Advertisement
Published: March 6th 2008
Edit Blog Post
After the fun of Kolkata we hit the road to Puri, a "beach" town 12 hours south. Our train pulled in at 5:30am (never a good time of day to arrive in a strange town) to be greeted by a crazed rickshaw driver telling us that 2 local boys were after us with knives as big as our arms. But madam, for 50 rupees extra he would somehow be able to protect us from these nasty men - how exactly we don't know, but he assured us 50 rupees would cover the cost of our lives. We pondered this for 10 seconds, took a gamble that he was drunk and making it all up, and we lived to see another day. Phew! That was close!
NOT a good first impression of Puri, and the Maoist rebel attacks 2 hours away weren't helping Puri's reputation at all.
The beach would surely make up for it we thought!! But really the beach turned out to be more of a liability for Puri than an asset. Covered in excrement from cows, camels, horses, donkeys and yes people, it really was not the Byron Bay we'd hoped for.
Never mind, we weren't put off, there
was still the Sun Temple to see, a signature monument of India, up there with the Taj Mahal they say.
For such an important temple we thought a guide was a must - 1 hour should do it. He looked legit, had a laminated name tag and all, but 50 minutes later when we were still skirting the scrub-land on the perimeter of the temple we thought perhaps he wasn't so legit after all. Perhaps he had a laminating machine at home? So in 10 minutes flat we forced him to do a speedy-gonzales tour of an extremely elaborate and intricate temple. We suspect 10 minutes really didn't do it justice, for it really was amazing, an engineering marvel for its day and full of erotic carvings (which seemed to interest our guide most). Unfortunately we have no photos of such a wonder as Elise very skillfully deleted our memory card before it was backed up. We don't seem to be having much luck with photos (or cameras) this trip.
So Puri left us with a bad vibe. We needed a better town to hang out in. BOHDGAYA sounded perfect. 2600 years ago this was the place that
Buddha himself attained enlightenment (under a Bohdi tree) and thus began the Buddhist religion. The town is a major pilgrimage destination for hundreds of thousands of Buddhists from across the globe all coming to pay homage to the tree itself. We had glorious images of a sea of safron coloured monks, chiming bells, mantra chanting, prayer flags and just general serenity. Elise even contemplated a silent meditation retreat in the hope of reaching her own inner nirvana.
But we were WRONG. Firstly our 15 hour train trip turned into 21 as the train's battery fell off the actual train onto the tracks and we had to wait for it to be welded back on (as you do!). And secondly we didn't factor in that Bohdgaya is in the most poverty stricken, corrupt and lawless state in India (Bihar). Scam artists and criminals, relentless beggars and derelict streets and buildings seemed to shatter what subtle serenity there was. We hated the place, a more traveller friendly town was what we needed.
DARJEELING is raved about by travellers all the time, it must be good, so off we went. A hill station at the base of the Himalayas, full of lush
Does this make sense?
Didn't to us, but we pretended it did. tea plantations with a back-drop of snow covered peaks, next door to Nepal. This would be our peaceful oasis. The 28 hour train trip to get there did not faze us in the knowledge of getting to such a beautiful spot.
However in true Indian style, it was not to be.
24 hours into our journey we were halted in a town called Siliguri.
"Darjeeling is on strike madam. You cannot go any further."
How can a whole town be on strike we asked, and again in true Indian style no-one could tell us why, other than it simply just was.
Turns out a rebel political party was wanting an independant state for Darjeeling and had blockaded the roads, forced all the tourists out and all the hotels and shops to close.
So we were stuck in Siliguri where there was NOTHING of interest for a tourist - no temple, no pretty view, not even a cricket game. Even the one bar seemed quite uninviting. Once again we stuck in nowhere - there seems to be a theme here!
Next stop will be VARANASI, our luck will surely turn for the beter there.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.113s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0449s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
bijoy
non-member comment
Don,t see only bad of siliguri, there,s plenti of good
Siliguri is a beautiful city surrenrounded by green forests, rivers like Mahananda,Teesta, Balasan etc. Darjeeling hills are a few killometre ahead.It is a cosmopolitan city. People from diffrent religion, from different community reside here together. It has its own culturaral back ground. Do not defame the city by displaying some ugly scean of this sweet city. There are a number of places of interest here, namely Iskon Temple, Salugara Monestry,North Bengal University Museum, Matigara Science Centre, Mahananda wild life Sanctuary, Surya sen river park and many more. A few killometre ahead, Sevok is a beautiful naturescape of sibalic himalaya and river Teesta. Please pay a visit to Siliguri again.