India (Part 3b)

May/June 2000

Rajasthan is a hot dry dusty desert state just west of Delhi, with a history of Kings and princes ruling over individual parts, and who built great fortresses to protect themselves and magnificent palaces within. Its merchants also became very wealthy from the trade routes that passed through between Asia/China and India and they built their own grandiose mansions. Its well preserved historical monuments and desert landscapes have made it the most popular tourist destination (after Goa), especially with tour groups, but usually during the winter months. When we arrived, it was entering its hottest period just before the monsoon and the temps ranged between 42’C-48’C and tourists were few and far between.

My first impressions of Rajasthan were of a hot flat desert region with fast straight roads and camels being used to pull carts. The second was how much liquid we had to drink each day to replace continual sweating and dehydration. Gallons of water, mango juice, lassi (sweet milky yoghurt), lemonade and wherever possible – ice cold beer. Our original idea to rent a motorbike to tour the state folded when we discovered that Jaipur had no rental places. So more local buses.

At Jaipur, the state capital, we found a comfortable hotel, but the city was a nightmare of aggressive people. The rickshaw drivers were relentless (up to 500 offers a day from the moment you left the hotel), so bad that I would never have taken one just to spite them - “where are you going?”, “very cheap”, “Indian helicopter”, “too hot to walk” “where are you going?” “from what country?”(ad nuseum). There were local buses everywhere which were even cheaper. The people were also aggressive. Catcalling us, trying to be intimidating. On the way back from a restaurant one night, a youth on a scooter came past and pinched Jo’s bum. He then returned a minute later coming the other way and smashed into the side of her, leaving a deep cut on her shin. I had a brick waiting if he appeared again. On another evening, another man grabbed her breast as he passed on his scooter. We hated the people here. With one exception – we met a hotel consultant, Mr Rajan, at one of his hotel restaurants, who was helpful, generous and friendly. We got into many arguments with young people who proclaimed the “greatness of India”. My reply was always the same. “You’re only good at two things – having babies and making a mess”.

The Indians as a whole in the northern areas were awful as opposed to the relaxed southerners. In the hotels, the staff would spy on us, trying to get into our room to look at our stuff or catch Jo with no clothes on (they would enter without knocking ). Incredibly nosy. Shopkeepers and hotels often tried to blatantly overcharge us (and got a mouthful in return). We found helpful, non-threatening people very few and far between (usually food stall owners). Maybe it was because of the high temperatures during the day, which resulted in manic early mornings/ evenings and lethargic afternoons . Maybe it was because it was off-season and we were the only visible tourists that they could pick on. One educated Indian suggested “the northern Indians are not so educated. They are illiterate, stupid and inbred”. Whatever. I just wanted to leave this country of often unrelieved mundane chaos and unrelentless people behind (every tourist we met from now on felt the same) and move on as soon as possible. But we still had a few weeks left in India and Rajasthan offered some wonderful sights.

“A flamboyant showcase of Rajasthan’s architecture, the Pink City of Jaipur has long been established as the third corner of India’s “Golden Triangle” with Delhi and Agra” (Rough Guide). It was founded in 1727 by Jai Singh II who designed the city and palace himself. He was a bit of a lad. Supposedly 7 feet tall, 4 feet wide and weighing 500lbs, he was not a founder member of the Indian “Weightwatchers”. His gigantic silver sword weighed 11lbs. He also had 28 wives and four mistresses (poor sod).

The magnificent City Palace stood enclosed by high walls in the centre of the city amid fine gardens and courtyards. Part of it is still occupied by the Jaipur Royal family. The Palace Guards were very smart in white tunics and bright red turbans. The Palace was built from the local bright orange sandstone and white marble that glowed in the sunshine. In the ‘Hall of Private Audience’, we saw two silver urns over 5 feet tall, reputedly the largest crafted silver objects in the world. When a prince attended the coronation of Edward VII in 1901, he did not trust the water in the west (which is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black) and had them lugged over to England both containing 900 litres of River Ganges water.

Within the Palace grounds, Jai Singh, obsessed with astronomy, had his own ‘astronomical observatory’ (Jantar Mantar) built in 1734. There are 18 huge instruments built here, of brick curves, slants, circles and pillars, and overlaid with sherbet yellow gypsum, that now look like a fantastic outdoor exhibit from a modern art gallery. The instruments were built so that shadows fell on marked surfaces, identifying the position and movement of stars and planets and telling the time. The most impressive construction was the sundial. Its slanting centrepiece, reached a height of 90ft casting shadows onto curved stone faces. It is accurate to within two minutes of modern measurements. I had never seen a site like this one anywhere.

