We started our big adventure to Nepal off by saying good-bye to the lovely people in my life. Jonathan arrived in Trichy on Friday afternoon. Durga and I had been talking about food the day before and it came up that Jonathan would love this spicy dried fish collombu (gravy to put on rice). So Jonathan arrived on Friday to a homemade lunch by Durga. We all ate together and awkwardly laughed as we talked about gender roles. I purposely try to defy gender roles when I am with Durga and Jonathan just to show Durga that it is okay for Jonathan to wash my plate. The world will not stop! And Durga mumbling under her breath about my 'duties' doesn't stop either!!
That evening, Durga, Jonathan, and I all met up with her son Mahindra at a restaurant downtown. We ate a meal together. Ravanan was supposed to come but he had work to do so we got food to go for him. On the way back to the bus stand Durga insisted on buying Jonathan and I grapes and strawberries. It was so nice of her. They were tasty and we enjoyed them as breakfast and a snack on the morning train. We got back home and gave Ravanan his tandoori chicken and dosa. He smiled, thanked us, and went to his room to enjoy!
We then arrived back in our lovely room to find out that the sink had been running the whole time and had flooded the room! So we spent our evening mopping and trying to push water into drains that don't really work! It was humorous and just one of those things that only happens because you are about to go on holiday!
We awoke early to get ready for our train ride to Chennai. We nervously drank coffee and ate fruit just silently hoping that everything goes as planned. We got to the train station an hour early only to find that we were way too eager as the train had not arrived yet. Durga and Mahindra met us at the station to help us get on and into our seats. Durga also bought us a cool drink. She is so motherly and just wanted to make sure we were okay. She is so beautiful. She stood outside my window on the train and just looked at me. I was overwhelmed by her beauty and love. We were quickly on our way to Chennai. The train moved fast through rice paddies that were quite different from the ones we see around where Jonathan lives. The rice paddies that we saw were mass producing plantations. You would see a group of women all in the field tending to the crop. It was a beautiful image. We got to Chennai and made our way to the other train station and nervously got some food in a nearby hotel. We were so nervous about getting on our train and it all working out because of our visas. We finally got situated on our train - it was a piece of cake. The train started to roll out of the station and we smiled at each other with excitement and those nervous feelings evaporating.
Our two nights and full day on the train was fun. We made the most of it. We enjoyed watching the many different landscapes just breeze by in the window. We saw everything - rice paddies, wheat fields, mustard fields, villages, little towns, mountains, savannahs, rivers, livestock, forests, humans doing their daily rituals, cities, etc - and it was all so beautiful. We also experienced our first scam of our trip on the train. On one of the stops this man approached us with meals and shoved them at us saying they were the ones that we ordered. We did order meals but from the train attendant. He was wearing a train attendants shirt under a sweatshirt and he was forceful that he needed the money for the meals that we ordered. We slowly handed over our large amount of money not quite sure if it was the real deal or not. The food was cold and clearly not what we ordered but we thought maybe we got it wrong. Nope! Sure enough the real train attendant walked by soon with our evening meals. We laughed it off and ate too much food that was not all that delicious!
The morning that we arrived in Varanasi was amazing. We woke up early and watched the sunrise on the train. We zoomed by small villages outside of Varanasi and along the Ganges. We watched as dozens of men came out with their water bottles of water to go to the toilet alongside where the train was going by or out in the field somewhere. We noticed that there were no women out going to the toilet but I hypothesized that the women were all up earlier than everyone else because they had to cook before everyone went off to school or work, so therefore they had already gone to the toilet. We got off the train in Varanasi to men bombarding us with offers for autos and hotels. We tried to walk out of the station to find an auto that was not a salesman but an auto driver followed us right out of the station and insisted that we take his auto. He was funny and recited many slogans that were obviously family planning tactics from the government. We got out of his auto after agreeing several times that two children is best for the family and the community. He also told us some slogan about college, "no college, no knowledge" - there were several slogans that we heard a number of times from different people, obviously propaganda from the government.
