Darjeeling

Greetings from a very cool (as in weather cool) Darjeeling! Our journey starts with a auto-rickshaw ride from Varanasi to the train station-a hour long journey that included a stop for some "holy flowers" (to protect the driver on the Hwy. full of full size junkers that we have to drive on!) At the train station the Indian train is on time...that is plus or minus 10 hrs. Today we are lucky...only 7 hours of counting the herds of rats that infest the station track area...actually quite entertaining which gives you some idea of how boring it is to sit for hours on end in a dilapidated Indian train station! The overnight train is pretty good and we arrive in JNP only 10 hrs late but in no time have a rickshaw (human powered and we always feel bad when we see some skinny Indian pedaling his guts out...and this trip was over an hour long! The jeep ride to Darjeeling was an insane combination of one tight switch back after another for over an hour but we had a great time as the jeep load of locals were entertaining and we laughed with them for the entire trip. Darjeeling is another world...so typical of India...the diversity of experiences terrain etc. has to be seen to be believed. West Bengal state is primarily made up of people of Tibetan and Nepalese origins and it shows...very clean (at least compared to the rest of India!), no cows and the people are super friendly but very quiet and respectful...no hassling over prices etc. Our hotel the Dekeling is fantastic with the neatest "chill-out" room (mainly because it has a great wood heater!


So for a change of topic we will talk about taxidermy! Our visit to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute today brought to light the fact that the Indians may be very good at a lot of things but stuffing animals (taxidermy) is not one of them! (we also saw this in the Mumbai Natural History Museum etc.) The stuffed animals bear a close resemblance to animals that have be shot with a 12 gauge about 5 times from 10 feet away then left to dry out..after which they are pasted to a wall in a local museum to display. I believe this is one of the reasons that most of India's wildlife is either extinct or close to extinction...if I thought our wildlife looked liked the stuffed animals I would also do my best to eradicate them!

In addition I noticed more than a few errors in identification...take the Himalayan marmot we saw today. It definitely was a weasel BUT with no eyes, 80 percent of its fur missing, big fangs and "dried" into a position that god never intended (unless it was hit by an Ambassador car full of 15 Indians and 500 lbs of luggage on the roof)....however I digress...back to Darjeeling!

This place is really nice but the weather has been cold and very foggy. You probably know or have heard of Darjeeling Tea...guess where it comes from? One of the more interesting things we have done since we arrived was a 4 (was supposed to be 5) day trek into the Himalayan mountain region near to Nepal. In fact we spent over half of the 79 km hike in Nepal and overnighted twice in Nepal. Most of the walk took place between 3000-4000 meters...a good warm up for Nepal. We were especially impressed with the 3rd day of the hike when the skies cleared and offered us incredible views of the Himalayan Range and we spent most of the day looking at the south face of Everest and Kanchenjunga and in fact 4 of the worlds 5 tallest mountains (only K2 was missing). This was against a backdrop of incredible ancient gnarly Abies well over a hundred feet tall, huge grasslands (and our first Yaks this trip), small diameter Rhododendron forests and NO people or villages! The last 15 (of a 30 km day and we had a 30 lb plus pack) we dropped close to 2000 meters...first through a forest of huge conifers with a bamboo understory then into a dripping wet (literally raining on us) fog shrouded very eerie forest of massive Rhododendron trees and finally our destination the small mountain village of Rammam. This is the most impressive scenery that Lori and I have ever witnessed in a single day...before India was thrashed it truly must have been heaven on earth...AMAZING!

Back to the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute....because it is one fantastic museum! Firstly it puts the Himalayan Range in perspective: Simply put the Himalayans are more impressive than all of the mountain ranges in the world combined! (not counting anything under the ocean) They extend 2000 km and are 150 km wide and contain OVER 90% of the world tallest mountains! (this includes the Andes, Alps Rockies etc.) They had a neat display showing the tallest 30 mountains on each continent and only Aconcagua ( SA) would have even come close to making the list from Asia. McKinley and two Mexican volcanoes are the only NA mountains that rate in the top 100 as well as another 3 in SA...the other 94 are from the Himalaya!