Just round the corner, a final gem and Jaipur’s most acclaimed landmark, the tapering “Palace of Winds” (Hawa Mahal) exuded an orangey pink glow in the sunshine. Built in 1799 to enable the women of court to observe street processions while remaining in ‘purdah’ (unseen by anyone), its five-story façade has 593 finely screened windows. It looked much larger than it is. When you climb up behind it, much of it is little more than a room thick.

Outside Jaipur in the nearby hills were some other spectacular sights. The ‘Floating Palace’, stood in the middle of a small smelly lake near Jaipur’s city walls. Superbly situated, it seemed disused and the kind of place, that if you were rich enough, you would buy up, and turn into your splendid isolated summer retreat.

For seven centuries before Jai Singh II, the Rajput stronghold of Amber was the capital of the area. It was a fortified castle of high ramparts and gates which was eventually turned into a massive palace. The remains of the ‘Royal Apartments’, had shards of mirror and coloured glass which formed intricate mosaics that covered the walls and ceilings. From a distance, they seemed to be covered in jewels, tinted by the sunlight. The complex was enormous and a wonderful ‘pink’ in colour. Beneath it was a lime green lake – a former moat. Behind Amber Palace, high on the hills lay another former and mighty Seventeenth Century Jaigarh or “Tiger Fort”. Now just mostly thick red/orange walls covering the hills, it did boast the “largest cannon in Asia” which needed 100 kilos of gunpowder for one shot and which could send the cannon ball 22 miles! Not that it was ever used in a battle. It was also massive in scale.

Jaipur also produced more examples of lengthy bureaucracy. It took 90 minutes for Jo to get her credit card processed by a bank to withdraw cash ( 5 staff sat in front of us doing nothing but even less to help us), and the post office took 2 and a half hours to send 3 parcels. The Manager, an old man, spoke no English and seemed only capable of drawing lines in an exercise book. After numerous delays and being sent to half a dozen counters, I only got something done, by yelling at the top of my voice for anyone who spoke English. A loud commotion is the only language they understand. I have come to the conclusion, that if you give an Indian a chair, they immediately stop working and just wait to go home. If there is any threat of serving someone, they disappear out of a door and wait until you have gone.

We finally fled Jaipur for Fatehpur. En route at a rest stop, we were besieged by a dozen young boys who boarded the bus with cold drinks and surrounded us at the back for 10 minutes until the bus left, taunting us in Indian. None of the older Indian men on the bus did nothing to stop them. I got my own back by waving a large wad of Indian money at them yelling “Look, no rupees for you”. We were thinking, what have we done to deserve this menacing treatment? It was probably because the kids were on holiday and had nothing to do and we were the only tourists in towns. I started to feel that physical violence was a possibility - mostly me hitting any Indian that refused to take “no” as an answer. It was 45’C and too hot to bother with ignorant natives.

North of Jaipur lies the Thar Desert, where small towns rest between sanddunes and infertile expanses of dusty land known as ‘Shekawati’. From 1450 onwards, it lay on the ‘Spice Road’ to Asia and China. The local merchants made their fortunes and built impressive mansions (havelis – meaning enclosed space – so they were all built around courtyards). These were decorated inside and out with colourful murals with various subjects: folk tales, religious stories, merchant family portraits, animals, local customs and even Europeans with their Victorian technology (trains and cars). In the early Twentieth Century, the British encouraged the merchants to move to the larger cities and consequently, the settlements were deserted. Even now, tourists rarely visit them.

Fatehpur was a noisy congested market town, where the sole swish hotel on the outskirts had peacocks making loud peacock noises in the garden. No one in town could speak English, except for the usual “From what country?” The town was like a crumbling open air living museum, full of dusty old havelis with families still living in them, the murals flaking off the walls. We poked around and explored nearby towns which also had superb murals. On one local bus, the bus driver played the music so loud we had to stick our fingers in our ears to stop them from bleeding. Other passengers looked at us as if we’d escaped from a mental hospital. India is the loudest place I’ve ever heard. Painfully loud. You cannot walk down the street and talk to each other for the traffic honking at each other. Everyone else is trying to yell over this or each other to be heard.