We walked to our guest house, ate some real hot food that was not train fare, took hot showers, and put on fresh clothes! We spent the day walking around Varanasi and enjoying the beautiful (yet all at the same time, extremely dirty) Ganges river. You just cannot even imagine the things we saw. People bathing in the dirty river, people without several limbs begging, children and grown men playing cricket, animals being washed in the Ganges, people going to the toilet right into a stream that drains in the Ganges, chai stalls, children flying kites so high in the sky, boats with fisherman, boats with tourists, a ghat made for the burning of bodies, and so much more that I cannot even begin to capture. We decided to head up one of the ghats to see the city. We soon had a follower. This young man who has a shop decided to be our tour guide even though we said we didn't want one. He just kept following us until we finally decided that he wasn't going away. He told us he didn't want our money and that he was just really proud of his home city and liked to share the beauty of it with outsiders...haha. He brought us to this temple but could only take us in one at a time. Jonathan went first and I stood on this overcrowded street where a little mob fight took place. It was a little scary but it all boiled down to Indians inability to stand in an orderly line. I was next to go see the beautiful gold covered temple but right when we got to the gate the police officer threatened to hit our lovely tour guide and then shoved us out of the way. I have never been pressed so tight between people and scared of what an angry crowd could do. I held on to my photo copy of my passport that Jonathan handed me before we split up and just hoped that I wouldn't need it. I finally reached Jonathan and grabbed his hand - I was not separating again! Our lovely guide then led us conveniently to his over priced shop. He then also told us that it was nice to tip people who show you around...haha, I knew there was a catch! We sat in his shop where he showed us all the fine silk he had and some other items. He made his shop boy go and buy us tea. We sat there drinking tea while he tried to sell us all the silk he could. Jonathan caved and bought a beautiful scarf and I bought a cheaper cotton scarf with Hindi script on it. The entire day I had been observing differences between South India and North India and this is the first place that a big difference really hit me. In North India you see a lot of children who are not in school, they are either working, just out on the streets, or they are begging. It was sad and I felt incredibly sad for the little boy in that shop that went and got us tea. He deserved to be in school just as all the children I encountered on our trip who were not in school deserved to be educated. It reminded me again of just another way that the Indian education system has let its citizens down. We finished off our evening with some food and beer just relaxing and admiring the beautiful Ganges.
The next morning we woke up way too early to catch a morning boat ride along the Ganges to watch Varanasi and the sun wake up. We got into a boat with a young man who charged too much and didn't really take us to where we wanted to go. There were also these two little girls who got into our boat and made us these little prayer baskets filled with flowers and a candle. You put them into the Ganges and watch your prayers float away. We each set five of them go. I sent mine down the river with thoughts of my family, Durga, Ravanan, and my trip ahead with Joanthan. It was all so beautiful and sweet until those adorable little girls demanded 500 rupees! We didn't have the money on us but they assured us they would find us later. Our boat ride continued but was cut seriously short. We didn't protest we were excited to walk along the river by ourselves. We then headed back to our hotel room to check out and head on our way to Nepal. As we came up to the water front entrance to our hotel we realized we had been ripped off and avoided the girls. We giggled as we ran up the stairs. We checked out and then exited our guest house from the front where believe it or not those two little adorable girls found us!!! They yelled up the street to us. I stopped and was very firm with them that they were wrong about the price because another woman tried to sell them to me for 10 rupees a piece and with the money I was about to give them it was double that price. I gave them 200 rupees and called it even. The younger sister knew that was accurate and announced that she would like a tip while the older sister was trying to demand that it was the wrong amount. We all walked away with no protest.
