Temples, pissed off cows, dead bodies and bird hospitals

---

Despite the freak wind storm the pilot did manage to land safely and we were at once greeted by the smells, heat and humidity of Kolkata. One of Rosie's old family friends, Oni had taken it upon herself to cushion our introduction to India and so we moved into her beautiful home and were completely spoilt rotten. Oni's garden contains a giant tree, fully equipped with tree house, which regularly drops fat, juicy mangoes. This meant that when we weren't full to the brim with amazing Indian food, we would be allowed to indulge on the produce of this plentiful tree.

Oni made sure we packed as much culture into our 3 day stay as possible and took us around herself to see the amazing sites and monuments. Both of us found it very strange how Kolkata shows many similarities to London, with tall beautiful buildings lining the roads, some with columns, others with statues. As this grand British architecture was a complete contradiction to people’s previous warnings of the city's severe poverty levels. This was definitely a city of contrast.
As part of our cultural education we were lucky enough to be taken to Mother Teresa's home which is where her sisters still live and continue her work. It was humbling to see the simplicity of her room which she rarely used, as she always felt that someone needed it more than she did. We also looked around Kolkata's beautiful St. Peter's Cathedral, saw the black hole of Kolkata and the Victoria Memorial building - a stunning white smaller version of the Taj.

On our second day Oni arranged for us both to have a luxurious 2 hour Indian style massage. The old masseuse stripped us naked and proceeded to rub us with chickpea paste which would, once it had collected enough dead skin cells, become a dough. Clare thoroughly enjoyed this experience, whilst Rosie was a little uncomfortable with the bum and boob rubs. The next day, whilst Clare went on one of her exploratory walks, Oni took Rosie to the beautician for a pedicure and bikini wax. This took place in front of a lively bunch of whispering, sniggering Indian women in the back room. Definitely an experience she will never forget!

Our next destination was Varanasi, so equipped with our fake wedding rings to help us ward off the starers, we felt reading to take on the infamous Indian trains. We took 3 long trains (a total of 30 and a half hours), our first was a luxury 2A class with much needed air conditioning, however we endured our second two journeys in sleeper class, with no AC, just a half working fan - surprisingly not that bad. Train highlights for us were being able to hang your head out of the window or hang out of the open door, witnessing dozens of men crapping on the side of the tracks and being too slow to get on a train at the platform, which had then started moving off, so we had to jump in the nearest carriage. All very panicky.

Our train pulled into Varanasi around midday and the surrounding temperature was a dry 48 degrees. Hot! The South African guys had recommended Shanti Guesthouse to us which sat right next to the burning Ghats and therefore made it easier for us to explore the Ganga (the name for the spirit of the Ganges). With human ash in our eyes and the whiff of burning flesh in our noses, Rosie and Clare wandered around the haze of pooh-coated backstreets and enjoyed tiny amounts of milk chai which was served in miniature clay pots for 3 rupees each. These pots would then be disposed of/thrown on the street right next to the chai waller. The streets also provided us with a wide variety of chaat (snacks) which were practically free and tasted phenomenal.
The restaurant at the top of our Guesthouse was an amazing chance to meet people whilst watching the heat rise of the Ganga below. Here we met 3 really nice guys, Andy, Sam and Dominic, who were big, tall and dreamy. Sam particularly liked Clare's yak tattoo and every now and again would burst out with "YAK...YAK!" interrupting any conversation. Nice one Sam, we still don't really get it.

A definite highlight for Varanasi was the early morning boat ride on the Ganga with Andy, a really nice guy called Matt (who bizarrely enough lives at the end of Rosie's road on Fremantle Square!) and a Spanish couple. The guy rowing the boat acted as our guide and proceeded to tell us the traditions of burning the bodies and the special cases who managed to avoid cremation and who were then dumped in the river tied to a rock. These cases were pregnant women, children, holy men, people who had been bitten by a cobra and lepers. Some of these bodies had come loose from the rock, risen to the surface and had floated to the sand beach on the other side. The guide took us ashore and anchored up next to two corpses. One was a 2 month old corpse of a young man and the other was a week old corpse of probably a pregnant woman. It is quite shocking initially as both of us had never seen a dead body so close before, but these traditions had been a part of Varanasi for thousands of years and it was inspiring being in the mist of such a vastly different culture.

