June 14, 2006
In the morning I decided to take a one man rickshaw to my favourite restaurant where all the backpackers seem to cram into since it is the only decent and clean restaurant around. I felt kind of bad as I had this old man who was old enough to be my grandfather pulling me around for a couple blocks to the restaurant. At first he wanted double the rate because he said I was the size of two men but I held firm on 20 rupees (50 cents ;)).
The same night I grabbed a cab to the train station and I get out and take about 5 seconds to get my heavy backpack onto my back when a car slams into me jolting me forward. Shocked but getting really pissed off I turn around and start yelling "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!" until I see a cab full of Indians with looks of concern on their faces and the drivers eyes are bulging out of his head and he puts up his hands to indicate he is so sorry.
The taxi cabs in Calcutta are the 1940 type of vehicles with rounded bodies and high hoods which luckily rammed into my backpack which acted as a cushion from the impact. I shook my head thinking "Welcome to India, Kevin!". Inside the train station I checked my bag and find half my CD cases are broken but the CDs themselves have miraculously survived.
Many travelers had told me to get the second class Indian train tickets because they said they were almost like first class but half the price so I got a second class sleeper to Varanasi for 8:30pm. Once I found my coach I was completely shocked at how crowded it was and thought there was a mistake with my ticket since I was used to having my own cabin with 3 others in Vietnamese and Chinese trains but this coach didn't have doors and everyone had access to your bag when you slept which I didn't like. So many travelers have been ripped off while they sleep on the trains in India. The windows were open and had metal bars across and it was so hot from the weather and breathing that everyone was sweating like crazy. As I sat down on the bench I had two Indians on each side of me and 3 on the opposite bench staring back as our heads were 2 feet away from each other and it was hard to look forward and not look at the person in front of you. I felt like clapping my hands together and saying "Okay now! What shall we talk about for the next 14 hours?" ;). 30 minutes later I decided to jump up on my bunk and read my Dan Brown novel "Angels and Demons" and noticed that my legs went over the side of the bed by 1 1/2 feet! I don't care as I am reading my book and can occassionally feel peoples heads knocking against my feet which are overlapping the top bunk until one east indian starts freaking out in Hindi obviously about the feet situation and I snap back "Look at me! I am 6 foot 3 inches and can't possibly fit on these beds that they make for you people!!!". He storms off and I feel bad for venting so I bend my knees which makes it uncomfortable for reading and see the people on the bench below me looking up and laughing saying I was far to big for the bed. I wake up an hour before arriving and jump back down on the seat and many amputees and beggars are jumping on the train at the stops begging for change. One guy is missing a foot and has some big ball of flesh on the end of his leg. I gave him $1.
Varanasi is the holy city of India where Hindus come to die and be cremated where they believe they go to Nirvana. I call it the city of dead bodies since that is all I seem to see around here. 2 main fire pits burn 24 hours a day along the Ganges river and they burn a minimum of 180 bodies per day! There is a hospice right beside the crematory where many old Indians stay where they have up to 10 days to live and are on their deathbed. Children under 5 and holy men are not burned because they are considered "pure" and pregnant women are not burned either so their bodies are sunk in the Ganges river by tying rocks to their bodies.
Many families can't afford the wood to burn their deceased family members body so they are sunk as well. Sandalwood is the most expensive wood that rich businessmen can afford and they weigh the wood with a big metal scale.
As I walk along the sidewalk by the river there are kids playing cricket and cows are moving around as they please and you can usually see all the cows in the river cooling off. Looking up on the rooftops you can see monkeys playing around on the ledge 7 stories high.
