India - Get me out of here!

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I think I've been living in a bubble of excitement and adrenalin from relieving my travel bug during my first week in India, because on the train to Varanasi it finally hit me. As the train arrived, I realised I didn't have a seat number. Frustrated and tired, I was lucky enough to find a group of Dutch tourists with a guide, who checked my ticket number and said I was on a waiting list. Great! When the train came, I checked with one of the train workers who let me know that luckily I was confirmed and gave me my seat number.

The train was half an hour late to depart, and I was somehow under the false impression that as it was 650km's away, the journey would take about 7 hours. I found my seat - a tiny top bunk where I put my baggage (2 backpacks and some shopping bags) and curled myself in a ball around it trying to sleep. Within 10 mins, I was in the train toilet being all sorts of sick. The toilet is a hole in the ground that looks out straight onto the tracks. No toilet paper. Just a bucket and water. And the smell is unbearable. Each time I went back to my bunk to try and sleep, the old woman in the bunk next to me was coughing and phleming so hard that I thought she might die. This went on all night and each cough and golly made me more sick.

At that moment, I hated India.

No one tells you which station you've stopped at, so by 6:30am I'm expecting to be close to Varanasi. I asked someone only to be told that Varanasi is about 7 more hours away. Ouch! By this stage, I realised the bottom bunk was free and slightly more spacious so I moved myself and my bags there. Little did I know that bottom bunk is easy prey for a white girl and would randomly get Indian guys open my bunk curtain to stare at me or chat. After a couple of bitchy exchanges and harsh 'go away's' I tucked the curtain in tightly so no one could see the white girl beyond. The old woman was still golly'ing away and I hated India again.

By 2pm, we reached Varanasi and my driver was waiting to pick up my bags and take me to the hotel. I wanted to die quietly in my hotel room, but my itinerary said differently. I was to see the evening ceremony at 5:30pm.

After some food, rest and a western toilet, I felt better and by the time my guide came to meet me, I felt slightly more ready to embrace Varanasi. We walked through the night markets, full of colour, and onto the main ghat where a ceremony is performed each evening to pay respects to the holy Ganges and I loved India again. Along with its noise, traffic, cow shit, public urinals, screeching monkeys and staring men.

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