Dead cows, donkeys and even camels from the current drought littered the desert sands. Sticking my head out of the bus window, it was so hot (48’C), it felt like I had a hairdryer in my face. The locals gawked at us as if we’d arrived from space, then posses of small children would trail after us around the place yelling “1 rupee, 1 pen, 1 shampoo”. In return, they learnt the expression “Bugger off”. Sitting at a bus stand, a snake charmer sidled up and got his cobra out (oo-er). He tried to shock Jo, by throwing it at her. She didn’t even flinch. Now if it had been a fish, it would have been a different matter. The home-made ice creams were strange affairs. A large metal container was wheeled around containing long thin metal casings with the ice cream. The casing was whipped out, dunked in some hot water and removed from the casing with the stick. Not bad for 3 rupees.

More carcasses and camel trains en route to Bikaner which had the spectacular red Junagarth Fort. Built at ground level in the late 16th century, it had 37 pavilions within its tall walls and superb decorative interiors in the more recent palaces. One huge room had a World War 1 aeroplane in perfect order (a present from the British to the Maharaja of Bikaner). The people were more laid back which got better as we headed further west into the desert.

The tiny non-descript town of Deshnok south of Bikaner provided us with another unique spectacle where Jo did flinch! Devotees of the small Karni Mata temple, believe that departing souls are saved from Yama, the god of death, by being reincarnated as rats. Teeming hoards of free roaming ugly brown rodents are accordingly worshipped and fed by visitors. If they run over your bare feet (you remove your shoes before entering), it is considered a great privilege. I don’t know how many there were, but hundreds were hanging off vast bowls of ex bakery stuff. They scuttled everywhere and the smell was appalling. The temple custodian sat in front of the altar with them climbing all over him. We saw Indian women in their bright saris picking them up. Only in India. The only privilege Jo felt was getting away from the place as soon as possible without a disease.

The road to Jodhpur in the centre of Rajasthan was covered in sand drifts. By the side were piles of animal carcasses 20 feet tall. One of the problems with visiting Rajasthan at its hottest period, was that the heat just destroyed us as well. We would have to return to the air conditioned hotel room during the day, and just lay on the bed panting from dehydration, have a shower and then go back out in the sweltering heat. I just sweated 24 hours a day without air conditioning. It became a real chore to drag yourself out to see another ‘sight’. There were water stands set up near hand pumps in every town for the locals which I also used. You tipped your head back, opened your mouth and poured in water from a jug trying to swallow at the same time, making sure your mouth did not touch the jug. Most of the water ended up on my shirt. In every town, I tried to track down the solitary “English Wine Shop” which sold beer and spirits. You could only drink behind closed doors (e.g. hotel room).

On the eastern fringe of the Thar Desert, the city of Jodphur sprawls across the sandy terrain. The mighty red sandstone walled Meherangarth Fort is located on a high rocky outcrop overlooking the town. In the good old days, when a Rajastani King died, his wives were expected to commit ‘sati’ (suicide pacts). The British outlawed this in 1829, but in 1843, it still occurred at Jodphur. Before killing themselves, their left their palm prints in the castle walls. There was a stack of them. The old city below it was bustling with a large market. Many of the houses were painted in blue wash – from the fort, it looked like someone had dropped a huge can of blue paint over the town. No one knows why. Vultures soared above the castle with their long black curved necks. A dead stinking cow was rotting by the side of a road. Which was nice.

Fresh donkeys and cows lay dying by the side of the road en route to Jaisalmer. I saw large white Sankar deer disappear over the sanddunes. Jaisalmer is the most western town in Rajasthan (and probably India), very near the Pakistani border and where the Indians do their nuclear bomb testing. It is called “The Golden City” because the entire town was built from the same local sandstone. The walls of a huge sandstone fort, which is still inhabited by locals and contains an ornately carved Royal Palace and some old temples, dominate it. The former merchants also had exquisitely carved havelis, very different from the ones we had seen in Fatehpur. We were able to stay at our very own carved sandstone ‘Haveli’ which was very ornate and full of antiques. A squirrel clung spread-eagled on the outside of our air-conditioner throughout the day trying to stay cool in 48’C. The locals lay around in the shade probably telling us in Hindi “Christ, this heat is unbearable”. We discovered fresh mango milkshakes and fruit lassis and swallowed a dozen.