I was chatting with the hotel owner who is very helpful with giving out information about India and says that 2 of his brothers have been living in Canada for 30 years. I asked him about snake charmers and he told me the same as the Calcutta cabbie saying they are from a nomadic tribe and never in the same place twice. His son then interrupted after listening and said he sees a guy with a couple baskets of snakes at the Shiva temple and he probably has a flute to play them and that he will bring me there the next morning when he goes. Well the next morning I wait for his son in the lobby when he comes through the lobby doors 15 minutes later telling me it was my lucky day saying he was walking down the road when he found a snake charmer by chance and brought him back to the hotel for me. So the snake charmer sits down and starts playing his funny looking flute and moves his fist a certain way in front of the cobra to get its attention but the snake isn't cooperating too much and lashing out at the snake charmers hand every once in awhile so then he opens the second basket and that snake starts moving up as he plays his flute. Then at the end he wraps the cobras around my neck telling me to hold them by the neck and I am a little surprised and apphrensive about this. They had told me the only people who are not burned and considered cursed from god are those who die from snake bite. So this was running through my mind as I had these cobras around my neck. I gave the snake charmer a couple bucks.
So now I can cross snake charmer off my To-do list in India and am now on the lookout for a yogi who can levitate at least 5 feet of the ground (Or yogis who have half decent teleportation skills would also qualify ;)).
Varanasi is like Venice where it has 3 foot alley ways throughout the city running everywhere like a maze with some dead ends. Cow dung, goat crap, and dog shit everywhere here! I guess you have to expect this when you literally live with animals and it is impossible not to step in it. I see goats eating shoes and all sorts of garbage that I didn't think was edible. The cows are big and about 1/3 bigger than regular milking cows back home but they have a big frame but are basically skin and bone.
Everyday 60,000 Indians go down to the Varanasi ghats for their holy dip in the Ganges river. Lonely Planet says there are 30 large sewers that are continuously discharging into the river and that water samples show that the water has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 100ML of water and that water that is safe for bathing should be less than 500!! (compared to 1,500,000 in the Ganges river). Water born diseases run rampant through the villages along the Ganges river not to mention the ashes of 200 people per day and all the sunken bodies so I will be taking my holy shower at the hotel thank you very much!
The hotel offered boat trips up and down the Ganges for $2us to checkout the burning ceremonies at 6:30pm every night so we rowed up to the main burning area where there were crowds of people and mostly family members of the deceased with the oldest son presiding over the ritual with a shaved head and white robes. There are 5 dead bodies lying on the steep staircase to the river and a few bodies on the stacked wood ready to be lit. Then we go back down the river to the nightly ceremonies where it is just crowded with Indians and rituals and clanking bells that can be hard on the ears after awhile. People light candles in bowls and let them sail down the river which looks great in the night.
Since I have been in India I have had incredible itching on my collar bone and back like I have been rolling around in insulation. I think it may have been from the bed in Calcutta since I only laid on my sleep sheet and didn't get inside of it but I am not sure. Sometimes it is a very pricky feeling that hurts when I touch it or rest my back and I am sure it will go away once I am out of India.
At 5am the next morning I went back for a sunrise boat trip along the Ganges watching many Indians coming down to the ghats for their morning dip. Many washing themselves, others washing clothes and some even brushing their teeth with the polluted water! My guide book says there are even 4000 dolphins in the Ganges river. As we walked through the alleys to the boat in the early morning there were lots of people sleeping outside where a mother and daughter would share a bed in the middle of the alley way and I saw 15 young men sleeping on towels on the cement by the river and can only assume they are homeless like so many others here. I now understand why east indians in Canada (and everywhere else for that matter) are cheap with their money and how they can live with many families under one roof because the motherland (India) is like that.
After the boat ride I was taken out to 3 temples and the third temple was the Monkey temple and was full of monkeys. As I entered, there were Indians on the side of the walking area sitting down with sandals with numbers on the sandals. Sometimes I can be pretty dense and when they were waving me over I thought they were trying to sell me some sandals so I would say "No sorry, I already have a pair of sandals and I see that you don't have my size anyhow". Once I got to the end I saw Indians taking their shoes off and giving them to the men on the side and handing them a rupee for their service.
Later on I went walking down my the Ganges river again on the side walk when I saw a dead body of a man just laying there. I went over to check it out and was going to give it a little kick to see if the old guy had any life in him when I see lots of Indians under a covered area looking up at me probably wondering what the hell I am doing so close to grandpa. I quickly kept moving just out of respect for the family.
Tonight I am off to the train station to catch my 11:35pm train to Satna where I arrive at 5:30am and then grab a autorickshaw across town to the bus station and go to Khajuraho.