The other thing that is apparent is that these old mountaineers were TOUGH! They had gear from hundreds of climbs of Everest: from Hillary and Tenzing's first summit of Everest on May 29th 1953 to 2009 expeditions (which by the way can be had for 29,000 US excluding all air fares) The boots used in the 50 and 60's were just leather and had hair on the outside...the oxygen cylinders look like 50 lb propane cylinders and I would have froze to death last night in our Darjeeling hotel with the sleeping bags they used!!!! I guess that is why today the biggest challenge meeting Everest climbers is the weather...good weather and getting through the traffic jam at the top of the mountain are big problems and climbing Everest, Lotese, Kanchenjunga brings in millions of dollars to the Nepalese and Indian economies!

Varanasi

Black Rock City, Nevada / Varanasi, India ~ Burning Man with a spiritual twist...oh the things you will see...

walking the ghats and a dog runs by with a piece of burned wood in his mouth-suddenly behind us a dog rumble starts over the wood and it is at that point that I realize that we are near the burning ghat and that piece of burned wood is really a piece of burned person that the dog has grabbed from one of the burning pyres on the ghat.....
sadhu with a badly deformed face - looks like a caul that hangs down from his forehead to mid chest with only a right eye showing and under the caul swollen sausage like pieces hanging down to mid chest making it look like he has an elephant trunk hanging down. All of this combined with the usual sadhu/baba(holy man)(clothes or lack of them, dreadlocks, and all exposed skin covered in grey ash. This particular sadhu has a prime sitting spot on the ghats with a nicely painted background of Hindu idols with Ganesh (the elephant god and bringer of good luck) prominent in the foreground. Along with several other sadhus, they all sit here all day playing music, praying, burning incense, smoking chillum, and receiving money from the crowds that gather around much of the day watching, taking pictures, and wondering if this fellow really is Ganesh reincarnated.

burning ghats - a much abbreviated version of what they are all about.

Hindu religion believes in rebirth or reincarnation. Depending on how many karma points you have accumulated in your lifetime, you will come back as either a higher caste person with an easier life, or as an animal. As life is suffering, the goal is to achieve freedom or moksha from this cycle of rebirth. One way of doing this is to be burned on the ghats of the Mother Ganga (Ganges River) in Varanasi which is but one of several holy cities in India. Varanasi by the way is supposed to be one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world..over 5000 years old...

So everyone wants to die in Varanasi and be burned on the ghats (steps down to the Ganges River) and then to have your ashes thrown into the river as by doing this they will achieve this ultimate freedom from the cycle of rebirth.

The process.... There are two burning ghats in Varanasi, a main one and a smaller one. Each are lined with stacks of wood of various types, with sandalwood being the most expensive. Each piece of wood is weighed and worth a certain amount. You must buy enough wood to make the funeral pyre to burn the body. The body must be burned within a short time of death (7days?) so many people come to Varanasi to die..

The dead body is carried through the small alleys leading to the river on a bamboo stretcher and is wrapped in shiney metallic fabric. It is set on the ghat awaiting its turn to burn. The funeral pyre is laid and when it is time, the body is dipped in the Ganges river and then laid on the wood and covered with wood on top. Someone from the family (the oldest son?) has his head shaved and wearing only a white length of material wrapped around his body walks around the body several times and lights the fire with a bundle of burning straw.

The fire starts and the body burns and everyone watches.
It takes about 2-3 hours for a body to completely burn.
There is no smell.
There are about 8-10 bodies burning at one time on the main ghat and the bodies burn 24 hours a day 365 days a year..
5 groups of people do not need to be burned-pregnant women, children, holy men, people with leporosy, and people bitten by a cobra; as they can achieve moksha by having their bodies are just dumped straight into the river without being burned.