Udaipur, the “City of Sunrise”, in the central south of the state was like a mirage in the desert. It is a very picturesque place based around the 8km square Lake Pichola. On the lakeside there are many palaces, including two on islands in the lake. The City Palace (started 1560s) the largest in Rajasthan, was memorable for two things: the miniature paintings (which the city is famous for). A painting of maybe 3x2 feet would contain thousands of characters and storylines, each individually painted and every face/body different. Brushes of one squirrel hair taken from their throats (at last a use for the pesky varmints!) were use to paint such fine detail. The walls were covered in these, and we spent ages staring at the details trying to take it all in. The second thing were the interior decorations of some of the Royal Apartments – mirrors on the floors and ceilings with ‘spangly balls’ hanging down. They looked like 16th century discos – centuries ahead of their time. I kept looking for John Travolta’s white suit. The Palace is still inhabited by the Maharana (prince), who is the 76th generation to have been based here (they were never invaded). They can trace their uninterrupted ancestry all the way back to the 6th century and claim to be the oldest continuous dynasty in the world.

The 17th Century Jagnath Temple nearby was shaped like a small space rocket and ornately carved from white marble with the usual horses, elephants and camels. Inside the shrine, a dozen colourfully dressed women were chanting. They were still at it 12 hours later at midnight, covered in grasshoppers and crickets who invaded the town every night.

We had a lovely 3rd floor suite overlooking the shimmering lake and got a great breeze as well as beautiful views of the palaces lit up by night. One night, a monsoon sprawl hit the town. The wind roared, lightening lit the sky for hours and the rain lashed against the windows. It was like being stuck in a horror movie. In the morning, I discovered that our lounge had been flooded as had most of my stuff which was dumped on the floor (Indian Balcony Drainage Design Award – NOT!), but it didn’t take long to dry out in this heat. We met an English couple Trev and Alison also on a world tour. They had visited Nepal and a smattering of India so far and I bored them with suggestions of what to do in India. My first suggestion was leave, but that was already one of their options. With a decent pad, we were able to entertain lavishly (er, Kingfisher Beer), which made a great change from our normal one roomed existence.

Just outside Udaipur was a cultural heritage park at Shilpgram which was constructed to preserve the traditional architecture, music and crafts of the tribal people of western India. It was deserted and we splashed out on a student guide who took us around the various buildings explaining everything. There were circular painted houses, Goan potters huts, fishermen cottages. Some were very decorative. You see lots of huge multicoloured horse (symbolising strength), elephant (luck) and camel (desert) paintings everywhere in this state.

With its smooth spread of white domed houses and temples reflected in a tranquil lake, Pushkar is like “A pearl dropped in the desert” (Rough Guide). The legend goes that the god Brahma dropped a lotus flower from the sky, and declared the lake that sprang from the arid desert sands to be holy and promised that anyone who bathed in it would be freed from their sins. This has ensured that since the 6th Century, pilgrims have been coming here to have a bath at one of its 52-lakeside ‘ghats’ – broad flights of steps leading down to the water. The rich and famous are often cremated and their ashes scattered here. Mahatma Ghandi had his ashes cast out over the water.

The place was rather relaxed, mainly because the streets were too narrow for rickshaws. There were a lot of well to do, colourfully dressed Indian tourist pilgrims which also raised the ambience. The men wore bright orange turbans, the women in pink saris. They loved getting their photos taken. Western tourists are urged by locals to worship at the lake – involving the repetition of prayers to enhance their ‘karma’ while scattering rose petals into the lake. While Jo went along with it, to get her red spot on her forehead and her “Pushkar passport” – a red wristband that would keep all other scam artists away, I lost interest as soon as he started and walked off. I don’t think the kid understood “My karma just ran over your dogma”. The only bathing we did was in the hotel swimming pool (only our third in India). At night, the monsoon hit us again and powercuts left the town in darkness for two nights.

In the Sunday newspaper was a huge classified section ‘Matrimonial Classified’ which advertised “Grooms Wanted For” and “Brides Wanted For” as part of that great Indian tradition of arranged marriages. Here is a typical example of a family looking for a nice ‘boy’ for their daughter. “Alliance invited for a very fair, slim Aggarwal girl, beautiful, pleasant personality, good natured, 22/155. Commerce graduate from a high status business family, the boy should be good looking, professionally qualified, tee totaller, vegetarian, well settled in Delhi, from a status Aggarwal family. Early decent marriage” (no fat drunken sweaty Englishmen need apply). They don’t want much do they?

En route, on our way out of Rajasthan, east to Agra in Uttar Pradesh, we reached Jaipur again. Here we discovered that the road to Agra had been closed down. One of India’s most famous politicians had died in a jeep accident the day before (I warned you about those jeep drivers). What? Did it take 24 hours to remove his body? So we had to hole up in Jaipur for another night and that breast-grabbing incident. If any of you lovely ladies are thinking of going – take a can of mace.

