Thursday, September 28, 2006
Why the Amazing Race Doesn't Come to India
Well it's still definitely the first three weeks because everyday here in India we say the 'F-word' about 1 billion times. But the F-word here in India is Frustration, everything is just so frustrating that it makes you feel like you've gone crazy some times. Anyways I could go on and on and make this whole blog about the trials of travel in India, but you wanna hear the fun things I'm sure.
We spent 4 days in Bodgaya looking for the enlightenment that Buddha seemed to achieve. Makes sense too, you'd need to be in a completely meditative state to find peace amongst India. Justina and I were wondering what it would feel like to achieve complete enlightenment, and the closest we could come up with was the taste of a cold Fanta (in a bottle of course) after a hot Indian day. Well, it finally got sunny, and we spent some of the days wandering the Mahabodhi garden and temple, sitting under the bodhi tree and watching Tibetan monks going through their nightly ceremonies at the Tibetan temple. Justina has come down with some weird throat infection thing, so we also spent a fun morning at the clinic surrounded by ants and medical waste.
Then we had to truly Amazing Race it out of Bodgaya to begin our journey to Darjeeling. It's hard to explain how daunting this task is, but I might be able to blog you through it. First we had to somehow get from Bodgaya to Gaya. Not too easy as you may recall my previous blog about the potholes, cows and general chaos that involves street level journeys. We got in an autorickshaw, that up until now have only held Justina and I .....With 12 other people. Brought back some great memories of Mowbray minibuses in South Africa. Bouncing along the dusty roads for a good 45 minutes we arrive at the train station. Here is where Phil would have explained the "detour" choice we had. We could either take a 3 hour local bus to the provincial capital. This was the faster option, but with a big unknown because we've never been on a bus in India, and their reputations are less than stellar (think 1/2 the passengers riding on the roof). The second option was to get a local train ticket to Patna. This would involve trying to figure out the ticket purchasing system WITHOUT a tourist quota office (those who have been to India know how easy the quota system makes everything). And then figuring out what platform/train/carriage to go on since everything is in Hindi. I don't know what Fran and Barry would have done, but Justice and I chose the train. Somehow we ended up in the unreserved ticket line up for Women, full of men though, and got a ticket for what sounded like a 1pm train on platform 4. Well we waited (and even waiting in India is frustrating because every single pervy man - and woman - is staring at you constantly) and around 1:30 a train rolled in. Now I've been warned about taking anything other than first class in India, but we had little choice. Onto the 3rd class carriage with about 10 people hanging off the outside, to push our way to 2 1/2 seats. Which we glady took up and refused to move even an inch. People were sitting above us on the luggage racks, out the window, and on each others laps. No aircon, little fan action, and a train that stopped every 5km made for a long, hot and dirty 3 hour journey.
Once we got to Patna, we had 6 hours to kill before our overnight train to NJP (luckily we had booked this one at a quota office in Varanassi!) we thought we'd try to brave the streets and find a place to eat. Well we attempted to cross one road, ok 1/2 a road, and made the smart decision to pay a rickshaw driver 10 rupees to pedal us across it. Believe me, no chickens were crossing this road EVER. Well we ended up at a sweet aircon 3* hotel who opened the restaurant and internet cafe for us to use. Best Dal, Nan and Fanta dinner ever.
After 5 hours in the lobby, and another rickshaw ride, we were back at the train station catching our night train to NJP. We were so excited to just get into our aircon car and fall asleep on the fresh sheets...What do we find? Only a tour group of 80-somethings IN OUR BEDS! Of course they paid quadruple for their tickets and private tour guide than we will pay for our whole three months, so they felt fine not moving or even checking their tickets. Justice and I were not having anything of it and after some stern talks with the conductor got two similar beds in a different (but still AC) car. I hit the pillow like a rock. The night passed with random families sitting on my bed and hiding Justina's shoes, nothing that is out of the norm for India. We got to NJP quasi-refreshed and it only took 2 trips to and from the tourist info to the rickshaw stand to figure out where to go. Another long hot rickshaw ride with us two crammed into the small seat and our bags piled ontop, we were at a Jeep stand, where we could hire a jeep to take us up the mountain to Darjeeling.
