| Oct 13, 2005 - India In Your Face (Part I)
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 | | show all 7 | | the Taj Mahal | | sacred cow | | A scene from the Ganges | | |
| We were warned about people with missing or deformed limbs begging for money, pollution and garbage, public urination and defecation, and the genuine malay that is India. The sights and smells and crush of people in one of the most populous land spaces on earth are about what you'd expect. The streets are madness with bicycles, rickshaws, tuk tuks, taxis and buses swerving to miss the sacred cows who roam or sit oblivious to it all. Despite all of this, it is a positive unique and interesting experience to be here (though definately foreign!)
Day 1-2- We first arrived into Delhi and apart from the requisite Red Fort (tourist site) and our first taste of spicy curries, we attempted to make onward arrangements. The train station was a complete ambush. The quantity of people normally in a football stadium crammed into a shoebox - or at least that's what it felt like. I prepped Paul, based upon reading, that all of the people "just trying to help us" (in attempt to lead us to pricier travel agencies for tickets) would say the international tourist office was closed. After brushing off no less than 20 of these men, the office HAD actually closed at 2pm (Sunday hours.) We learned this from Mark, a Scot, whom we met at the station. One of the men who told Paul the office was closed reapproached him and attempted to guilt him by being very "insulted" and "offended." (Very cunning are these men in pursuit of their commissions.) Instead, we brushed him off again and had a beer with our new friend, Mark.
Day 3- We took the 6a.m. train - after another scramble to find the right ticket window - to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. After having some woman's elderly companion try to pick my pockets while she pretended to be interested in where I was from, the heaving crowd of women pushed through the metal detectors about three at a time to get into the Taj Mahal general entrance gate.
I never knew this was a "monument of love" built by one of the mughal emperors in honor of his second wife upon her death (as in multiple wives, not after divorce....Paul wondered what the first wife got?)
The white marble domed structure came into view while walking under a short dark archway. A small watery stream flows the length of the grounds leading up to the Taj (which seems to be very characteristic of the Arabic architecture we've seen - in fact, Paul keeps saying 'the Muslim world tour continues...') It was a stunning view to sit in the gardens of the Taj Mahal and watch the locals in their brilliant colored saaris wander through. We had anticipated sunset after reading the Taj turns golden to pink to red and finally blue. Unfortunately, the thick polluted air gave way to golden, pink?, gray, darker gray and black. Oh well.
Days 5-7- We took an overnight train to Varanasi which is the city of Shiva, one of the holiest places in India and is on the Ganges river. People come here to die because it is thought this will liberate them from the cycle of birth and death. Our first morning, we tiptoed the dirt streets around trash, cow patties and open sewers and saw silk shops with weavers using hand-made techniques, street vendors making chapati and paneer (bread and cottage cheese) and tried to absorb (but not smell) the atmosphere!
That night the streets not involved in the power outage were lit up, drum music played and women, men and children were celebrating a two day holiday. The best we could tell, it was their equivalent of the Union Street Fair on a nationwide scale.
The real focus of Varanasi is the ghats (or riverside promenades) which are concrete steps or slabs divided into 360 individually named ghats along the Ganges. We took a sunrise rowboat ride down the Ganges to experience people going about their everyday lives including bathing, laundry, sending deceased loved ones down the river (we saw two 'floaters' as Paul put it!) Imagine swimming in that, along with god knows what else! There were two burning ghats, as they are called, stacked as far as the eye can see with firewood. These are used for cremations (open public bonfire-style.) No pictures allowed though for all of my morbidly curious friends. Apparently the wood used in cremation is weighed to determine the charge to each family and they do about seventy per day! My only question remains, why do some get floated and others burned? Perhaps by my return visit to India, I'll have the answer.
A gritty but interesting place India has proven to be. Day 6 and still healthy on the vegetarian diet (knock wood.) Next we head to Nepal (and later circle back to India...) |
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