Kevinder
In the morning I decided to take a one man rickshaw to my favourite restaurant where all the backpackers seem to cram into since it is the only decent and clean restaurant around. I felt kind of bad as I had this old man who was old enough to be my grandfather pulling me around for a couple blocks to the restaurant. At first he wanted double the rate because he said I was the size of two men but I held firm on 20 rupees (50 cents ;)).
The same night I grabbed a cab to the train station and I get out and take about 5 seconds to get my heavy backpack onto my back when a car slams into me jolting me forward. Shocked but getting really pissed off I turn around and start yelling "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!" until I see a cab full of Indians with looks of concern on their faces and the drivers eyes are bulging out of his head and he puts up his hands to indicate he is so sorry.
The taxi cabs in Calcutta are the 1940 type of vehicles with rounded bodies and high hoods which luckily rammed into my backpack which acted as a cushion from the impact. I shook my head thinking "Welcome to India, Kevin!". Inside the train station I checked my bag and find half my CD cases are broken but the CDs themselves have miraculously survived.
Many travelers had told me to get the second class Indian train tickets because they said they were almost like first class but half the price so I got a second class sleeper to Varanasi for 8:30pm. Once I found my coach I was completely shocked at how crowded it was and thought there was a mistake with my ticket since I was used to having my own cabin with 3 others in Vietnamese and Chinese trains but this coach didn't have doors and everyone had access to your bag when you slept which I didn't like. So many travelers have been ripped off while they sleep on the trains in India. The windows were open and had metal bars across and it was so hot from the weather and breathing that everyone was sweating like crazy. As I sat down on the bench I had two Indians on each side of me and 3 on the opposite bench staring back as our heads were 2 feet away from each other and it was hard to look forward and not look at the person in front of you. I felt like clapping my hands together and saying "Okay now! What shall we talk about for the next 14 hours?" ;). 30 minutes later I decided to jump up on my bunk and read my Dan Brown novel "Angels and Demons" and noticed that my legs went over the side of the bed by 1 1/2 feet! I don't care as I am reading my book and can occassionally feel peoples heads knocking against my feet which are overlapping the top bunk until one east indian starts freaking out in Hindi obviously about the feet situation and I snap back "Look at me! I am 6 foot 3 inches and can't possibly fit on these beds that they make for you people!!!". He storms off and I feel bad for venting so I bend my knees which makes it uncomfortable for reading and see the people on the bench below me looking up and laughing saying I was far to big for the bed. I wake up an hour before arriving and jump back down on the seat and many amputees and beggars are jumping on the train at the stops begging for change. One guy is missing a foot and has some big ball of flesh on the end of his leg. I gave him $1.
Varanasi is the holy city of India where Hindus come to die and be cremated where they believe they go to Nirvana. I call it the city of dead bodies since that is all I seem to see around here. 2 main fire pits burn 24 hours a day along the Ganges river and they burn a minimum of 180 bodies per day! There is a hospice right beside the crematory where many old Indians stay where they have up to 10 days to live and are on their deathbed. Children under 5 and holy men are not burned because they are considered "pure" and pregnant women are not burned either so their bodies are sunk in the Ganges river by tying rocks to their bodies.
Many families can't afford the wood to burn their deceased family members body so they are sunk as well. Sandalwood is the most expensive wood that rich businessmen can afford and they weigh the wood with a big metal scale.
As I walk along the sidewalk by the river there are kids playing cricket and cows are moving around as they please and you can usually see all the cows in the river cooling off. Looking up on the rooftops you can see monkeys playing around on the ledge 7 stories high.
