June 8, 2006
Well as I said in my last email Raul and I were enjoying Kathmandu a lot and found the people very happy and friendly, the prices were cheap and the city seemed to have character. Definitely my favourite city to date. Some of the restaurants are very lively and one that we went to reminded me of "The Keg" back home but at 1/10 the price with lively music playing and steak dinners with veggies.
After hearing a few more stories about the Royal family massacre that happened in June, 2001 I decided to get the "official" news media story through the internet. The media said that the kings son was unhappy about his parents choice of bride for him so at a family gathering he pulled out a semi automatic gun and killed everyone including his parents and his 2 younger siblings before turning the gun on himself so conveniently wiping out all the heirs to the throne leaving the uncle (Kings brother) as the next in line who just so happened to be out of town that day when the massacre happened. No one in Nepal believes the media's story and all believe the present king is behind the killings and the Nepalese people don't accept this guy as king either. I guess it is like what the old roman judges used to say "Cui bono?" or "Who benefits?".
I think I mentioned how cheap the food is here in Kathmandu. 50 cents for a big heap of delicious chicken chowmein and you can fill yourself for around $2US if you are super hungry. I went for breakfast and met a young Nepalese waiter named Ram who is studying to be a journalist and he told me his two bedroom apartment that he shares with his roommate costs 900Rs ($13US) or $6.50 each per month in rent.
Raul and I went out to the Bodhnath Stupa which is one of the most famous Stupas here which has the two eyes and nose. They played mellow tibet music which was nice to listen to while we hung around the Stupa. Then we grabbed a 15 cent bus out to Durbar square and were shocked that they wanted foreigners to pay $10US to get in. Well it is hard to completely guard a little city from cheap backpackers so we casually left the ticket place and found some other back alleys to slip in for free. The city is mostly all bricks and has a lot of character. On our way back to Kathmandu on the 15 cent bus many local farming women jumped in the back with us where we were and we basically had their produce in our faces and no one could move it was so full.
Raul went out again hunting for Rhino tour deals and found this guy named Shiva who was very honest about prices and we liked him alot so we booked with him (He was 40% cheaper than the next guy). So on Sunday, June 4th our taxi driver picked us up at 8am and it was a 4 hour trip to Chitwan national park that has 932 sqKm of park and over 372 Rhinocerus' which is considerable down from 5 years ago when it had well over 500 and growing but poachers have killed many for their ivory horn. It was pouring rain when we showed up and thought it was going to be a wet day but it miraculously cleared up 10 minutes before setting out. We shared an elephant with an english couple who had just traveled India and had been out the day before on a mini safari. As we went through the jungle we had spiders jumping on us and cobwebs in our faces and after an hour we didn't see anything and then our elephant driver spotted a crocodile sleeping by the riverbed so we tried to sneak up to him for photos but it is kind of hard to sneak up on anyting when the earth is going BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! with each step the elephant made (Note to self: Elephants are not good for sneaking up on wild life). As we were halfway there the crocodile woke up and scurried into the river.
After another 30 minutes we finally found a big rhinocerus who was chowing down on grass and you could hear the roots of the huge clump of grass coming up with each mouthful he took. As we approached a pack of wild boars scurried into the bushes on hearing our arrival. After taking our pictures the driver got us up to within 10 feet of the rhinocerus which looked more like a giant armadillo which the way its thick skin looked (like a suit of armour). Every traveler I have met that did a safari in Africa has said that you only get within 2-3 miles of a rhino and have to look at it through binoculars.