We were expecting a westernised cosmopolitan affair at Agra – after all it is the home of India’s most famous and most visited sight, the Taj Mahal. What we found was an ugly dirty town with no real centre and no western facilities except for the large hotel chains. We thought Jaipur had been bad, but Agra was just as bad as far as rickshaw drivers were concerned. The tourists had vanished. We were the only possible victims and we weren’t biting. They would surround us in threes “where are you going?” “which hotel” “very cheap price”.

There were some great signs in Agra: ‘Cold Bear Served Here’, ‘Agra Ladies Sliming Club’, ‘V.D. Tours and Travels’ and on the side of one truck ‘Fright Cargo’. Agra post office had a new dimension – a customs officer who had to see all our stuff before it was packed. More staring at hundreds of photos (“don’t miss the ones I took of your military installations, bridges and defence measures”) and filling out of forms in triplicate. (One for you, one for me, one for the parcel). He refused to believe that he was the first customs officer we had seen in any Indian post office. “Every post office has a customs official” he said. “No they don’t” we said, reeling off a list of post offices we had visited. His logic was foolproof “It is the law. They must have. Otherwise I would have no job!”. (I wish). And very slow he was at it too I might add. This added another hour onto the usual deliberations as he carefully wrote down whatever his job entailed into his log books and sealed our now inspected, wrapped and sewn up parcels with red sealing wax and his customs seal.

Despite the gritty, loud and generally unpleasant ambience, there are indeed some fine sights in Agra. Lying by the River Yamura, it was the capital of all India under the Moghuls in the 16th Century and they attempted to make it their showpiece. The huge red walls of the ‘Red Fort’ are 2.5 km in circumference. It was a large impressive affair, but the interiors had been stripped over the centuries (rather like it’s sister Moghul fort in Lahore, Pakistan which we had seen) and only the scale was impressive. For more intricate and ornate architecture, the Itmad-Ud-Daulah across the river is the 1622 beautiful tomb of a Moghul aristocrat. Constructed from pure white marble, the mausoleum appears translucent. It is called the “Baby Taj Mahal” because it was an early example of a similar style – almost a practice run. In Sikandra, just north of Agra is Akbar’s mausoleum (the founding Moghul ruler). One of the most ambitious structures of its time, it was a majestic composition of deep red sandstone and cool white marble. The most overwhelming feature was its huge “Gateway of Magnificence” with its koranic inscription “These are the gardens of Eden, enter them and live forever” which actually obstructs any view of the tomb beyond (which itself is very tall).

Outside Agra, lay the ghost city of Fatehpur Sikri which was built in the late 16th century by Akbar as a twin capital to Agra but deserted because its meagre water supply could not sustain the population. This masterpiece in red sandstone lay silent for four centuries but has been remarkably preserved. The imposing Jami Masjid mosque had a great gate (1576) which, at 54m in height was enormous. The mosque itself had a spacious layout inside – Moghul style. There was even a tunnel dug all the way back to Agra 37km away. Up the hill was the large Royal Palace complex which was also spacious in design with multi tiered buildings on sandstone pillars. A very pleasant place to wander around for a day. The strangest sight was on the way there, when we passed a dozen large black bears in muzzles being led along the road by locals. I think they were dancing bears to entertain tour groups, but it was so hot the poor thick furred bears, just lay panting under the shade of trees.

On Fridays, entrance to the Taj Mahal is free which saved us $12 tickets. It was more economical for us to stay an extra day than pay that. To avoid the crowds, we got up early and arrived around 7.30am. It was already packed. It gets about 20,000 visitors on a Friday. It has been described as “A tear on the face of eternity” and it is undoubtedly the zenith of Moghul architecture and one of the world’s most famous buildings.

Overlooking the river and standing within vast gardens enclosed by walls, it is a monument to ‘love’. The Moghul emperor Shan Jahan built it to enshrine the body of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died shortly after giving birth to her 14th child in 1631 (I’m not surprised!). Devastated by her death (and amounts of dirty baby clothes everywhere), he set out to create an unsurpassed eternal monument to her memory. 20,000 works took 30 years to build it by 1653. Marble was brought from Jodphur in Rajasthan and precious stones from Persia, Russia and China.