Ok, we get in the jeep with 9 other wonderful people and off we go for the said 3 1/2 hour ride. Literally 5 minutes into the ride Justina and I have the conversation about the drivers apparent lack of braking skills....hmmm....30 minutes later we're all parked on the side of a cliff while Mr. No-breaks fixes the car after he rear ended another Jeep. Great. It was a welcome pee break, but little else. On the second attempt we spent the next hour winding up and down through the foothills of the Himalayas on a road that makes the Sea to Sky hwy look like the I-5. Even calling it a road is stretching my beliefs a little. Landslides, families, and the odd cement truck made it nearly impassable at some points. We got held up in a small town along the road that was having a ceremony for what we think was a dead-baby wrapped in white cloth on a bamboo stretcher. The ceremony just happened to walk along the entire road for about 1 hour. Stop-Go-Stop-Stop-Stop.... I could go on forever about this jeep ride. But eventually we made it to Darjeeling and the driver just kicked us out at a random point in the middle of some bazaar. Now Darjeeling is a hill-station. Literally a town built on a steep steep hill. It's very spread out and there are no straight roads or even roads in general. We had no idea where to go or what to do - except head up. So with our huge bags we begin what seems like the Mt. Everest trek, until we find a guy who has a rope. Turns out we hired our first sherpa of the trip!! He straps BOTH our bags together and throws them over his head and off we go up and up and up to our hotel that we picked. Turns out its on the TOP of the mountain. Oops, a good 60 rupees spent though.
One hotel was full, the next was beautiful - Hotel Long Island (free advertising) - we have a HUGE room with two beds and some snoogle-ly blankets because if I didn't mention IT GETS COLD HERE!!! We're about the altitude of Whistler village, so its like September there, warm during the days but sharp and cold at night!!! I'm back in my climatic-zone! We wandered the town last night to find the best restaurant I've been to on this trip. Literally a hole in the wall it was a Tibetan couple who had a kitchen and a few chairs that were packed with locals. The walls were lined with Avril Lavigne cutouts and Tibetan prayer flags, and puppies were crawling at our feet. We squeezed into a table and ordered two Thukpas (hearty chicken vegetable noodle soup) and Tibetan bread. It was the greatest meal ever. I dunno if Vancouver has Tibetan restaurants, but go if you can.
Other than that Darjeeling is my new favorite place in the world. Right up there with Luang Prabang and Maputo. We're probably staying for 5 days since there is so much to do here. Sunrise over 4/5 worlds highest mountain peaks, toy train rides, tea planataion tours, sky rides in gondololas.... Only thing that would make DJ more perfect is if my pictures would upload....But alas no where in the world is that great ;)
ps. Check out Justina's blog for a hilarious recount of our 36h travels across India....Its great.
We spent 4 days in Bodgaya looking for the enlightenment that Buddha seemed to achieve. Makes sense too, you'd need to be in a completely meditative state to find peace amongst India. Justina and I were wondering what it would feel like to achieve complete enlightenment, and the closest we could come up with was the taste of a cold Fanta (in a bottle of course) after a hot Indian day. Well, it finally got sunny, and we spent some of the days wandering the Mahabodhi garden and temple, sitting under the bodhi tree and watching Tibetan monks going through their nightly ceremonies at the Tibetan temple. Justina has come down with some weird throat infection thing, so we also spent a fun morning at the clinic surrounded by ants and medical waste.
Then we had to truly Amazing Race it out of Bodgaya to begin our journey to Darjeeling. It's hard to explain how daunting this task is, but I might be able to blog you through it. First we had to somehow get from Bodgaya to Gaya. Not too easy as you may recall my previous blog about the potholes, cows and general chaos that involves street level journeys. We got in an autorickshaw, that up until now have only held Justina and I .....With 12 other people. Brought back some great memories of Mowbray minibuses in South Africa. Bouncing along the dusty roads for a good 45 minutes we arrive at the train station. Here is where Phil would have explained the "detour" choice we had. We could either take a 3 hour local bus to the provincial capital. This was the faster option, but with a big unknown because we've never been on a bus in India, and their reputations are less than stellar (think 1/2 the passengers riding on the roof). The second option was to get a local train ticket to Patna. This would involve trying to figure out the ticket purchasing system WITHOUT a tourist quota office (those who have been to India know how easy the quota system makes everything). And then figuring out what platform/train/carriage to go on since everything is in Hindi. I don't know what Fran and Barry would have done, but Justice and I chose the train. Somehow we ended up in the unreserved ticket line up for Women, full of men though, and got a ticket for what sounded like a 1pm train on platform 4. Well we waited (and even waiting in India is frustrating because every single pervy man - and woman - is staring at you constantly) and around 1:30 a train rolled in. Now I've been warned about taking anything other than first class in India, but we had little choice. Onto the 3rd class carriage with about 10 people hanging off the outside, to push our way to 2 1/2 seats. Which we glady took up and refused to move even an inch. People were sitting above us on the luggage racks, out the window, and on each others laps. No aircon, little fan action, and a train that stopped every 5km made for a long, hot and dirty 3 hour journey.