So we are pretty excited to get back to Varanasi as we have fond memories of our short visit here back in 2003.  I think it is safe to say that we were mesmerized by India in 2003 with a a short visit and hectic train ride that seemed exciting.  Today the long bus and train rides are history with hundreds of hours on our butts and definitely not as exciting...same goes for the holy city itself.  It is still an amazing place of extremes but it is famous world wide and the result is a lot of tourists and along with that an increase in commercialism.  However some things appear to never change in Varanasi...the Ganges still has 1.5 million ppm fecal coloform (500 is considered max for safe swimming) despite a "14 year plan in its tenth year to clean it up!"...the floating bridge upstream of Varanasi is still floating with only one bridge abutment completed...the 10 rupee massage (?) is still going strong (it took us about 3 minutes to realize one does not shake hands on the ghats!)  If you do they start massaging your fingers and start on the 10 rupee massage talk...the problem is the 10 rupee charge covers your one fingernail only!!...cows still own the ghats and the narrow labyrinth of galis in which the absent minded shopper can be lost for hours in...although the water buffalo have taken over certain ghats!...the burning ghat is still going 24/7 360 days a year. (the scam to separate tourists from their money to support the poor elderly that couldn't afford the cost of burning wood no longer exists...or at least we weren't hit up for it this time).  What really surprised us is that the Japanese love this place for long term holidays and we have a hard time understanding this as Varanasi is about as close to the exact opposite of the well organized, clean Japan as one can get...but that probably is its drawing point!  No doubt about it Varanasi offers the best deals on handicrafts in all of India!  The Ganges River is way down (we actually ended up crossing the main Ganges on our trip to Darjeeling and it is huge...at least 3 km across compared to the branch of the Ganges at Varanasi which during our visit was only about 250 m across!  So we did a ton of walking and know every Ghat from north to south and did a good long hike into Ramnagar Fort...a awesome structure right on the banks of the Ganges...however the outside of the fort has huge painted advertisements all over one side of it????  Yup a 500 year old masterpiece of architecture looks really good with bright blue and red signs advertising Vodaphone and India Oil painted on the side of it.  Something like this in Canada would have been repaired and we would charge huge bucks for a visit...but India has literally hundreds upon hundreds of these ancient very cool forts etc. which is one reason why it is so popular with tourists...and no doubt about it Tourism is huge in India despite the rubbish and crap!!!  We still loved our stay...the Ganpati guest house was great..food is fantastic...shopping great...weather good (not to hot but unfortunately foggy) and we didn't step in to many piles of shit..and that is GOOD!

have chris & lori been in india too long



sometimes even the trains are a little crowded....







'Delhi Belly"...catches up with Chris...ohh that feels GOOOOOOD!

chris applying anti itch cream to his rashed up body

Hampi & Mysore

So its time to leave the wonderful non-India beaches of Palolem and head inland to the small village of Hampi some 10 hours west via bus.  Lots of rolling around all night but we rolled into Hampi around 8...some 5 hours ahead of the bus directly behind us that got stuck in a massive traffic jam.  Hampi is a neat little (for India) village that is split by the Tungaphadra River and set in massive boulder field of rocks in which an amazing series of ruins (home to over 1 million people over 500 years ago) lies scattered over 25 sq kms.

 No booze equals one quiet Christmas especially when the population is Hindu and Muslim and do not celebrate Christmas.
We spent 5 days exploring the various temples and ruins including one day of hiking to the temple of 600 steps and another day (which Lori said was the best so far in India when we pedalled some beat bikes to the far-off ruins. )




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Despite the river resembling more of an open sewer than a river (warning signs about the currents in the river but they are nothing compared to the chemical and sewage soup the river is composed of!) (in fact it is actually pretty clean for an Indian River other than the "open latrines"scattered about on the rocks!)
Some of the ruins are really neat and are World Heritage Sites and surprisingly well maintained and kept clean by the Indian government.  In fact there are literally hundreds of these stone ruins and one is completely blown away by the amount of work that went into carving these rocks into walls, roof, buildings etc.