Our first impression was “Well its not very big is it?”. Because we had seen the image everywhere throughout our lives, we expected a massive construction, whereas it almost seemed ‘Disney-like’. But as I approached it, and then spent a couple of hours walking around it and the grounds, the scale and symmetrical beauty of the four minarets and large marble dome began to cast a spell. Most of the precious stones seemed to have disappeared, but what is left is a majestic white marble structure with sharply defined lines that, when you consider it is over 400 years old and still standing in this condition is a superb achievement. Americans were still trying to build log houses when this was created. We found the magical photographic spot where, if you stick your arm in the air and hang your hand down, it looks as if you are picking it up by its spire. But in the pre-monsoon climate, the bleached white sky behind provided no rainbow sunrises or sunsets. I suppose it was another day, another Wonder of the World, but I was glad that we had saved it until late into our Indian travels. I was very impressed. We also saw a handful of western tourists here. I think they must have all been holed up in their hotel rooms for days until the free entry forced them out.

We were glad to escape Agra. We were getting weary of India now and counting the days before we could flee. I had originally planned to see a few sights in the state of Madhya Pradesh – Sanchi, Orchid, and Kanho National Park. However, we had seen enough forts and Buddhist stupas and the park was closed for the monsoon. So we crossed them off and made our way to Varanesi via Khajuraho, 400km south west of Agra. Passing though this area, it turned out to be nothing special and we were glad we were not stopping.

Khajuraho is regarded as a ‘must see’ place in India. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, it took a 14-hour bus ride to reach it. It’s splendid Hindu temples of ‘delicate sensuality’ were built 1000 years ago, deserted and neglected, discovered by the English in the middle of jungles in the 19th Century and later restored. The English Victorians were not happy with their discovery of carved representations of sexual positions and bestiality– “some of the sculptures here are extremely indecent and offensive” and “disgustingly obscene”. Sounded like my kind of place.

There were half a dozen temples “stranded like a fleet of stone ships, amid pristine lawns and flowerbeds” (Rough Guide). The grounds were lovely and almost deserted. The modest sized temples had space rocket shaped pyramids towering over them. The oldest ‘Laskshmana’ (950 AD) had endless carvings including processional friezes of horses, elephants and camels. Soldiers. Domestic servants, musicians and dancers, a man buggering a horse (eh? Where did that fit in?). There was an astounding sense of movement and vitality to these carvings (except for the poor horse). Above these, were tiers of ‘celestial nymphs’ and figures in complicated sex acts (here’s one I tried beforehand) which the Indian tourists spent a lot of time examining. The other temples were more or less the same. I actually found them less impressive than the temple at Konarak which we had visited in March, which had a lot more sexual acts goings on and was a larger and more ornate affair. But these were worth a visit and are a World Heritage Site.

After 7 months, my shorts and shirts were ragged and falling off me. I re-equipped myself with two new sets of Indian clothes - light cotton/silk Indian shirts and baggy trousers. If I shaved my head I would look like the evil villain in the ‘Austin Powers’ movie who has the same kind of dress sense. I know how much you love to hear of my suffering so here are the secret ingredients to a final ‘bus ride from hell’ in India.

We thought that Jaipur and Agra had ruthless rickshaw drivers, but Varanesi turned out to be the worst place in India. We were dropped at the central railway station around 5.30am and there were armies of them outside. It was like being in a computer game, where the aim is to cross the road without getting run over by rickshaws on the move, not surrounded by vacant rickshaws and to have a snappy answer of refusal at every offer after the word ‘No’ ceases to mean ‘No”. By the time we found a hotel, we just felt like locking ourselves in and watching movies instead. Why didn’t you just take one you ask. Because we didn’t know where we wanted to stay and rickshaw drivers tend to take you to places where they get commission and the room price is raised accordingly. So stuff ‘em.

Stretched along the holy River Ganges, Varanesi is one of the oldest living cities in the world. Located on an ancient trade route, it is among the holiest of all ‘tirthas’ (crossing places) that allow devotees access to the divine and enable gods/goddesses to come down to earth (it says here in my Guidebook). It has maintained a religious life since the 6th Century BC, because Hindus regard the Ganges as ‘amrita’ – the elixir of life which brings purity to the living and salvation of the dead. Anyone who dies in Varanesi attains instant enlightenment and a release from the endless cycles of births and rebirth. But not it seems, a release from rickshaw drivers.