Despite the sewage, bodies and general crap that passes into the Ganga every day, the locals swim, play, wash, drink and live in the holy water. The guide proved this to us by scooping and downing a mouthful just as we passed a sewage pipe and a floating dead dog. The Indians have very strong immune systems.
Clare has a real affinity with the animals of Varanasi. On one occasion a vicious rabid monkey jumped onto our table from the roof, grabbing her banana and sat eating it with a look of pure smugness and pride. That animal owes Clare 5 rupees. The second occasion was on our return to the guesthouse. A pissed off cow blocked our path. Clare tried to pass resulting in it pinning her to the wall with its horns as she literally screamed to her escape. Rosie thought it was hilarious and watched wide eyed and helpless. Possibly another highlight.

Over our time in India we devised a countdown of the Genuinely-nice-not-interested-in-ripping-us-off-because-we're-white-and-probably-rich Indians we met. Number one was met in Agra on a bench facing the Taj. After a really nice conversation he left leaving us slightly ashamed of our do-not-trust guards we had automatically put up. Number two was a lovely girl around our age who had obliged in taking a photo of us and the Taj, so in turn we awarded her with a picture of all three of us on her camera. Number three had given us honest information about when to get off the train to Delhi and finally number four was an old man who led us to the Bird Hospital (read on).
Out of all businessmen, shopkeepers and chaat sellers, the rickshaw men won the award for the most persistent hasselers. It was incredibly funny to experience the mad rush for the first time by ourselves as we left the train station in Varanasi. Hoards of them came charging straight at us and despite our constant stream of "no thank you"'s which gradually progressed to a shaking of the pooh-hand (left hand) in their face (a definite no!), they were only spurred on. Rosie then called them all to silence and loudly announced "we are WALKING people!" We both found a slight opening and headed off, with amazingly a smaller crowd than before following us down the road.
On our return to the station we managed to choose an arrogant arsehole as a driver with "James Bound" written across the back of his shirt. 80% of the way, he spent looking at us and not the road, demanding that Rosie take a picture of him, whilst speeding through busy streets with children, cows, dogs and other vehicles dodging his wheels with milliseconds to spare. When we gave him the ultimatum "LOOK AT THE ROAD OR NO MONEY!" he removed his hands from the wheel completely saying, "no money... ah well".

Our worst rickshaw experience however, was from Delhi station. The man took us on a 45 minute tour of the city, with countless U-turns and a 15 minute standstill of traffic to finally end up back at the train station. He then declared that he didn't know where our hotel was and asked for the fifty rupees we had agreed on beforehand, which we of course refused, as we technically had only moved a total of five yards. After his shouting, eye rolling and grabbing at the money in Clare's hand, he agreed on the fifteen rupees we suggested as a peace keep and scratched both of our hands when he offered us a hand shake.

Despite the city of Agra being a complete hole with hasselers. rubbish and crap everywhere, the Taj Mahal was one of the most staggeringly beautiful things either of us had seen in our entire lives. Unfortunately the train had been late pulling into the station, so we had missed the sight at sunrise, but we didn't care. In fact the overcast day provided the building with a perfect white canvas and the illusion that it was a painting, making it even more unreal. No photograph can ever do justice to what the white marble structure is like in front of you. One poet described it as "an immortal tear drop on the cheek of eternity" and its position as one of the Seven Wonders of the World is definitely deserved. The guide who took us around was excellent and due to his thirty five years of experience, enlightened us to the incredible architecture, hidden symbols, the symmetrical line which runs from one end of the grounds, through the Taj and out the other side and little tricks and optical illusions that were concealed everywhere. The Taj is a real piece of art work. Real Gems imported from all over the world were set into the marble and which explode with colour when a torch is placed on them. Some two by three metre long chunks with intricate carvings, we were told were just one piece of marble and seeing the two tombs inside (exact replicas of the real ones several metres below) left us silent and even more in reverence of the architecture and the story behind it.

