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Published: July 15th 2012
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Hello from India!
It's all a bit much really. At the end of each day, pretty much everything hurts. Your eyes are frazzled from sunshine on marble and sequined saris, your nose is lined with a constant incense/urine aroma, your ears are shot from endless turn it up to 11 bollywood soundtracks and car horns, tastebuds are shot from the never ending curry train, and skin is coated in mud and a nice paste of suncream, sweat and air pollution. Oh and you permanently have yellow fingernails from mopping up dahl with roti. But boy have I slept well here!! On an average day I will hit my head multiple times on the metal roof bars of rickshaws (and really wish I packed a sports bra for all the potholes), see dead dogs in the street, see people sleeping rough on the doorstep of designer clothes stores, and am confronted by a daily parade of goat, pig, cow, dog, buffalo, ox, donkey and camel.
My ongoing asian transport love-in is still growing. The Shatabdi Express is now my favourite train as it serves you numerous cups of tea and an aeroplane type meal on board! Although my sleeper bunk
was a little dissapointing when a rather 'healthy' looking rat was spotted below my bed. The rickshaws are hilarious with a continuing battle for non-existant change (often paid in sweeties) but at least they get you out the sun (I have recently taken to carrying a rag to cope with the face sweats - nice!!)
We came into India at the land boarder with Nepal and fled to the cooler hillstation of Darjeeling (Ghorkaland) where I was mega excited to see a great view of Kamgchenjunga (you try spelling that - complaints to Wikipedia) whilst wearing a jumper! Not sure which excited me more after all that Nepali heat. So strange to see houses that seem to have come straight from Yorkshire, with people driving Austin Ambassador taxis and using phrases like 'willy nilly' in official publications.
Kolkatta showed us its worst in its backstreets where for the first time I have seen kids walking about with no clothes at all, to its best at Mother Teresa's house where her work began and still continues with a soundtrack of Spanish 'Hallelujiah's both of which were moving in different ways. Didn't expect so many huge colonial buildings, especially enjoyed
the Victoria Memorial - but seemed glaring that the museum omitted information regarding the partitioning of Pakistan, and importantly none of the information was provided in Bengali.
I'm not sure anywhere is quite like Varanassi, the holy place for Hindu cremation. A place that in 1 day you see funeral pyres and mourning families in white, get girls wanting to decorate your hands in henna, see men playing cricket on the ghats, and kids jumping into the river. A wonderful place that gets your blood pumping and to quote a friend 'really makes you feel alive'.
It worked out that our next stops were of the arty kind. Khajeraho is filled with temples carved with erotic designs which are so intricately carved. Man with 7 girls? Check! Man with horse and spectators? Check! Then onto the big'un. The Taj. It really is a masterpiece. I didnt realise that as well as the monumental effort that went into errecting the mega struture, there were uncountable hours spent on the detail of the flower pattern inlays of precious stones. The gardens are manicured to within an inch of their lives. To be fair our visit had been far too much
in our own control that day so apparently it was important that 2 hours later we found ourselves with a guy tying knots in a carpet making shop.
Old Dehli and New Dehli couldnt be more different, with the Old giving up bazaars, textiles street markets and one of the worlds biggest mosques, and the new giving us Nike / United Colours of Benetton / Levi. Ironically not much to say about the nations capital, I was glad we didnt stay very long. Apologies Delhi.
Headed up to the Panjab and in changing states here you can see a change in wealth with three laned highways containing cars! Chandigah is a wierd place to get to, planned and built in the 50's after partition its a modernist designers concrete dream. After all the cows on the dirt paths, to come to a block planned new city with tarmac roads and curb stones its rather odd. I really miss the cows though. We visited Nek Chand's Rock Garden who is a chap that saw all the waste created in the city development that he made a secret world made of the rubbish!! It is like walking through a Tim
Burton film set, so imaginative and kind of twisted. My favourite pieces being women made solely of broken glass bangles, and monkeys made of discarded shisha pipes. Why there was a real life camel in the centre stumped me.
But after much planning I think I've got the essence of travel here - just give in - you can only do what you want to do 40% of the time, 60% of the time - no chance, its the India factor. This is lubricated by people outright lying to your face ('no public transport is travelling to Darjeeling but we can do you a car at 10x the price' - lies!), to the sheer number of people (try booking trains during school holidays), or to the heat (really - the South of India pre-monsoon??). But you soon suck it up and after a lassi and a 'non-veg' meal plans soon get sorted (no meat options here, just 'veg or non-veg, love it).
Back to the tissues and iced lemon tea now to try and combat this cold - urgh!
Lots of love
A x x
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