On Tuesday June 6 I grabbed my 4pm bus to Calcutta. I was originally under the impression from Shiva that I would be leaving at 4pm and arriving at the border at 8 (pm?) and then cross the border and go through customs before catching a 9:30pm bus to Calcutta and getting there at 8AM the next day. Well our bus left at 4:45pm which worried me that I would miss my connecting bus to Calcutta but after 4 hours of driving and winding around mountains I asked the driver what time we would be at the border and he said "Tomorrow". At first I thought he was being a smartass so I said "OK fine, then what time will we be there at" and he says "8AM tomorrow" at which time I realize Shiva meant 8am and not 8pm (Just a simple assumption on my part but I would have rather flown it I knew this ahead of time). Well they had put me in the most uncomfortable seat possible for a guy 6'3 and was crammed in the front cabin with 10 others which I didn't mind thinking it would only be 4 hours of hell but when I realized it would be 16 hours of hell I made my way over people sleeping to get into the aisle where I decided I would be more comfortable there than in the cramped cabin behind the driver. Luckily a bus attendant saw me and kicked some poor Nepalese man out of his seat so I could ride in comfort (sometimes being white has its privileges ;)). I didn't sleep at all even though I was way more comfortable than before and got to the Indian border at 9AM and I went to the travel agency to get my other bus ticket and they told me I missed my bus because it will be another hour to get through customs and get a taxi to the closest India city "Siliguri" for my bus departure so I have to kill another 5 hours at the Nepal border so basically I sat down for a few beers.
Once I got to Siliguri I still had 2 hours to kill so looked around a bit and I can honestly feel the difference between Nepal and India. India is very dirty and I could feel bugs constantly crawling up my leg when I sat down and everything seems to have a thin film of dirt on it like it has never been cleaned. Also I am always amazed at how some people can make a living selling cheap items that no one seems to want. One guy seemed desperate to sell just one mere mango to me.
I get to Calcutta at 8AM and have read in my Lonely planet book that the Neelam hotel is spacey and has "character". I have now figured out that "character" is just a polite term for describing a shit pit. The paint is peeling off the walls to the point you don't even know what colour the room is. It is filthy and I tell the owner/manager that the bed sheets are dirty and he says "would you like me to change them?". I felt like saying "No, no! don't put yourself out, I love sleeping in dirty sheets that some stranger slept on before me'. Finally I just leave and try to find another place which is called the "classic hotel" and has a marble interior but is dirty none the less. Calcutta sure isn't the place to judge India but so far they seem to hate cleaning here. The sheets were clean but I have a sleepsheet now so it isn't a problem. The board of health would definitely shut down this city if it could.
I don't know how long I want to spend in Calcutta but thought I should give it 3 days so I book my train ticket for Saturday at 8:30pm to Varanasi (I should have booked it for a day earlier but oh well). I go to buy a train ticket and am told I have to go to the foreigners tourist bureau a block away so I go there and before I pay the 273 rupee fare ($6US for 14 hour train ride) they want to see a receipt from where I got my money. I show them that my last transaction was in Kathmandu and they want to know if I took money out in India and I tell them NO that I just got here from Nepal. If I didn't have a receipt I don't know if they would have sold me my train ticket and I also need to have my passport on hand when buying a train ticket which seems odd.
I go back to my hotel and the guy behind the counter comes up to me and says he wants to see my passport and I ask him what for? He says that I didn't fill out the information properly and the British consul has sent back the information to his hotel for me to fill out again. I tell him I have all my information memorized and they must be mistaken but sure enough it is the fact that I didn't put the full date of arrival in India. I just put "June 8" thinking anyone with half a brain could figure out the year but I stand corrected. Maybe they thought it could have been June 8, 1934 or June 8, 1857. You never know.
As I walked around Calcutta I was shocked at the poverty I saw. I see poverty everywhere I go when I travel but this was people who had no clothes sleeping on a street or maybe a shirt that hadn't been washed in a few months and you would be amazed at how thankful the people are when you give them just a mere 5 rupees (10 cents). Women with babies coming up to you and as I walked down the street I had a huge entourage following me like I was a celebrity. One guy wanted me to go to the new market which I heard about so I went in and of course everyone is following me. I see a sony walkman that I have been looking for to play all the music CDs I bought in Kathmandu and it is only $20US and it is also a VCD player where I can watch movies on the TV with it if they are VCDs.
There are water pumps on the side of the street where people can shower and shave and bath themselves or drink the water. I wanted to find a snake charmer which has always fascinated me about India where the snake charmer uses his flute to control the movements of the snake which seems to be in a hynotic trance. A taxi driver tells me that the snakecharmers belong to a nomadic tribe that travels around India so I won't find them in one spot for very long.