The rest of the day was spent reflecting on what we had just encountered in Joney's Place, a lonely planet recommendation on the right as you exit through the South Gate. The toasties are incredible, but the banana lassie was on another level. Just go there!

Our final stop was Delhi. No one in the world likes Delhi and there are some very good reasons why. It's packed with people, pollution, rubbish, construction sites and hasselers, but despite all this Rosie and Clare loved it! Instead of visiting the typical monuments where tourists are charged 250 rupees where locals pay twenty rupees (racism in our opinion as it’s all based on skin colour. Indian tourists still pay local prices) we enjoyed a day of weird, free fun.

The Hindu temple opposite Red Fort was our first stop. It was here that we met genuinely nice Indian number four who was set on making our experience in Delhi as bizarre as possible. He led us to the meditation room beneath the temple - a quiet air conditioned grotto with a couple of shrines, mats for meditating on, low ceilings and bamboo coating the walls. It was done incredibly well and the AC kept us meditating for a good few hours. Genuinely nice Indian number four came back to get us and suggested that we drop into the Bird Hospital next door. Why not?! Intrigued, we strolled over and upon our arrival a naked man brandishing a peacock feather which was tapped repeatedly on everyone’s heads as he passed stepped out of the door. No one batted an eye lid, except us who looked straight up to examine the suddenly interesting leaves on the tree above until he had passed.

After that experience we continued into the hospital, slightly mentally scarred and a little more skeptical about what we might encounter.
The Bird Hospital was serial, horrendous, hilarious, minging, depressing, smelly and bird fluey. It consisted of rows of cages containing barely alive pigeons and crows, some with limbs sticking out at precarious angles, a few with a piece of cloth bandaging a wing, a large number were obviously dead and the rest were just getting there. None of this compared to the cage at the end which was full of ugly small parrots which looked like something out of walking with dinosaurs and they had pulled all the feathers out of their neck and patches from their body out of stress driven madness. It was almost bird torture, but nevertheless we had to write a comment in the tourist visitor’s book. The other comments were encouraging the "good work", but we could tell they were all just as shocked as we were. Animal activists are advised not to visit!
Next we covered our heads to enter the Sikh museum which displayed many paintings of Sikhs being martyred in odd ways, like boiling alive, being sliced in half, heads being cut off, burning alive etc. The others were of Sikh gurus which we found particularly funny as they were all rolling their eyes. We naturally felt obligated to fill in their metaphorical thought bubbles with things like "F#$% off, I don't want another portrait!"

We finished the day with shopping and a McDonalds at Connault Place where the more expensive shops meant less hassle and a bit of peace and quiet from the Delhi craziness. However on returning to the hotel, Clare experienced the most unsubtle grope known to man as a teenager stuck his hand out at boob level as he walked passed. Clare instantly spun round with her shocked response of "SIR!" However Rosie felt this was not an adequate enough word, replacing it instead with a booming "WANKER!" causing looks and gasps from the passersby.

It was on the flight to Bangkok that we were able to think and reflect on our time in India properly. It was awesome, loud, smelly, and hardcore and we loved every second.

---

Comments

[Guy]

Glasd you liked Delhi
Hi Girls, really glad to hear your both well and the mission through India was an exciting one. Im glad you liked Delhi, I loved it. Did you stay in Paragange in the end? We leave for Tibet on Tue, finally its come together. In Pokhara at the moment, yes, again, looking foreword to the next entry, Travel safe.