Well hello there! Greetings from Nepal. Before I begin, I must mention that I'd forgotten to write about a place that we went to in India, after Amritsar and before Delhi (the second time round). It's McLeod Ganj, which is where the Tibetan Government in Exile is based. It's also the Dalai Lama's home when he's at home (which he wasn't). I was very interested to learn that there are something like as few as 6,000 Tibetans left in the world and that as a nation they are endangered. The Chinese invasion in the late eighties / early nineties was brutal and determined to wipe out Tibetan identity, culture, religion, language and tradition which, for a peaceful people like the Tibetans, has been catastrophic. After learning a bit about it, I now really want to go to Tibet. The latest news is that they are now allowing people in (since the Olympic torch passed through to China) but as yet there have been no reports of visas granted. It's also been very difficult to get information and people are not getting back to us but at the moment it's looking tentatively promising.
After 2 nights in Jaipur, the pink city, and an 8am start, we drove to Agra and arrived at the 'Tourist Guests House' which is a fairly nondescript place around a pretty little courtyard. Our first morning there we got up at 5am to get to the Taj Mahal for sunrise as this is supposedly the best time of day to see it before the crowds and the heat. The Taj Mahal was just as I'd expected. Looks exactly the photos. No surprises really. I think we're all becoming a bit blase about these things now after having seen so many wonderful sights. I got the obligatory photo which I'll upload tomorrow, a really nice one of the whole group in front of the Taj. So after the early start we all went back for a sleep and our first significant experience of the pending monsoon which has been threatening to arrive for a couple of weeks. Luckily we'd gone out so early in the day because the rest of it was a write-off. It started raining heavily at about 10am, getting progressively heavier, and later on I was lying on my bed reading at about 3pm when water started dripping on my head. Then on the foot of my bed, then on my room-mates' bed. I went out to have a look over the balcony and the little courtyard was about 2 inches deep in water. I went out to the truck and the road had turned into a river about half way up the cars' tyres. So we had to change rooms which was a bit of a schlep and the new room was smaller and hotter with no aircon and lots of mozzies but the shower worked which was an improvement. I managed an hour of sweaty yoga on the balcony before giving in to the flies and diving gratefully into a cold shower.
We all went out to a local bar that evening to support Kath in her newfound hobby of beer-drinking and I can report that she is now able to drink an entire bottle of Fosters all by herself after breaking in gently with a shandy. I know the word 'bar' conjures up images of shiny wine-bars, friendly local pubs or other respectable drinking establishments filled with well-dressed punters and offering rodent-free plumbing facilities at no extra cost. However, erase these images from your mind and replace them instead with a small, dark room under a concrete staircase, half a dozen bare tables and some hard wooden chairs. This is where we spent the evening. There were lots of good things about this place, Fosters notwithstanding, including aircon and some very tasty snacks of warmed peanuts mixed with coriander and onion, lightly spiced. And poppadums which, in India, are called papads and are very peppery which I like. We were all in good spirits and had a great evening. The group has settled down into harmonious co-existence and a like-minded (namely those wanting to have a good time) sub-group, of which I 'belong' has emerged. It was with this group that I spent the evening and really enjoyed everybodys' company. We went for dinner at about 8.30 and then back to the bar where Callum and Mo had stayed. Needless to say they were a bit worse for wear and Mo was particularly entertaining, threatening to swat the rickshaw driver with her sandals on the way home. So that was Agra and the Taj Mahal. Next stop, Varanasi.
I'd heard all about Varanasi as the holy place where it is believed that souls can be released from the punishing cycle of rebirth by having their bodies cremated and thrown into the sacred Ganges. Or, if they're lucky enough, to actually die in Varanasi as this is where Shiva himself died, facilitating a fast-track to heaven. Naturally, the spectacle of hundreds of bodies being burned and chucked into a river alongside bathers and people brushing their teeth is hugely appealing for tourists, and consequently touting opportunities for locals, making Varanasi one of the worst places for crowds and harrassment. Fortunately we were spared this inconvenience by a monsoonal downpour keeping the touts/tourists at bay and another 5am start. We were rowed up the river in the rain seeing a disappointing 2 cremations and then driven to a temple where the overzealous guide bored everyone with religious detail that no one was interested in. On the whole, a fairly unremarkable experience but I'm glad to have seen what all the fuss is about. People genuinely believe that the Ganges has miraculous cleansing power and it is subsequently extremely polluted to the point of being septic. Amazingly though, a very rare species of freshwater dolphin, on its way to extinction, lives in it. I managed to insult our guide by asking how people felt about the pollution and he insisted that the pollution came from upriver and was cleansed in Varanasi. He claimed that if you took a jar of polluted water from the river at Varanasi and put it on your mantelpiece, within a few days it will have cleansed itself and have no traces of bacteria. Ya right.