It has been awhile since I have been to the theater so I go to see the "Da Vinci code". As I am waiting in the lobby a camera crew is filming and I notice the camera swinging towards me a few times being the only white person in there and the crew finally comes over and asks if they can interview me. I say "sure" thinking we were going to be talking about movies or the Da Vinci Code. They ask me why I came to this theater and not one of the other multiplex theaters and I say I just arrived in Calcutta this morning and this was the first one I found that was playing the Da Vinci code. They then persist on asking me what I think about this theater and I tell them I haven't been in yet to see the seats or size of screen so I can't really judge it yet and then he gets more specific and says "but how do you like the main entry/lobby of this theater? I am thinking to myself that these questions are really boring so I look around the entrance to think of some positive words to describe it even though you would just consider it a cheap movie theater back home and I say "It is ummm.....Errrr.... Aaaaaaaa...... very nice?" That was the end of the interview haha.
The Da Vinci code was not as good as the book (what movie ever is?). As I left the theater it was dark and raining and I have a crowd of women with babies and a few other beggars around me wanting money. I give them a little bit and they won't go away and the crowd gets bigger. Finally they are following behind me so as I go around the last corner I sprint like hell to my hotel so they don't see me. It is pretty bad when you have to do this. "No" doesn't mean nothing around here. Where is Mother Teresa when you need her?
It isn't very hot here but you are constantly sweating even when you are sitting still. The power goes out every 30 minutes but the hotel has a generator. I got up early this morning to find an internet cafe and I can't believe the amount of homeless people sleeping on the streets. Very tough life and I am thoroughly depressed about these peoples miserable existence where they only think about their next meal and not to much about the future. Last night I had no change as I walked around thinking that nobody was on the streets and some guy missing a limb and something wrong with his eye wearing a filthy shirt trying to get some change from me. I felt bad but the whole place is like this.
Off to Varanasi tomorrow night (Saturday) and I will stay there a few nights then off to Khajuraho and then to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and then into Delhi to get my Pakistan visa before heading into the Rajastan area.
Kevin
Well as I said in my last email Raul and I were enjoying Kathmandu a lot and found the people very happy and friendly, the prices were cheap and the city seemed to have character. Definitely my favourite city to date. Some of the restaurants are very lively and one that we went to reminded me of "The Keg" back home but at 1/10 the price with lively music playing and steak dinners with veggies.
After hearing a few more stories about the Royal family massacre that happened in June, 2001 I decided to get the "official" news media story through the internet. The media said that the kings son was unhappy about his parents choice of bride for him so at a family gathering he pulled out a semi automatic gun and killed everyone including his parents and his 2 younger siblings before turning the gun on himself so conveniently wiping out all the heirs to the throne leaving the uncle (Kings brother) as the next in line who just so happened to be out of town that day when the massacre happened. No one in Nepal believes the media's story and all believe the present king is behind the killings and the Nepalese people don't accept this guy as king either. I guess it is like what the old roman judges used to say "Cui bono?" or "Who benefits?".
I think I mentioned how cheap the food is here in Kathmandu. 50 cents for a big heap of delicious chicken chowmein and you can fill yourself for around $2US if you are super hungry. I went for breakfast and met a young Nepalese waiter named Ram who is studying to be a journalist and he told me his two bedroom apartment that he shares with his roommate costs 900Rs ($13US) or $6.50 each per month in rent.
Raul and I went out to the Bodhnath Stupa which is one of the most famous Stupas here which has the two eyes and nose. They played mellow tibet music which was nice to listen to while we hung around the Stupa. Then we grabbed a 15 cent bus out to Durbar square and were shocked that they wanted foreigners to pay $10US to get in. Well it is hard to completely guard a little city from cheap backpackers so we casually left the ticket place and found some other back alleys to slip in for free. The city is mostly all bricks and has a lot of character. On our way back to Kathmandu on the 15 cent bus many local farming women jumped in the back with us where we were and we basically had their produce in our faces and no one could move it was so full.