Varanesi’s waterfront is dominated by long flights of stone steps known as ‘ghats’ (landings) just like in Pushkar, but here there were over 100 of them stretching along the river. Here, thousands of pilgrims and locals come for their daily ritual ablutions – washing/laundry/meditation/blessings. Behind the ghats were a series of grubby looking pavilions, temples and mansions. Around 7am we rented a boatman to row us along the riverside to watch the activities. It was a wonderful way to see Varanesi’s major sight (especially since rickshaws could not float). We passed the ‘burning ghats’ where cremations take place but no one was cooking this morning. Barges of firewood were moored next door ready for the endless deaths – many people come here to die. As our boatman sang to himself and rowed us along the river, children swam, boys fished , women waded into the water in their clothes, men stood practising yoga in their underwear, dobie-wallahs thrashed clothes out on the steps and hung them out to dry. The very wide dirty brown coloured river looked extremely unhygienic. Ashes from the dead, emissions from open drains, washing detergents – yet people were still drinking the water. The water level was rising with the monsoon rains and many riverside shrines were half submerged.

This was the only sight we wanted to see in this horrible city. The Old City was just a maze of narrow alleyways and shops and hawkers trying to get your attention or money. For someone who loves to walk around for hours exploring every nook and cranny, the intense rickshaw pressure (along with the frequent heavy rain showers) just made put me off from my usual activity and we sat around waiting to escape. I wouldn’t wish this place on anyone – though the riverside boat ride was lovely and unique in India.

After the bus trip from hell, Jo was adamant that we catch a train to our final destination of Calcutta. I concurred and we were able to get an excellent 2nd class a/c overnight sleeper as the monsoon rain fell outside. We passed through the poor state of Bihar which is having a spate of inter-caste village killings at the moment (Rich landlords vs. peasant farmers – nice place, nice people). General lawlessness pervades the intense poverty. So we didn’t stop.

We had passed through the state of West Bengal and the city of Calcutta in March, but this time, it was flooded. The rain was teeming down in frequent bouts. We got soaked crossing on the ferry from Howrah railway station, walked through drizzle into the centre and then were drenched again looking for a hotel around the New Market. I’ve never seen a hotel district under a foot of water before. The sewers were blocked and every street was flooded. The human rickshaw pullers came into their own during the floods – the only thing that could get through the water. I waded through the water, fell into submerged potholes and after an hour of finding grubby affairs gave up. We were reduced to finding a hotel without a lake on its doorstep at double our normal budget. I’m surprised they took in drowned rats. Jo was not a happy rat. Ironically, it hardly rained again during our 4-day stay and the next day the streets were dry in the intense heat. It felt like I was in a new area I’d never seen before. We were able to move to a better place at our usual cheap rate and pretend that the day before had never happened.

I found Calcutta generally a pleasant city (despite the loud traffic). I was surprised to see herds of goats and sheep being shepherded down the main roads in the middle of town, but they spent most of their time on the ‘Maiden’ which dominates the centre – one of the largest city parks in the world. It was a huge stretch of common parkland with the old Fort William at one end (built by Clive of India) and the dramatic and massive white marble 1921 Victoria Memorial at the other. Situated in lovely gardens, it looks like a magnificent cathedral from the outside, but is just a motley collection of ex British Raj souvenirs inside along with a small but excellent History of Calcutta exhibition. Under the British, Calcutta used to be the capital of India. The state of Bengal produced 44% of all India’s wealth up to 1860. They were gobsmacked when the British elected Delhi to be the capital in the early 20th Century and never really forgave us. Likewise, we have never forgiven them for the 1757 “Black Hole of Calcutta” incident when 130 Englishmen were locked in a confined space and only 25 survived to see the next day. The site was later destroyed and replaced by all things, the central Post Office, which in my view, is most symbolic, since we disappeared into many post offices in this country never to be seen again for hours.

In Calcutta, we were able to visit the Bangladeshi Consul and get a visa within a day. We also booked our flights from Dhaka, Bangladesh to Yangon, Myanmar and onwards to Bangkok, Thailand. Biman Airlines threw in a Calcutta – Dhaka flight for free.

On our last day in Calcutta, it was the local elections. People were lining up to vote. We spotted a queue of people who were being bribed samosas and a mango to cast their vote for the paying politicians. The organisers did not like our cameras and threatened us with physical violence and the police if we took photos. The place was full of “jobs worths” today. We visited the famous “Writers Building”. First they told us that we could not walk on the sidewalk (even though locals were doing it). So we walked anyway. Then when I pulled out my camera, they said it was illegal. I took my photos and told them to arrest me. It was a historic building, not a military target.

We walked to St Paul’s Cathedral which was a magnificent old English church built in 1849. This gothic structure was lovely inside with tall fans hanging down from the ceilings. The iron trussed roof was then the longest span in existence (75m x 24m). There were many well-preserved memorials to long perished imperialists. One read “ Not near this stone prior to any consecrated ground but on the extreme frontier of the British Indian Empire, lie the remains of Patrick Alexander Agnew and William Anderson…... Attacked and wounded on 19th April 1848…... Treacherously deserted by the Seik escort…... Were the following day in flagrant breach of national faith and hospitality barbarously murdered… full of high hopes, are talents and the promise of future usefulness even in their deaths doing their country honour”.