We then made our way to the bus station where we caught a bus to a border town in India that would allow us to get to Nepal. We sat on the oldest and most uncomfortable bus for over 10 hours. We stopped for a meal in the evening and Jonathan got off first to eat at this small stall that served roti and some gravy with a boiled egg in it. I then got off and enjoyed mine but as I was half way through eating I saw the bus rolling by slowly with Jonathan attempting to tell the bus driver that I was right there. He was waving frantically to me. I took a massive bite and threw my 50 rupee note at the man, got my change, and sprinted for the bus which never came to a halt! With egg still in my mouth I sat next to Jonathan relieved that I made it on the bus while proclaiming that the food was the most amazing food ever!! We gleefully enjoyed the next 20 minutes of our bus ride as we felt the warm food in our tummies! We then got to our final destination late in the evening. It was too late to cross the border so we stayed in this dirty run down lodge. They were super nice and gave us all the forms we needed so that we could fill them out before we got there. He also then pulled out a beer from under the counter and asked if we needed any. It was funny and quite odd! We enjoyed our beer while filling out the forms and discussing how nervous we were to cross the border.
We rose early as we didn't sleep well. We headed for the border. It was really rather anti-climatic which was good. We then gleefully ate breakfast and bought our ticket to Pokhara. No big deal just another 8 hours on a bus! Our bus ride turned into a 10 hour bus ride due to a strike taking place and the road being closed off. We sat on this super small bus with no leg room for what seemed like an eternity. Once we got moving again the views from the window became more and more beautiful. We followed a river all the way until we reached Pokhara. But by the time we had gotten to Pokhara the sun had already set so we were unsure of what was really around us. We got off the bus to once again be bombarded with men trying to get us into their taxis. We avoided them and walked around looking for an atm - we had literally no money. Its truly not a good idea to arrive in a foreign city where you have no idea where you are going and with no money in your pockets - lesson learned! We finally found an atm that worked and the most beautiful taxi driver ever. He agreed to drive us up a mountain road that was really not built for small cars to navigate but he did it. He must have really needed the money. He helped us figure out how to get to our lodge and left us with his number. He would become our official taxi driver while in Pokhara! Luckily a local man decided to show us up the trail to our lodge. Cars cannot make it to the guest house where we were staying. He hiked us up the rather steep trail. Both of our bodies were sort of in shock after being cramped up in a train and bus for the past few days and the altitude did not help. We finally reached our beautiful guest house where the owners prepared us dinner in their own kitchen and we were soon fast asleep!
That evening, Durga, Jonathan, and I all met up with her son Mahindra at a restaurant downtown. We ate a meal together. Ravanan was supposed to come but he had work to do so we got food to go for him. On the way back to the bus stand Durga insisted on buying Jonathan and I grapes and strawberries. It was so nice of her. They were tasty and we enjoyed them as breakfast and a snack on the morning train. We got back home and gave Ravanan his tandoori chicken and dosa. He smiled, thanked us, and went to his room to enjoy!
We then arrived back in our lovely room to find out that the sink had been running the whole time and had flooded the room! So we spent our evening mopping and trying to push water into drains that don't really work! It was humorous and just one of those things that only happens because you are about to go on holiday!
We awoke early to get ready for our train ride to Chennai. We nervously drank coffee and ate fruit just silently hoping that everything goes as planned. We got to the train station an hour early only to find that we were way too eager as the train had not arrived yet. Durga and Mahindra met us at the station to help us get on and into our seats. Durga also bought us a cool drink. She is so motherly and just wanted to make sure we were okay. She is so beautiful. She stood outside my window on the train and just looked at me. I was overwhelmed by her beauty and love. We were quickly on our way to Chennai. The train moved fast through rice paddies that were quite different from the ones we see around where Jonathan lives. The rice paddies that we saw were mass producing plantations. You would see a group of women all in the field tending to the crop. It was a beautiful image. We got to Chennai and made our way to the other train station and nervously got some food in a nearby hotel. We were so nervous about getting on our train and it all working out because of our visas. We finally got situated on our train - it was a piece of cake. The train started to roll out of the station and we smiled at each other with excitement and those nervous feelings evaporating.