Raul went out again hunting for Rhino tour deals and found this guy named Shiva who was very honest about prices and we liked him alot so we booked with him (He was 40% cheaper than the next guy). So on Sunday, June 4th our taxi driver picked us up at 8am and it was a 4 hour trip to Chitwan national park that has 932 sqKm of park and over 372 Rhinocerus' which is considerable down from 5 years ago when it had well over 500 and growing but poachers have killed many for their ivory horn. It was pouring rain when we showed up and thought it was going to be a wet day but it miraculously cleared up 10 minutes before setting out. We shared an elephant with an english couple who had just traveled India and had been out the day before on a mini safari. As we went through the jungle we had spiders jumping on us and cobwebs in our faces and after an hour we didn't see anything and then our elephant driver spotted a crocodile sleeping by the riverbed so we tried to sneak up to him for photos but it is kind of hard to sneak up on anyting when the earth is going BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! with each step the elephant made (Note to self: Elephants are not good for sneaking up on wild life). As we were halfway there the crocodile woke up and scurried into the river.
After another 30 minutes we finally found a big rhinocerus who was chowing down on grass and you could hear the roots of the huge clump of grass coming up with each mouthful he took. As we approached a pack of wild boars scurried into the bushes on hearing our arrival. After taking our pictures the driver got us up to within 10 feet of the rhinocerus which looked more like a giant armadillo which the way its thick skin looked (like a suit of armour). Every traveler I have met that did a safari in Africa has said that you only get within 2-3 miles of a rhino and have to look at it through binoculars.
On Tuesday June 6 I grabbed my 4pm bus to Calcutta. I was originally under the impression from Shiva that I would be leaving at 4pm and arriving at the border at 8 (pm?) and then cross the border and go through customs before catching a 9:30pm bus to Calcutta and getting there at 8AM the next day. Well our bus left at 4:45pm which worried me that I would miss my connecting bus to Calcutta but after 4 hours of driving and winding around mountains I asked the driver what time we would be at the border and he said "Tomorrow". At first I thought he was being a smartass so I said "OK fine, then what time will we be there at" and he says "8AM tomorrow" at which time I realize Shiva meant 8am and not 8pm (Just a simple assumption on my part but I would have rather flown it I knew this ahead of time). Well they had put me in the most uncomfortable seat possible for a guy 6'3 and was crammed in the front cabin with 10 others which I didn't mind thinking it would only be 4 hours of hell but when I realized it would be 16 hours of hell I made my way over people sleeping to get into the aisle where I decided I would be more comfortable there than in the cramped cabin behind the driver. Luckily a bus attendant saw me and kicked some poor Nepalese man out of his seat so I could ride in comfort (sometimes being white has its privileges ;)). I didn't sleep at all even though I was way more comfortable than before and got to the Indian border at 9AM and I went to the travel agency to get my other bus ticket and they told me I missed my bus because it will be another hour to get through customs and get a taxi to the closest India city "Siliguri" for my bus departure so I have to kill another 5 hours at the Nepal border so basically I sat down for a few beers.
Once I got to Siliguri I still had 2 hours to kill so looked around a bit and I can honestly feel the difference between Nepal and India. India is very dirty and I could feel bugs constantly crawling up my leg when I sat down and everything seems to have a thin film of dirt on it like it has never been cleaned. Also I am always amazed at how some people can make a living selling cheap items that no one seems to want. One guy seemed desperate to sell just one mere mango to me.
I get to Calcutta at 8AM and have read in my Lonely planet book that the Neelam hotel is spacey and has "character". I have now figured out that "character" is just a polite term for describing a shit pit. The paint is peeling off the walls to the point you don't even know what colour the room is. It is filthy and I tell the owner/manager that the bed sheets are dirty and he says "would you like me to change them?". I felt like saying "No, no! don't put yourself out, I love sleeping in dirty sheets that some stranger slept on before me'. Finally I just leave and try to find another place which is called the "classic hotel" and has a marble interior but is dirty none the less. Calcutta sure isn't the place to judge India but so far they seem to hate cleaning here. The sheets were clean but I have a sleepsheet now so it isn't a problem. The board of health would definitely shut down this city if it could.