Outside we got chatting to a local who told us about the replacement of Mother Theresa who was “mean” and had cut down on charity. His daughter was sick. We heard his tale of woe before the inevitable request for money was turned down (sorry pal, but if you can speak English that well, you shouldn’t be begging).

We caught a local bus to the airport, past the ‘Dum Dum’ district, famous for the production of those infamous bullets during the Boar War. The airport was quiet and there were minimal security checks. Tequila in the duty free was a very reasonable $7 a bottle and necessary for the ‘dry’ Muslim Bangladesh. Before we left, we had heard that Northern Bangladesh was being flooded. 30,000 people had been made homeless by 3ft of water.

Here ended the first part of the trip. We had travelled over 30,000 km, mostly overland, stayed in 108 hotels/hostels (My web page has all the travel and accommodation details). After many months in India and Nepal, we would now have a couple of months hotfooting it through 6 more countries.

At last, it was all over. Over the last 6 months, we had spent 15 weeks criss-crossing India on 3 separate visits. North-South, South-North,West-East, Kashmir/Ladakh, West-East. The most difficult country I have ever travelled in had ravaged us. The nightmarish and Rip Van Winkle length bus rides, the lovely cool smooth trains. The sheer numbers of people, the endless repetitive questions. They may only ask the question once, but a billion people had now asked us the same question “From what country?”. The repetitiveness wore us down. We had crossed the fertile plains, sailed through tropical riverways, been dehydrated by humidity, plagued by flies, mosquitoes and grasshoppers, blown dry by the deserts, crossed the moon and were finally flooded out by the annual monsoon. We had experienced southern and northern Indian cuisine and an array of Indian beverages. I would miss Indian milky tea, lassi and an ice cold beer after a hot day’s sightseeing. We had seen some of the world’s most famous historical sights, and some of the lesser but still intriguing and unique places. We had met some lovely people but told a lot more to go forth and multiply. We had been stared at, laughed at, smiled at, attacked and ignored. We had had our photos taken with a million people.

Our insides had been reduced to water, but not very often. I had been reduced to squatting in a pig toilet, worshipping in a rat temple, harassed by bulls in bus stations. I would miss the cows sitting in the middle of the road or walking around eating any litter. I would miss the other animals that roamed freely – hogs, goats, and dogs. I would not miss the rubbish everywhere, the stink, and the sight of men pissing everywhere in public. Jo would not miss the complete lack of women's toilets in the whole country. I would miss losing weight with such ease. I would not miss the countless mothers clutching babies and holding out a metal dish, the small kids who would run up and say “Hello” followed by “one rupee, one pen”, and the cocky youths trying to impress their friends by making fun of us or grabbing Jo. I came away with no spiritual revival. Religion pervades the society but it is a cultural mishmash that has been squashed together and just seems a cheap way for poor people to pass the time. I would not miss the caste system which is a cruel farce and the main drawback to any greatness that India pretends to possess.

I would not miss Indian bureaucracy – banks, post offices, getting any paperwork done whatsoever. If anyone had a computer, it took twice as long. I will never complain at slowness in the west again. I will not miss the hours of just sitting around waiting for something to happen or for someone to do something. I would miss the cheapness of many things – hotels, food, and transport. I would not miss the powercuts and deadly slow and erratic internet/email speeds. I would not miss the chaos, the loud incessant noise. I would not miss that bloody unstoppable noise. People yelling. Traffic honking. All day. All night. I would miss seeing people start working at sunrise, with optimism in their faces, watching these people really work hard for really long hours for not much money and still see them working when I went to bed and then watch them get up the next day and start again.

Will I miss India? Many people say they do and return. Most travellers I met were intrigued but generally hated the place. I can’t ever imagine coming back. I got what I came for and India took from me what it could. It had its chance. It won’t get another.

Road kill statistics of trip so far: 7 donkeys, 7 rats, 6 dogs, 3 cats, 2 camels, 2 cows, 1 goat, 1 snake

Travel - £298(including £213 Calcutta-Dhaka-Yangon-Bangkok flights)
Accommodation - £96.29
Food - £128.33
Other - £223.01 (inc £43 Bangladesh Visa)
Total - £743.01

Grand Total - £3347.51