the women down in a separate closed off area. The males on the other hand just walk right through and get patted down in public. This is just one of the many examples of how people are treated differently in India based on their gender.

Anyways, after putting our stuff in our rooms and eating lunch at the hotel, we headed back into the bus to go on a tour of Sarnath. Sarnath is an ancient city where Buddha preached his first sermon. On our way there, we visited the Archaeological Museum that had most of the ancient art and stones from the city itself. There was a group of people there (they looked like they were from somewhere in Asia), that kept circling the temple and praying. There were also smaller groups spread out throughout the lawn all sitting in Indian style praying and chanting together. It was really cool to see, even though I had no idea what they were singing about. I got Buddah prayer beads which I was really excited about.

After that we headed back to the hotel to have dinner and go to sleep. At this point it was already 10 pm and we had to wake up at 4:30 am so most of us just stayed up. I ended up going to a bar in the hotel with some of the other kids in the group for an hour or two and then went to sleep.

That next morning everyone was exhausted! But somehow we all made it down to the main lobby by 5 am. We headed by bus to the Ganges River. As a group, we walked from the bus drop off point to the river bank. I’m going to be really honest; the streets at night are really creepy. There were people just starring at us (mostly because we stand out)! They will whistle or give you the scariest looks. You have to literally hug your bags and belongings because little kids will just run up to you and try to steal them. You also see the craziest things just walking down the street. And this isn’t just in the night time. This country is literally “a different world”. If you just walk down the street for about 10 minutes, you will witness all of these things: someone peeing or pooping on the street, the most trash you have ever seen on the ground in your life, about 10 motorcycles, rickshaws and buses just whizzing past you (no one stays in lanes, lets pedestrians have right of way or stops for you), stray animals everywhere (cows, dogs, monkeys, camels), 50-70 vendors all on one street corner crowding you, people who look like they are from a mental institute or are zombies and just dirt and poverty everywhere. It is literally overwhelming!

The saddest part for me was when I see the children come up to me. I always offer to buy them food, but I never give them money. This is for two reasons: I can’t give to everyone (also if you give one, they all crowd and will fight each other), and you never know where the money is actually going. They might be giving it to someone else. It is just sad, because I don’t remember being their age and having to sell plastic toys to people over half my age. I think it’s sad they aren’t in school or missing out on their childhood. Begging in general, was just sooo terrible in India. The worst was in Agra though. Chennai wasn’t that bad actually.

So back to my travels….we finally got to the Ganges river bank and it was still sort of dark out. We all headed down the steps and got into a boat. In the middle of our boat ride, we watched the sun rise. It was so close to us and sooo pretty! Sort of unreal! The only way to describe it, was to either be there or see some of my pictures (I’ll upload them when I get home). We watched people bathe and (this is the gross part): cremate dead bodies and throw them into the river. If you don’t know much about the Ganges River, it is a holy river in Varanasi. People bathe in the water to release their souls from the cycle or rebirth. People come from all over India and the rest of the world to bathe in the holy water (filled with dead people---I couldn’t really get past that ewww). It was absolutely amazing and was one of my favorite things I saw in India. It looked just like something you would see on the cover of a National Geographic magazine. I mean the people; outfits and rituals were so unreal! The funniest part of it was when the vendors go into their own boats, filled them with their products and paddled over to us. They grabbed onto our boat and of course stayed there forever trying to sell us stuff. They really are determined people!

To get back to the bus, our guide led us through one of the oldest city streets. It was so narrow and everything was so tiny. It felt like a hobbit walkway. I took a lot of video of it, which again is the only way to really explain what I saw there. While walking through the narrow lanes, you see these tiny temples with religious god figurines. There are people just walking and praying or inside of them giving offerings. There is poop and trash all over the ground. Beggars hide out at every corner and wait for you to come. Cows that just walk through the streets and will just walk past you…crazy! There are people who just dress in the weirdest things. I mean everyone is wearing slum looking clothes or nice saris. There are priests and gurus who wear face paint and pants that look like they are from the movie Aladdin. The craziest one was seeing a snake charmer. There was another man who had a monkey dressed up and was dancing. It was bad though because it was cruelty to animals. At one point a man tried to sell me this colored powder that you use to make designs on your hand. He followed me for half of the time I walked through the alleyways. When I said I didn’t have any money, he said he didn’t need money, he just wanted one kiss. Hahaha! When I said no, he acted shocked. I joked around with him and said he would need to give my dad a cow first. I don’t think he was kidding at this point, because he said this can be arranged if you trade me an American visa and a kiss….then I can take you home to meet my family. OMG craziness hahah! Well at least I got a good laugh and a story. So I just shrugged him off and kept walking at a descent pace and he left me alone.

Once we made it out of this crazy maze, we headed back to the hotel for breakfast and to check out. Then we left for the airport once again to fly back to New Delhi. It was only 11:30 am at this point, and I already felt like we did so much. We ate lunch in the airport and headed to the bus to go on a city sightseeing tour. We visited these places: Birla Temple and Sikh Gurdwara. We also drove along Rajpath and passed the war memorial, parliament house, secretariat buildings and the official residence of the president of India. We were really rushed because there was so much to see. We saw so many temples and it was really tiring. It was worth it though….it was amazing! I thought the Sikhism temple was the coolest. It was the most unique and entertaining. There were people sitting on all these rugs and pillows just praying and chanting. There was a shrine in the middle of the room with a man waving what looked like a huge puffy feather on a stick. It looked like a tree branch from a Dr. Seuss book. We had to take off our shoes and cover our heads. Those were the two things I wasn’t used to and to be honest didn’t really enjoy about India. I didn’t like having to walk barefoot everywhere. The ground was so dirty and I stepped in so much crap. Each night in the hotel, I had to scrub my feet for about 10 minutes! Also, we had to be covered in so much clothing all the time. Women are not supposed to show their shoulders or legs and have to have head coverings in Sikh temples. I had to wear leggings and long tunics almost every day. You always have to have a scarf or shawl to cover your shoulders, cleavage or head. I practically lived in my second option which was a white hanes t-shirt. It was just annoying to wear all these layers. It was really hot during the day and you would just sweat so much. Also, by the end of the day, your clothes just smell sooooo bad! When I was washing my clothes in the sink after the trip, the water just turned dark brown.

By 7:00 we finally headed to our new hotel called Ashok. It was a really nice and fancy hotel too, but was really old. You could tell based on the architecture and design of the inside of the building. We all got to eat dinner in the hotel about an hour later. They brought out a cake because apparently it was the 100th anniversary of national women’s day.

I wasn’t feeling so great after dinner so I decided to go back to my room and get some sleep. I was mad I was feeling bad because everyone apparently found an Indian wedding and baby shower and got invited to go. I’m so jealous. I just decided I should just sleep because everyone was going to the bars again and I already did that the night before…plus I wasn’t feeling well. Little did I know that on the way to the bars they found all these cool Indian parties… bummer!

Oh well…I heard from some people that these two events were so extravagant. I saw them setting the baby shower in the back of the hotel while I was eating dinner and I thought that was the wedding. They go all out! Maybe I should have an Indian style wedding or baby shower. Charli told me that the woman having the baby was on a throne like chair!

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