I don't know how long I want to spend in Calcutta but thought I should give it 3 days so I book my train ticket for Saturday at 8:30pm to Varanasi (I should have booked it for a day earlier but oh well). I go to buy a train ticket and am told I have to go to the foreigners tourist bureau a block away so I go there and before I pay the 273 rupee fare ($6US for 14 hour train ride) they want to see a receipt from where I got my money. I show them that my last transaction was in Kathmandu and they want to know if I took money out in India and I tell them NO that I just got here from Nepal. If I didn't have a receipt I don't know if they would have sold me my train ticket and I also need to have my passport on hand when buying a train ticket which seems odd.
I go back to my hotel and the guy behind the counter comes up to me and says he wants to see my passport and I ask him what for? He says that I didn't fill out the information properly and the British consul has sent back the information to his hotel for me to fill out again. I tell him I have all my information memorized and they must be mistaken but sure enough it is the fact that I didn't put the full date of arrival in India. I just put "June 8" thinking anyone with half a brain could figure out the year but I stand corrected. Maybe they thought it could have been June 8, 1934 or June 8, 1857. You never know.
As I walked around Calcutta I was shocked at the poverty I saw. I see poverty everywhere I go when I travel but this was people who had no clothes sleeping on a street or maybe a shirt that hadn't been washed in a few months and you would be amazed at how thankful the people are when you give them just a mere 5 rupees (10 cents). Women with babies coming up to you and as I walked down the street I had a huge entourage following me like I was a celebrity. One guy wanted me to go to the new market which I heard about so I went in and of course everyone is following me. I see a sony walkman that I have been looking for to play all the music CDs I bought in Kathmandu and it is only $20US and it is also a VCD player where I can watch movies on the TV with it if they are VCDs.
There are water pumps on the side of the street where people can shower and shave and bath themselves or drink the water. I wanted to find a snake charmer which has always fascinated me about India where the snake charmer uses his flute to control the movements of the snake which seems to be in a hynotic trance. A taxi driver tells me that the snakecharmers belong to a nomadic tribe that travels around India so I won't find them in one spot for very long.
It has been awhile since I have been to the theater so I go to see the "Da Vinci code". As I am waiting in the lobby a camera crew is filming and I notice the camera swinging towards me a few times being the only white person in there and the crew finally comes over and asks if they can interview me. I say "sure" thinking we were going to be talking about movies or the Da Vinci Code. They ask me why I came to this theater and not one of the other multiplex theaters and I say I just arrived in Calcutta this morning and this was the first one I found that was playing the Da Vinci code. They then persist on asking me what I think about this theater and I tell them I haven't been in yet to see the seats or size of screen so I can't really judge it yet and then he gets more specific and says "but how do you like the main entry/lobby of this theater? I am thinking to myself that these questions are really boring so I look around the entrance to think of some positive words to describe it even though you would just consider it a cheap movie theater back home and I say "It is ummm.....Errrr.... Aaaaaaaa...... very nice?" That was the end of the interview haha.
The Da Vinci code was not as good as the book (what movie ever is?). As I left the theater it was dark and raining and I have a crowd of women with babies and a few other beggars around me wanting money. I give them a little bit and they won't go away and the crowd gets bigger. Finally they are following behind me so as I go around the last corner I sprint like hell to my hotel so they don't see me. It is pretty bad when you have to do this. "No" doesn't mean nothing around here. Where is Mother Teresa when you need her?
It isn't very hot here but you are constantly sweating even when you are sitting still. The power goes out every 30 minutes but the hotel has a generator. I got up early this morning to find an internet cafe and I can't believe the amount of homeless people sleeping on the streets. Very tough life and I am thoroughly depressed about these peoples miserable existence where they only think about their next meal and not to much about the future. Last night I had no change as I walked around thinking that nobody was on the streets and some guy missing a limb and something wrong with his eye wearing a filthy shirt trying to get some change from me. I felt bad but the whole place is like this.
Off to Varanasi tomorrow night (Saturday) and I will stay there a few nights then off to Khajuraho and then to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and then into Delhi to get my Pakistan visa before heading into the Rajastan area.
Kevin
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