Our two nights and full day on the train was fun. We made the most of it. We enjoyed watching the many different landscapes just breeze by in the window. We saw everything - rice paddies, wheat fields, mustard fields, villages, little towns, mountains, savannahs, rivers, livestock, forests, humans doing their daily rituals, cities, etc - and it was all so beautiful. We also experienced our first scam of our trip on the train. On one of the stops this man approached us with meals and shoved them at us saying they were the ones that we ordered. We did order meals but from the train attendant. He was wearing a train attendants shirt under a sweatshirt and he was forceful that he needed the money for the meals that we ordered. We slowly handed over our large amount of money not quite sure if it was the real deal or not. The food was cold and clearly not what we ordered but we thought maybe we got it wrong. Nope! Sure enough the real train attendant walked by soon with our evening meals. We laughed it off and ate too much food that was not all that delicious!
The morning that we arrived in Varanasi was amazing. We woke up early and watched the sunrise on the train. We zoomed by small villages outside of Varanasi and along the Ganges. We watched as dozens of men came out with their water bottles of water to go to the toilet alongside where the train was going by or out in the field somewhere. We noticed that there were no women out going to the toilet but I hypothesized that the women were all up earlier than everyone else because they had to cook before everyone went off to school or work, so therefore they had already gone to the toilet. We got off the train in Varanasi to men bombarding us with offers for autos and hotels. We tried to walk out of the station to find an auto that was not a salesman but an auto driver followed us right out of the station and insisted that we take his auto. He was funny and recited many slogans that were obviously family planning tactics from the government. We got out of his auto after agreeing several times that two children is best for the family and the community. He also told us some slogan about college, "no college, no knowledge" - there were several slogans that we heard a number of times from different people, obviously propaganda from the government.
We walked to our guest house, ate some real hot food that was not train fare, took hot showers, and put on fresh clothes! We spent the day walking around Varanasi and enjoying the beautiful (yet all at the same time, extremely dirty) Ganges river. You just cannot even imagine the things we saw. People bathing in the dirty river, people without several limbs begging, children and grown men playing cricket, animals being washed in the Ganges, people going to the toilet right into a stream that drains in the Ganges, chai stalls, children flying kites so high in the sky, boats with fisherman, boats with tourists, a ghat made for the burning of bodies, and so much more that I cannot even begin to capture. We decided to head up one of the ghats to see the city. We soon had a follower. This young man who has a shop decided to be our tour guide even though we said we didn't want one. He just kept following us until we finally decided that he wasn't going away. He told us he didn't want our money and that he was just really proud of his home city and liked to share the beauty of it with outsiders...haha. He brought us to this temple but could only take us in one at a time. Jonathan went first and I stood on this overcrowded street where a little mob fight took place. It was a little scary but it all boiled down to Indians inability to stand in an orderly line. I was next to go see the beautiful gold covered temple but right when we got to the gate the police officer threatened to hit our lovely tour guide and then shoved us out of the way. I have never been pressed so tight between people and scared of what an angry crowd could do. I held on to my photo copy of my passport that Jonathan handed me before we split up and just hoped that I wouldn't need it. I finally reached Jonathan and grabbed his hand - I was not separating again! Our lovely guide then led us conveniently to his over priced shop. He then also told us that it was nice to tip people who show you around...haha, I knew there was a catch! We sat in his shop where he showed us all the fine silk he had and some other items. He made his shop boy go and buy us tea. We sat there drinking tea while he tried to sell us all the silk he could. Jonathan caved and bought a beautiful scarf and I bought a cheaper cotton scarf with Hindi script on it. The entire day I had been observing differences between South India and North India and this is the first place that a big difference really hit me. In North India you see a lot of children who are not in school, they are either working, just out on the streets, or they are begging. It was sad and I felt incredibly sad for the little boy in that shop that went and got us tea. He deserved to be in school just as all the children I encountered on our trip who were not in school deserved to be educated. It reminded me again of just another way that the Indian education system has let its citizens down. We finished off our evening with some food and beer just relaxing and admiring the beautiful Ganges.
