Kathmandu
Trip Start
Oct 12, 2003
1
8
21
Trip End
Oct 11, 2004
Varanassi, Bombay, Goa, India
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Flew back to Varanassi to avoid the arse-aching bus or taxi ride. After only a few weeks I'd forgotten how mad the place is - the smells, the dirt, the pollution. But this time I was prepared for it and it was good to be back. The airport rickshaw driver totally misinterpreted the name of the hotel and we ended up on the wrong side of town. We then asked for a simpler named place - Yogi Lodge - but we still ended up at the wrong place - Ganga Yogi Lodge. This is a common ploy amongst the hotelliers - call it something similar to one listed in the popular guidebooks and people are bound to turn up (while we were on the train out of Varanasi a couple of days later there was even a bloke reading a book called "Successful copycat marketing").
Second day there we got dropped off miles from the hotel to get some Rupees then made our way back via GPS directions. From there..
- went to the place where they sell brand new 10 seater rickshaws pretending we were thinking of buying to ship back to canada. They gave us a tour round the vehicles and let us take photos
- were taken to the (apparently) goverment approved 'bhang lassi' shop. You make 'special' milkshakes from these bhang lassi balls. Then we were takes into some shady house where the local druglord told us he paid 20000 rupees monthly for a license to sell any drugs he wanted. Made a sharp exit.
- were lured into a silk shop where the assistant proceded to pick up, then throw out flat on the floor, about 300 silk sheets of varrying pattern, size, quality and colour before we submitted to their good value prices and actually bought some. The guy must have spent all night and the most of the next day refolding those bloody things
- got one of the hotel waiters to go back to the bhang lassi shop to get us 3 bhang lassi balls. What he brought back smelled of stale cowshit and we were convinced it contained water from the Ganga river. I think we've chucked them all away now. Well I hope so anyway...
The Indians are crazed. On the morning boatride past the ghats where they're all bathing, we saw people drinking and washing their mouths out with Ganga water whilst a little further down there was a dead cow floating. Further still is where the ashes of the dead and the non-burnt bodies of certain people (children, poor people, pregnant women and anyone with deadly snake bites) are introduced to the river.
27 hour train to Bombay with Pete and Voytek. Its Mumbai I know but everyone still says Bombay. Sat in a compartment with a french couple - he looks like someone who's famous in india and before we know it there's a big crowd of young indian lads blocking the aisle to smile and stare at this couple. Another crowd forms at the window to stare inwards until the train moves off. We're in 2nd Class non-a/c this time and things are a bit different. Loads of Indian people have non-sleeper tickets and they all pile on to the carriages of our class and below. Our carriage is fully booked up - everyone having a seat and then a bunk when night comes, so we all budge up and there are people perched on any available bit of chair or bunk going. Many sleep on the floor. The people are dead friendly and I get conversation and food from various people as I'm wandering between our compartment and the carriage intersections where if you're lucky you can sit in the open doorway and feel the cooler breeze while enjoying the scenery zip past.
Back in the compartment one of our new friends - a middle aged bloke has a broken trouser zip and another lad who's stoned all the time kneels down to help him with it and I think its only us westerners who are creasing ourselves as one blokee fiddles in the other's crotch.
We stop every few hours at a station for samosas and biscuits and can see the stations becoming more developed and organised as we travel south. Bombay... proper civilisation! London buses and roads where you don't leave footprints! But we're all ill. Pete and Voytek with some food poisoning or sorts and me with a nasty never-stop-sneezing cold. Voytek informs me that the procedure I had on the train - blowing my nose on a pair of briefs - wasn't as discreet as I thought it had been.
Stayed in the Carlton - behind the Taj Mahal hotel - for 2 nights. Went to see the thieves market (to buy seom fireworks), marine drive (to see the sunset), dhobi ghats (to see the remaining clothes washers at work before they are all redundant from the trend towards domestic washing machines). McDonalds was the only food I could face for the first 24 hours. Maharaja Mac went down a treat. Then next day posh lunch in a chinese and posh dinner with Pete's friend Nario who's living out there and had developed a thick indian accent in 2 months. Also visited the National Modern Art Gallery where I saw some painting I'd seen before in the Lowry. Small world.
On the way back to our hotel alone one morning I was approached by a friendly bloke who asked me if i wanted to be an extra in a Bollywood movie. He said I could bring friends too and we'd get transport to and from the location, lunch and 500 rupees (7 quid). We didn't have time.
Got a luxury coach to Goa. Another rally session through winding country roads. 12 hours journey from 8pm till 8am and I got about an hours kip. Arrived in Anjuna and chilled like residents - glad to be at the beach for the first time on my trip. Next day hired some bikes - a nippy scooter for me and proper bikes for the more experienced amongst us. A 150 ultra-fuel-efficient Baja Pulsar for Pete and an old-style meaty-sounding unltra-inefficient Enfield Bullet for Voytek. Went on a bender that night and sampled the Goan Trance thing till daylight where the resort manager found us sat on the roof of the apartment block.
Set off south with a daysack each. Wind in our hair through the hot sun seeing life unfold on the backstreets and coastal roads.... bliss.