Once we got to Patna, we had 6 hours to kill before our overnight train to NJP (luckily we had booked this one at a quota office in Varanassi!) we thought we'd try to brave the streets and find a place to eat. Well we attempted to cross one road, ok 1/2 a road, and made the smart decision to pay a rickshaw driver 10 rupees to pedal us across it. Believe me, no chickens were crossing this road EVER. Well we ended up at a sweet aircon 3* hotel who opened the restaurant and internet cafe for us to use. Best Dal, Nan and Fanta dinner ever.
After 5 hours in the lobby, and another rickshaw ride, we were back at the train station catching our night train to NJP. We were so excited to just get into our aircon car and fall asleep on the fresh sheets...What do we find? Only a tour group of 80-somethings IN OUR BEDS! Of course they paid quadruple for their tickets and private tour guide than we will pay for our whole three months, so they felt fine not moving or even checking their tickets. Justice and I were not having anything of it and after some stern talks with the conductor got two similar beds in a different (but still AC) car. I hit the pillow like a rock. The night passed with random families sitting on my bed and hiding Justina's shoes, nothing that is out of the norm for India. We got to NJP quasi-refreshed and it only took 2 trips to and from the tourist info to the rickshaw stand to figure out where to go. Another long hot rickshaw ride with us two crammed into the small seat and our bags piled ontop, we were at a Jeep stand, where we could hire a jeep to take us up the mountain to Darjeeling.
Ok, we get in the jeep with 9 other wonderful people and off we go for the said 3 1/2 hour ride. Literally 5 minutes into the ride Justina and I have the conversation about the drivers apparent lack of braking skills....hmmm....30 minutes later we're all parked on the side of a cliff while Mr. No-breaks fixes the car after he rear ended another Jeep. Great. It was a welcome pee break, but little else. On the second attempt we spent the next hour winding up and down through the foothills of the Himalayas on a road that makes the Sea to Sky hwy look like the I-5. Even calling it a road is stretching my beliefs a little. Landslides, families, and the odd cement truck made it nearly impassable at some points. We got held up in a small town along the road that was having a ceremony for what we think was a dead-baby wrapped in white cloth on a bamboo stretcher. The ceremony just happened to walk along the entire road for about 1 hour. Stop-Go-Stop-Stop-Stop.... I could go on forever about this jeep ride. But eventually we made it to Darjeeling and the driver just kicked us out at a random point in the middle of some bazaar. Now Darjeeling is a hill-station. Literally a town built on a steep steep hill. It's very spread out and there are no straight roads or even roads in general. We had no idea where to go or what to do - except head up. So with our huge bags we begin what seems like the Mt. Everest trek, until we find a guy who has a rope. Turns out we hired our first sherpa of the trip!! He straps BOTH our bags together and throws them over his head and off we go up and up and up to our hotel that we picked. Turns out its on the TOP of the mountain. Oops, a good 60 rupees spent though.
One hotel was full, the next was beautiful - Hotel Long Island (free advertising) - we have a HUGE room with two beds and some snoogle-ly blankets because if I didn't mention IT GETS COLD HERE!!! We're about the altitude of Whistler village, so its like September there, warm during the days but sharp and cold at night!!! I'm back in my climatic-zone! We wandered the town last night to find the best restaurant I've been to on this trip. Literally a hole in the wall it was a Tibetan couple who had a kitchen and a few chairs that were packed with locals. The walls were lined with Avril Lavigne cutouts and Tibetan prayer flags, and puppies were crawling at our feet. We squeezed into a table and ordered two Thukpas (hearty chicken vegetable noodle soup) and Tibetan bread. It was the greatest meal ever. I dunno if Vancouver has Tibetan restaurants, but go if you can.
Other than that Darjeeling is my new favorite place in the world. Right up there with Luang Prabang and Maputo. We're probably staying for 5 days since there is so much to do here. Sunrise over 4/5 worlds highest mountain peaks, toy train rides, tea planataion tours, sky rides in gondololas.... Only thing that would make DJ more perfect is if my pictures would upload....But alas no where in the world is that great ;)
ps. Check out Justina's blog for a hilarious recount of our 36h travels across India....Its great.
# posted by Laura Davies : 7:12 PM