Unfortunately my skin rash is a raging epidemic and making life a little miserable...but I can tell you I am the cleanest I have ever been with at least 6 or 8 cold showers a day to try and keep the heat/rash down.  As per usual the best times of the day are before 11 and the evening sunset which we shared with hundreds of other people and some pretty serious "herds" of monkeys.

  (Oh yeah we also climbed to the top of the highest temple from which we got a fantastic view of Hampi and surrounding areas)
Leaving Hampi we had a couple of options but decided to head south to Mysore as we didn't want to retrace our bus route back to the coast.

MYSORE (butt)..our first ride in a non-sleeper and she was a dog!  Mysore...another BDIC boiling with traffic, smog and noise all mixed up in a stew of human love and misery!  After some screwing around with the local rickshaw drivers (the place is packed with local Indians on holidays so its difficult to locate a place to stay after 15 hours of abuse on a Indian bus!)  Once we got settled in we took in the sites (bit of a bitch finding ones way around this place but the ever-friendly locals can always give you advice!) including the Mysore Zoo (established in 1917 by the King of Mysore...over 6000 school kids (let alone other people!) visit the zoo every day (they pay nothing, Indian residents 10R and foreigners 100R) and I think each one of them wanted to talk to us, shake our hand and get their photo taken with us!  If you don't want to get stared at and mobbed by locals don't come to India.  Actually its lots of fun...until you get tired of it as it makes it kind of difficult to do anything when you are being talked to and mobbed constantly.  Anyways the zoo was fantastic and the close by Karinga Lake sanctuary even better as it was QUIET...unreal..surreal..don't believe it..amazing...Quiet,quietquietquiet!

 Next day we took in the Sandal wood factory (est in 1918 and primitive to say the least but super interesting as Sandalwood production (oil and wood for use in the burning ghats and carving is super controlled by the Indian government as the oil sells for 1000R for 5ml...liquid gold.  Needless to say one does not find sandalwood trees in the forests any more!
Nest stop is the silk factory...dating back to 1912 she is one great big accident just waiting to happen.  WCB would need to take a pickup truck full of infraction booklets to clean this place up.  It is one huge factory full of workers who have probably worked the same mechanical looms for over 30 years and the NOISE is insane!  Sounds like your standing behind a jet engine full of mechanical noise!  But I really liked the dye tanks...surrounded by signs warning about the dangers of the fumes, caustic dyes etc. and with a few poor guys slopping bundles of silk into the open dye tanks (steaming hot fumes engulfing the place) and then wringing the dye out by hand (caustic??)  My guess is that these guys don't work this job too long...for obvious reasons (they die!)
So we spent New Years with our friends Kit and Robin...we thinks that they have spent a wee bit to long in India as their diet consists of Kingfisher beer for breakfast, lunch and dinner (no kidding!)  But we had a ton of laughs and they sure convinced us that England is NOT on the list of places to visit (or at least London!)  New Years is surprisingly quiet in India in the tradition of India (obviously not so quiet on the "non-Indian beaches" with fireworks and a few kids screaming in the street..and not much else but we had a great time none the less!  Checked out the Mysore Palace...so typical of India.  The crowds are absolutely insane and in the good tradition of India the more people the more aggressive the Indians get and soon there is shoving etc and the noise is absolutely insane...as I sincerely believe that the Indians are actually scared of quiet!  Anyways just when you are thinking this is a complete "shit show" (Dylans words!) you step into this palace that literally blows you away...absolutely incredible 200 foot plus stained glass ceilings, amazing wood carvings and the stone and marble work that leaves you speechless...there is no way this could ever be replicated in the modern time even with trillions of dollars at your disposal! (And typical:  no cameras allowed in the palace but everywhere one looks there are people with phone cameras and small cameras taking photos with guards watching them...but then a tourist (NO not me!) pulls out a camera and bang the guards are all over them!!!

