It's been a week now since we left the comfort of Pokhara in Nepal to begin the long overland journey to south India. It all began with a 7 hour bus to the Nepal/India border. Aside from my broken seat, this part of the journey was ok for me with my short legs, but not so much fun for Tim who spent 7 hours fidgiting. Aside from the relative discomfort, it was a lovely drive down through the mountains and only once did I fear for my life as we raced to overtake another bus on the wrong side of the road going round a corner with a good few hundred feet drop to our side. All was ok though as there is a completely different highway code in Nepal and India which shouldn't work, but does. All of it seems dependent on liberal use of the horn.
We arrived in Bahairawal on the Nepal side of the border around lunchtime. It wasn't very nice. We got hassled by a rather unpleasant man with gammy legs who took us to his guest house. As there wasn't likely to be much better, we settled on it for one night, cockroaches and all. The stop in Bahairawal was in order to visit Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha so we went out there in a taxi that afternoon. It was very pleasant, peaceful with lots of prayer flags and chanting monks.
The overnight stay in Bahairawal was greatly improved by finding somewhere that did really tasty food, but took a turn for the worse when 20 or so schoolchildren turned up at the guest house to bang tabla drums and sing very screechy Nepali songs at the top of their voices late into the evening right outside our room and then again at 4:00am the next day.
We were therefore a little weary when we began the second leg of the journey to Varanasi that morning in a cycle rickshaw to the Indian border. We crossed the border by foot, an experience in itself and then caught a 3.5 hour bus to Gorakhpur, the first broadguage railway station in Northern India. The bus ditched us just outside town and swapped us into auto rickshaws in which at one point, we had 11 people. Auto rickshaws are probably best enjoyed with 2 people and a driver so 11 was interesting. In Gorakhpur we stayed at Hotel Bobina, Bobbins would have been a more appropriate name. The corridoor was like something out of The Shining, the restaurant seemed to have been replaced with a pound shop and the swimming pool had certainly passed its glory days. We camped out in our room ready for an early start the next day. Leaving it only to visit the bar/restaurant for some dinner where one of the locals took a bit of a shine to me having drunk a little too much whiskey.
On day three of the Nepal-Varanasi journey, we awoke early to go and sit in the bug house that is Gorakhpur Station. The train was 2 hours late which meant 2 hours of me hopping about getting increasingly stressed out about the large grasshoppers, crickets, moths and scuttley cockroach type things that had set up residence in the station, on my legs and in my rucksack. Things improved dramatically once we got on the train which I enjoyed immensely due to being able to lie down on a bed and go to sleep!
We arrived in Varanasi about 6 hours later and spent 4 very pleasant days in a cheerful guest house right on the River Ganges complete with three large lizards in our room and a monkey outside which seemed to be kept for religious purposes, but didn't look very happy about being padlocked to the roof. I quickly got used to sleeping with the lizards, especially as they eat the other bugs which is certainly a good thing. In the daytime we explored the city and generally lazed around the guest house and in the evening we watched the elaborate puja ceremony down at the ghats along with the small pujas (candles and flowers) floating down the river. In the morning the people wash in the river, which is unbelievably dirty, but one of the holiest places in India. It is therefore where many Hindus go to die as to be laid to rest in the Ganges is supposed to release a Hindu from the cycle of reincarnation. Rich people are cremated on the ghats, but for people that cannot afford a cremation their family often dump their bodies in the river. This means that if you take a boat ride at dawn (as we did) you invariably see a dead body in the river. This is a little alarming. It was Diwali while we were in Varanasi which made it even more bonkers than normal with candles and flashing lights outside people's houses and decorating all the alleyways. It's also an excuse for the children to let off a ridiculous number of fireworks which tend to be more notable for the noise they make than their visual display. In fact, next to our guest house a group of kids had discovered that if you put lots of bangers on the ground, covered them with a saucepan and then put a rock on top of the saucepan you could launch both rock and saucepan a good 50 feet in the air. It also sounded like a small bomb had gone off. A little distracting when you're trying to read a book or go to sleep!
So after our relaxing stay in Varansi we packed up our bags on Sunday and began our journey south. The first leg was an epic 29.5 hour train journey from Varanasi to Mumbai. 29.5 hours on a train is a long time. Perhaps too long. We are now in Mumbai where we are staying in a cool old colonial building that looks a bit like a school. So far Mumbai seems pretty cool. Tim is particularly happy to have found decent coffee. Last night we had probably the nicest chocolate cake we've ever tasted. Pretty good for a country that doesn't seem to do chocolate. Lots and lots of "Cadburys" on sale. All tastes wrong.