The next morning we woke up way too early to catch a morning boat ride along the Ganges to watch Varanasi and the sun wake up. We got into a boat with a young man who charged too much and didn't really take us to where we wanted to go. There were also these two little girls who got into our boat and made us these little prayer baskets filled with flowers and a candle. You put them into the Ganges and watch your prayers float away. We each set five of them go. I sent mine down the river with thoughts of my family, Durga, Ravanan, and my trip ahead with Joanthan. It was all so beautiful and sweet until those adorable little girls demanded 500 rupees! We didn't have the money on us but they assured us they would find us later. Our boat ride continued but was cut seriously short. We didn't protest we were excited to walk along the river by ourselves. We then headed back to our hotel room to check out and head on our way to Nepal. As we came up to the water front entrance to our hotel we realized we had been ripped off and avoided the girls. We giggled as we ran up the stairs. We checked out and then exited our guest house from the front where believe it or not those two little adorable girls found us!!! They yelled up the street to us. I stopped and was very firm with them that they were wrong about the price because another woman tried to sell them to me for 10 rupees a piece and with the money I was about to give them it was double that price. I gave them 200 rupees and called it even. The younger sister knew that was accurate and announced that she would like a tip while the older sister was trying to demand that it was the wrong amount. We all walked away with no protest.
We then made our way to the bus station where we caught a bus to a border town in India that would allow us to get to Nepal. We sat on the oldest and most uncomfortable bus for over 10 hours. We stopped for a meal in the evening and Jonathan got off first to eat at this small stall that served roti and some gravy with a boiled egg in it. I then got off and enjoyed mine but as I was half way through eating I saw the bus rolling by slowly with Jonathan attempting to tell the bus driver that I was right there. He was waving frantically to me. I took a massive bite and threw my 50 rupee note at the man, got my change, and sprinted for the bus which never came to a halt! With egg still in my mouth I sat next to Jonathan relieved that I made it on the bus while proclaiming that the food was the most amazing food ever!! We gleefully enjoyed the next 20 minutes of our bus ride as we felt the warm food in our tummies! We then got to our final destination late in the evening. It was too late to cross the border so we stayed in this dirty run down lodge. They were super nice and gave us all the forms we needed so that we could fill them out before we got there. He also then pulled out a beer from under the counter and asked if we needed any. It was funny and quite odd! We enjoyed our beer while filling out the forms and discussing how nervous we were to cross the border.
We rose early as we didn't sleep well. We headed for the border. It was really rather anti-climatic which was good. We then gleefully ate breakfast and bought our ticket to Pokhara. No big deal just another 8 hours on a bus! Our bus ride turned into a 10 hour bus ride due to a strike taking place and the road being closed off. We sat on this super small bus with no leg room for what seemed like an eternity. Once we got moving again the views from the window became more and more beautiful. We followed a river all the way until we reached Pokhara. But by the time we had gotten to Pokhara the sun had already set so we were unsure of what was really around us. We got off the bus to once again be bombarded with men trying to get us into their taxis. We avoided them and walked around looking for an atm - we had literally no money. Its truly not a good idea to arrive in a foreign city where you have no idea where you are going and with no money in your pockets - lesson learned! We finally found an atm that worked and the most beautiful taxi driver ever. He agreed to drive us up a mountain road that was really not built for small cars to navigate but he did it. He must have really needed the money. He helped us figure out how to get to our lodge and left us with his number. He would become our official taxi driver while in Pokhara! Luckily a local man decided to show us up the trail to our lodge. Cars cannot make it to the guest house where we were staying. He hiked us up the rather steep trail. Both of our bodies were sort of in shock after being cramped up in a train and bus for the past few days and the altitude did not help. We finally reached our beautiful guest house where the owners prepared us dinner in their own kitchen and we were soon fast asleep!
Very glad that the border crossing was "anti-climatic"! (Also glad that ATMs now exist.) These entries are utterly fascinating and often mesmerizing, Kylie. I can't wait for your log to continue!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, you'll soon be with Mark & Lois. Show them your lives, share your experiences. I rejoice that you'll have some shared memories of India that you'll continue to share for the rest of your lives. That's just great, and it's good, and it's right!