Leaving Mysore we had only the option of taking a non-sleeper bus to Kochin then a local bus to Allepey (house boats on the Kerala backwaters)..so we line up at the bus station to wait...in total confusion until our bus comes.  On we go and in fact passed through some of the most amazing forest on this single lane road that had us crawling along at literally 10 kmph and having to stop numerous times to allow other vehicles to clear by us.  Definitely not the situation to promote a good sleep..then we are woken by yelling and screaming!  We were stopped in this city and I guess some one had overbooked the bus (typical)..after about 15 minutes of yelling/screaming about 20 more people climbed on board...kids, adults old people...all having to stand in the packed isles for over 2 hrs.  Crying, snoring, coughing puking and spitting was the tune of the night...and obviously no sleep!  Then we get dumped off at the Kochi bus station at 4 am...if you stepped into a urinal where 3000 people took a piss on the floor then turned the heat up to 100 degrees you would get the "flavour" of the Kochi bus station.  Trying to figure out the Hindi on the local bus's as they pulled in and were literally mobbed by locals running into them (kind of diffucult for foreigners with 50 lb packs to keep up with!) you get an idea of the situation we were faced with...non the less we are on the road and by the time we hit Allepey there were over 25 people standing in the isle on a bus that only had windows in the front and back (a "rolling tomb" according to Lori!)...stay tuned for more!

Gorgeous Goa

After our "roller-coaster" bus ride we arrived in the capital of Goa state...the city of Panaji.  With the coming of daylight we are treated to a surprise...beautiful, thick lush green jungle with less garbage and people than the northern states.  We are still trying to figure out why we stopped in Panaji but we had a short but interesting stay.  We participated in an evening sunset cruise and for any of you that should choose this option DO NOT participate in the evenings couple's dance.  First off you get onto a stage in front of well over a hundred people...of course you are the only goras (foreigners) on the boat so every eye is one you!  On comes this blast of noise and away you go...dancing!  So this cruise is about 1.5hrs long and they make you dance on this stage (sweating your bag off!) for over a half hour non-stop!!!  At least at the end of the performance we got alot of "you good dance".
Onto a couple of "chicken bus's" and to the southern beach of Palolem...and this is NOT India.  Clean, beautiful and full of very nice places to stay and eat (and Kingfisher beer for 35R (70 cents) and lots of foreign and Indian tourists. (although foreign tourist numbers are WAY down because of the european financial problems)  With its gorgeous sand, coconut tree lined 3 km long beach this place matches anything the Caribbean can offer! (but at about one fifth the cost!)  The Arabian Sea is bathtub warm and is much needed as the temperatures from noon through to 5 are blistering hot!  After 5 it is GORGEOUS as one watches the sunset, wander the beach and have a few brew (2 for 1 after 6) 

We have done some kayaking (lots of neat birds in a local river) and rented motos to check out some adjacent beaches (gorgeous and alot less people) forts (impressive) and I spent an entire day in the Cotiago Wildlife Sanctuary (50R entry) on my moto...some of the best jungle scenery I have ever seen (inc. Amazon and central america)..amazing and I only saw 1 vehicle the entire day!  Rough 2 wheel tracks to waterholes with lots of birds, hundreds of monkeys and a few deer.  At one of the waterholes I found two cobra sheds over 10 feet long!

 Lori and I are heading back there tomorrow on a Royal Enfield Bullet moto (700R rental)...bet she won't like the water crossings! 

The only bad news is that I have picked up some sort of skin rash which isn't helping my looks...Lori says "stay away sick man"!

Chris tried this medicine man and his spelling is as effective as his cure....

 Have picked up our bus tickets to Hampi and will be rolling to the west tomorrow evening (22nd) and will spend Christmas in the gorgeous city of Hampi before returning to Gokarna Beach on the coast for New Years and proceeding S.  The 8 days we have spent in Palolem have really "recharged" our batteries...we are ready to tackle the "real India" again!!!