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Published: October 10th 2015
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We started our time in North India in Varanasi. After relaxing in Kerala, this was quite a shock to the system! Varanasi is completely, fantastically, wonderfully crazy - India concentrated and distilled. The old town is a maze of tiny alleyways, filled with people, monkeys, street vendors, goats, stalls, cows, motorbikes, restaurants, dogs... Beside it all runs the holy (and filthy) River Ganges, filled with pilgrim bathers and cremations along the ghats. A simple wander around takes forever and has you gawping the whole way. Varanasi makes you consider questions you'd never even thought about before - questions like "where do you turn when you're walking down a tiny alleyway, a motorbike is coming up behind you at 30mph, a corpse is being carried by a large procession down the side-alley, and a bull is mounting a cow and blocking the whole alleyway in front?" (Answer: rely on the bloke in the shop by the bull to come out and give it a big smack on the arse. The bull will wander off, apparently unconcerned that his shag has been interrupted.)
Other places in India are vibrant with life - Varanasi is vibrant with death. Every facet of life is
played out in public in front of your eyes in Varanasi, and as the most auspicious place to pop one's clogs as a Hindu (as it releases you from the chain of rebirth and sends you to heaven), death is the aspect most prominently, and most challengingly, visible. At the main burning ghat, Manikarnika, multiple pyres burn 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and the Ganges downstream is thick with human ashes (and apparently, due to the high price of ritual burning wood, the occasional charred torso - fortunately not something we actually saw!). It's a surreal experience to sit in a nice cafe or restaurant, sipping a lassi, watching corpses be carried past by a chanting procession every couple of minutes.
Next stop was Agra - nothing much to write home about, just some great photos. Obviously the Taj Mahal is stunning, and Agra Fort and the Baby Taj are also beautiful. The city itself is very dirty and hassly, but without any of the accompanying charm of Varanasi; still always worth visiting though, because the gorgeousness of the Taj just can't be overstated, no matter what hyperbole you hear. We talked to an Indian guy
a few days later who works as a tour guide, and reckons he's been to the Taj over 2000 times - he said his jaw still drops every time he walks through the gates, and I completely believe him.
Before heading back on the temple trail, we stopped for a few days in Ranthambore National Park to try and see a wild tiger - definitely a bucket list item, if I had a bucket list. We did three safaris in total, to maximise our chances without completely blowing the budget. Because we hadn't booked in advance, we were left with only the large 20 person vehicles. These would normally be fine, but we realised very quickly that while most of our fellow passengers were fine, upper class Indians can be terrible safari buddies. I don't know whether it's just being used to having servants, or whether it's a result of the (technically now illegal but still very visible) caste system, but with a large party on our first safari it was clear that they were just expecting our ranger to find us a tiger, at which point they'd start paying attention. It was very much "Tiger-wallah! Bring us a
tiger!" They spent the entire three hour trip shouting, giggling, and generally being rowdy - definitely not helpful when trying to spot shy and retiring wildlife. So, day one; no tiger, though we saw various deer and antelope, and some more interesting things like a mongoose and crocodiles.
On day two, we had a terrible ranger, who's tactic was just to drive as fast as possible round the tracks until he was behind another vehicle, then let them do the spotting. Needless to say, no tigers! Although we did (apparently) see the even rarer sloth bear off in the distance; Tania saw a smudge of black that may or may not have been the bear; I saw nothing at all. Exciting stuff on day two.
Day three - our final throw of the dice. Our hotel manager pulled some strings to get us onto a fully booked vehicle on what is supposed to be the best of the safari routes to see tigers in the morning, and we piled onto our over-laden truck with fingers and toes crossed. It didn't look promising for most of the drive; there were lots of signs of tigers having been around, but
no sign of actually seeing them. Then, right at the end of the safari, our driver heard some bird warning calls, then suddenly shouted "TIGER" and drove hell for leather around the edge of the lake. We sat for 20 minutes or so by the long grass edging the lake, starting to accept gloomily that this was another false alarm. Then the grass parted, and a beautiful female Bengal tiger came out. She wandered along the bank about 10 metres away from us, pausing to give us an unconcerned glance as she passed, before heading back into the grass a few metres further along and disappearing. It was a truly wonderful moment, one I will never forget.
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