I was chatting with the hotel owner who is very helpful with giving out information about India and says that 2 of his brothers have been living in Canada for 30 years. I asked him about snake charmers and he told me the same as the Calcutta cabbie saying they are from a nomadic tribe and never in the same place twice. His son then interrupted after listening and said he sees a guy with a couple baskets of snakes at the Shiva temple and he probably has a flute to play them and that he will bring me there the next morning when he goes. Well the next morning I wait for his son in the lobby when he comes through the lobby doors 15 minutes later telling me it was my lucky day saying he was walking down the road when he found a snake charmer by chance and brought him back to the hotel for me. So the snake charmer sits down and starts playing his funny looking flute and moves his fist a certain way in front of the cobra to get its attention but the snake isn't cooperating too much and lashing out at the snake charmers hand every once in awhile so then he opens the second basket and that snake starts moving up as he plays his flute. Then at the end he wraps the cobras around my neck telling me to hold them by the neck and I am a little surprised and apphrensive about this. They had told me the only people who are not burned and considered cursed from god are those who die from snake bite. So this was running through my mind as I had these cobras around my neck. I gave the snake charmer a couple bucks.
So now I can cross snake charmer off my To-do list in India and am now on the lookout for a yogi who can levitate at least 5 feet of the ground (Or yogis who have half decent teleportation skills would also qualify ;)).
Varanasi is like Venice where it has 3 foot alley ways throughout the city running everywhere like a maze with some dead ends. Cow dung, goat crap, and dog shit everywhere here! I guess you have to expect this when you literally live with animals and it is impossible not to step in it. I see goats eating shoes and all sorts of garbage that I didn't think was edible. The cows are big and about 1/3 bigger than regular milking cows back home but they have a big frame but are basically skin and bone.
Everyday 60,000 Indians go down to the Varanasi ghats for their holy dip in the Ganges river. Lonely Planet says there are 30 large sewers that are continuously discharging into the river and that water samples show that the water has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 100ML of water and that water that is safe for bathing should be less than 500!! (compared to 1,500,000 in the Ganges river). Water born diseases run rampant through the villages along the Ganges river not to mention the ashes of 200 people per day and all the sunken bodies so I will be taking my holy shower at the hotel thank you very much!
The hotel offered boat trips up and down the Ganges for $2us to checkout the burning ceremonies at 6:30pm every night so we rowed up to the main burning area where there were crowds of people and mostly family members of the deceased with the oldest son presiding over the ritual with a shaved head and white robes. There are 5 dead bodies lying on the steep staircase to the river and a few bodies on the stacked wood ready to be lit. Then we go back down the river to the nightly ceremonies where it is just crowded with Indians and rituals and clanking bells that can be hard on the ears after awhile. People light candles in bowls and let them sail down the river which looks great in the night.
Since I have been in India I have had incredible itching on my collar bone and back like I have been rolling around in insulation. I think it may have been from the bed in Calcutta since I only laid on my sleep sheet and didn't get inside of it but I am not sure. Sometimes it is a very pricky feeling that hurts when I touch it or rest my back and I am sure it will go away once I am out of India.
At 5am the next morning I went back for a sunrise boat trip along the Ganges watching many Indians coming down to the ghats for their morning dip. Many washing themselves, others washing clothes and some even brushing their teeth with the polluted water! My guide book says there are even 4000 dolphins in the Ganges river. As we walked through the alleys to the boat in the early morning there were lots of people sleeping outside where a mother and daughter would share a bed in the middle of the alley way and I saw 15 young men sleeping on towels on the cement by the river and can only assume they are homeless like so many others here. I now understand why east indians in Canada (and everywhere else for that matter) are cheap with their money and how they can live with many families under one roof because the motherland (India) is like that.
After the boat ride I was taken out to 3 temples and the third temple was the Monkey temple and was full of monkeys. As I entered, there were Indians on the side of the walking area sitting down with sandals with numbers on the sandals. Sometimes I can be pretty dense and when they were waving me over I thought they were trying to sell me some sandals so I would say "No sorry, I already have a pair of sandals and I see that you don't have my size anyhow". Once I got to the end I saw Indians taking their shoes off and giving them to the men on the side and handing them a rupee for their service.
Later on I went walking down my the Ganges river again on the side walk when I saw a dead body of a man just laying there. I went over to check it out and was going to give it a little kick to see if the old guy had any life in him when I see lots of Indians under a covered area looking up at me probably wondering what the hell I am doing so close to grandpa. I quickly kept moving just out of respect for the family.
Tonight I am off to the train station to catch my 11:35pm train to Satna where I arrive at 5:30am and then grab a autorickshaw across town to the bus station and go to Khajuraho.
Kevinder
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