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Coming from the UK,
you tend to forget that train journeys (or in our case a combined
train-coach-plane journey) can take four or five days. Still, big train
journey number two, a piffling 3000km from one end of India to the other
is, thus far, a considerable improvement on our experience of a month
ago. Largely because we paid someone from our (surprisingly) swanky
hotel to go to the train station and queue for our tickets. Sounds
terrible, I know, but I just look on it as a valuable contribution to
the local economy. Besides, this time we got the tickets we paid for.
Old Vomit
That said, the first leg, our coach journey (only 602km) from Katmandu
to Varanasi, was the worst I have ever taken, mainly because the bus had
no suspension. We drove through Nepal in the dark which was probably for
the best - as there is nothing you can do about the 200m cliff on your
right, you may as well not see it. The tedium of traveling in the dark
was ameliorated somewhat by the usual succession of military checkpoints
and the DOW (disgusting old woman). The DOW puked almost solidly from
Katmandu to the Nepali border making a variety of noises more normally
associated with the Alien films. Even when we stopped she continued
vomiting, usually by sticking her fingers (or at one point, it appeared,
her entire fist) down her throat. I know it’s considered insensitive to
carp about those who are ill, but after five hours of solid (as it were)
regurgitation, I had to conclude she was simply a revolting human being.
At the border we lost the DOW (along with anything that remained in her
stomach) and switched coaches, finding ourselves seated in front of an
Israeli couple. He was nice enough, she, sporting nose rings and garbed
in ethno-tat, utterly obnoxious. When Jane went to put her seat back,
she objected with surprising venom, shrieking that she didn’t have
enough room for her legs. Well, replied Jane, the people in front of us
have their seats back and you have your seat back, so it seems only fair
that we should be allowed ours back. But this logic cut little ice: her
Elle McPherson-like legs required Jane’s seat to be fully upright.
Eventually a bad natured compromise was reached with several hours
bitching and kicking from behind. Funnily enough, when we got off the
coach, I noticed that although she was several inches taller than Jane,
her legs were markedly shorter, giving her a curious, malproportioned
aspect. Poor love, Jane’s inconsiderate insistence on having her seat
back must have crushed them.
Staying with God
Arriving back in India is a culture shock in the rare real sense of the
expression. Both India and Nepal are poor, but Nepal is small and bijou
– cute, cuddlesome poverty. India is all chaos and casual squalor. And
the Indians last took the rubbish out back in the early 1950s. We
finally left our bus noir in Varanasi, Hinduism’s holiest city on the
banks of the Ganges. I must say, I didn’t really give a toss about
Varanasi, but Jane was interested and it turned out she was right. We
wound up with a rickshaw driver who became our best mate (although he
was probably ripping us off and from the term of address he was using I
couldn’t tell whether he was being deferential or insulting). Our first
stop was the ATM. Largely for cultural reasons the Indian banking system
is underdeveloped and ATMs are a novelty in Varanassi - our man had a
great keeness for them: ‘Very small box! You put in numbers! New
currency comes out!’ he repeated with considerable enthusiasm.
Replete with he rupees we motored on to the aforementioned surprisingly
swanky hotel, an oasis of calm amongst the usual frenetic mess. In
Varanasi – and, to some extent most Indian cities – many of the hotels/
travel agents/ eateries are named after Hindu deities. Viz: the Vishnu
guesthouse; the Ganeesh Garage; Shiva’s restaurant etc. This has
certainly set me thinking about gaps in the home market. As soon as I
get back to London I shall be casting around for investors in the Jesus
Christ Hotel and the Holy Ghost Bar and Grill.
Yes, your Dog Would.
Disappointingly the Ganges - which is reputed to be filthy and full of
corpses - appeared to be little dirtier than the Thames (though I
suppose you can’t see coliform bacteria) and had a notable lack of
floaters. But, by way of recompense, our boatman rowed us past one of
the ‘Buring Ghats’ where, yes, they do burn bodies. Being a culturally
insensitive tourist (natch) I took a couple of snaps, though hopefully
from a discrete distance. Closer and we could see the burning ghat was
covered in huge piles of firewood while down the centre steps the dead,
wrapped in their finery were appearing every ten minutes, awaiting their
turn to be burnt. Very moving, I thought, this vicarious sharing of
private grief…but my attention was soon diverted by the cute baby puppy
who was dragging something out of the embers of a pyre which he
proceeded to attack with enthusiasm. Aieeee! It looked like a leg of
pork, but not many pigs wear sandals…
Satisfied that we had we had seen a real live dead body (or at least
leg) we left Varanasi and are now in Delhi waiting for the Kerela
express which takes 48 hours to get to Trivandrum where we are meeting
Dominic and Emma. I have to say I am greatly looking forward to seeing
people who know the real – rather than the polite – me.
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