The hotel in Varanasi was pretty good and after our early morning sightseeing duties, no one felt compelled to venture out again. The night before we'd partied with the Oz Bus group by gatecrashing their pool-party so the rest of the day was spent sleeping off hangovers, indulging in the excellent restaurant and lounging around in the cafe. Most people had upgraded to a room (EOE paid for camping on the lawn) but I decided, with 2 others, to enjoy the lawn-camping which ironically provided the most pest-free accommodation. Save for being ambushed by a rat in the doorway of the hotel on my way to the loo in the middle of the night. The pool, despite being green, was a good place to sit out the afternoon's downpour as, as everyone knows, you don't notice the rain so much when you're in a pool. And it was far more appealing than sitting in a wet tent. We then had lovely evening by the pool eating an excellent barbeque of marinaded chicken, goat ribs (which really aren't bad), potato salad and coleslaw. We all relayed conversations we'd had with various Oz Bus people the night before and unanimously agreed that, actually, we've got it pretty good in comparison. The Oz Bus is a coach, rather than a truck. This is a plus in that it has a) air conditioning and b) suspension. However, it is a minus in that it has no legroom, is packed (I think they've got nearly 40 people on it) and regularly includes 18-hour drive days. They do the trip in 13 weeks whereas we do it in 32 weeks - and we still feel that the pace is fairly heavy-going at times. Also, they openly bitched about each other and cheerily announced that they're all ready to kill each other. Another difference, which is either a plus or a minus, depending on your view, is that they hardly camp whereas 70% of our trip is camping. This to me is a minus for them as I like camping. I also prefer the clean privacy of my tent to the shared (sometimes on the floor) and usually dirty accommodation of some of the hotels. The good hotels are fantastic when they come (rarely) but the usual standard is, as we're repeatedly reminded, 'budget'. The bad hotels are, quite frankly, dirty, smelly and infested with anything from mice, rats, crickets and an assortment of creepy crawlies. Luckily (and amazingly) so far no cockroaches. Also luckily for me, the worst ones were in Pakistan which I missed. So an early start after a sleepless night (drawback of the tent it that it can be very, very humid) and on to Nepal. Woohoo! India was good but, as always, we were all ready for the next country.
It was about a 12-hour drive to the border with a half-hour stop for some lunchtime samosas (or somoosas - depending on where you are), getting there around 7pm and taking a couple of hours to fill in the forms and get across. A short drive over the border took us to our hotel for the night which we fell upon gratefully as we were expecting to bush camp. I didn't wait for dinner but went straight up to my room to get the windows open, the fan on and have a cold shower before falling onto the bed for a bit of a read before falling soundly asleep. It was one of the best nights' sleep I've had. Yesterday morning, refreshed and excited about a new country, we headed off for our 150kms drive to Chitwan National Park. First impressions of Nepal were unanimously good. It's noticeably cleaner, less crowded and more structured than India. It's been lovely to see the reappearance of lush green vegetation and the disappearance of mile after mile of dirty, urban sprawl. We arrived at lunchtime and checked into 'Shivas Dream Hotel' before sinking gratefully into shaded chairs to order lunch and get the lowdown of things to do in Nepal. Despite the imminent monsoon, and assuming you don't mind the rain too much, there's still plenty to do, just less choice about where to do it. Which makes decision-making easy. After lunch, which took hours to arrive, and our briefing, we all headed down to the riverside beach for sundowners and discussions. Followed by much beer-drinking and another late meal. This place is GORGEOUS. The elephants are delightful and the people are lovely.
A 7am breakfast was forced down (I was still full from the late supper) and followed by a short walk to the river to our dugout canoe. We had an idyllic hour's canoe trip down the river to the park, stopping en-route for some wildlife viewing where we were lucky enough to see a couple of rhino which was a treat. We also saw a couple of crocs and a fish eagle. Then we hiked for a couple of hours through the jungle and back to the river where we trudged through some deliciously thick and creamy mud to our canoe for the return trip across the river. We lunched in a charming raised restaurant overlooking the river where we watched the elephants being washed and the tourists tempting the crocodiles in the river. Then back to the hotel for a snooze before venturing out for money-changing and blogging. It's 7.30pm now and time for dinner so I'm going to head off and join the others at a rooftop restaurant for some food. I'm tempted to go elephant trekking tomorrow but am assured that there'll be plenty of opportunity for it later on, probably in Thailand, so I'll settle for joining in the elephant washing which looks like great fun and try to do some lapsed yoga. That's all for now, am off to meet the others for dinner and I'm late. Lx
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment