I fell off my bike
Yup. And since then I’ve been in a crappy Indian hospital, received 3 crappy stitches, and have had the wound reinfected (not surprisingly). But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let me start from the beginning.
After some relaxing time in Kerala we took a flight out to the Andaman islands, one of those hidden gems that is sure to be overrun by backpackers in the next 5 years, with resorts then running those backpackers out in 10; think the towns on the Turkish Med like Oludeniz or the Thai lsland of Koh Samui. We actually had never heard of the Andamans, but our buddy Dan who we travelled Tibet with (who is on an 18 month around-the-world trip with his wife) said he was gonna be there in the end of November and that we’d like it a lot more than Goa. Di and I did some research, and these islands sounded perfect. The diving was supposed to be spectacular, the water turquoise, the sunsets purple, and the beaches white. There were also plentiful beach huts on offer, what else could you want?
The Andaman and Nicobar islands are in the Andaman sea and are actually much closer to Myanmar and Thailand than to mainland India. The Nicobars are off limits to tourists as there are still indigenous tribes living there who want no contact with the outside world (ie confrontations have been really hostile in some cases). We first flew into the capital of the Islands, Port Blair, and immediately we hopped on a 3 hour ferry to Havelock, the island most popular with travellers. We checked into a dive ‘resort’ which was just a bunch of tents and huts on the beach. We talked to the dive centre and decided to do some scuba a couple of days after we arrived, just to give us some time to check out the island. The next day we rented a bike to do some exploring. The nicest stretch of beach was on the west side of the island, while most of the accommodations were on the east. So we headed the 12 kms through the jungley heart of the island to check out the nicest beach, also called beach 7. The road there was bumpy and full of potholes, some massive, but we made it and hung out there all afternoon. It really was stunning and it felt like we were the only ones around. After watching the romantic sunset we hopped on our bike to go back, and this is where ego/stupidity led to some poor decision making. Since the Andamans are so close to the equator, when the sun sets, it gets dark pretty much instantaneously. So about 5 minutes into the ride home it became super dark, and in case you’re wondering there are no street lights here. Our light that we had was broken, in hindsight we should have tested that before leaving. So instead of hiring a tuk-tuk to take us home I just thought we could make it by moonlight, I mean how hard could it be? About 15 minutes later I blindly hit a deep pothole and my right knee came down hard on the gravel, cutting it open about an inch and a half. Even though it was pitch black out, a bunch of Indians must have heard me fall as I was surrounded by them within about 2 minutes. They pointed me to the nearest (and only) hospital, which was a free government clinic in the heart of town. When I say the heart of town, I mean the only T-intersection around with a couple of T-shirt stores and one or two food stalls. I walked in and found the head nurse, who quickly attended to Di first. Good thing she did since Di had a small bruise developing on her knee, and you know how bruises can be such a huge emergency. I, on the other hand, was only gushing blood to the point of my foot being completely covered in red, but I could wait. She gave us a couple of tetanus shots and wiped Di’s knee clean with a cotton swab and saline. Then it was my turn. She basically doused my open wound with alcohol. That…frickin…hurt. Then she threw in a ton of Iodine for good measure before using her bare hands to stitch me up with what looked like rope. It sucked having no anesthetic but that was the least of my worries at that moment as cleanliness was a bigger concern for me. Thankfully the needle came out of a sterile pack. Anyways, she put in 3 stitches and she tied them as tight as she could. I told her that she was going to make my tissue ischemic, but she said that since it was on my knee where there’s lots of movement she needed to make it as tight as possible or else it wouldn’t stop bleeding. After dressing my wound she gave me some antibiotics and we were on our way. I was not confident at all with the stitching job but there were 5 Belgian doctors staying where we were so I bee lined it to them (they were sitting around talking about their days diving, eating chocolate they brought from Belgium, and smoking cigars; can you be more stereotypical?) Anyways, they had a good laugh with the size of the silk sutures but they said the job was quite adequate and should do the trick; only the scar would be larger than if they did it. That eased my concerns a bit but they said I shouldn’t do any diving for a few days. We were unhappy about not being able to dive, but in hindsight that was a good thing as everyone there basically told us the diving was only mediocre at best. Especially since we were heading to Thailand to dive in places like Ko Lanta people told us not to waste our time diving in Havelock. So Di and I just relaxed on the beach for 5 days, hanging out with other travellers. Most were backpackers (well pretty much everyone except the Belgians) who were there to dive and chillax on a beach, a crowd we definitely got along with. It was good seeing our friends who we travelled Tibet with too. In addition we got in a day of fishing and Di caught a 4 kilo Pocari that was super tasty, not bad for her first time fishing.
The wound seemed to be improving and I changed the dressing at the government clinic twice. Though I kept trying to get the lone doctor to look at it he basically said he couldn’t because he was too busy (which he was) so I just had to go to the dressing room and have the nurses do the work. However, on the day we were to leave, my leg started to hurt, and I knew that was not good. We first caught a ferry to Port Blair before taking the overnight flight to Bangkok. By the time I arrived in Bangkok, my right leg looked like it belonged to an elephant. We quickly checked into our guesthouse, and the owner pointed us to a private modern hospital catered to foreigners. The ER guys took a look and told me what I already knew, the wound was re-infected. The general surgeon came down and froze me up before cutting away the sutures and the dead and infected tissue, re-cleaning everything and irrigating out small bits of remaining gravel. Luckily the hospital here has given me excellent care and the surgeon and nurses have been fantastic. So now my leg looks size normal (and not size elephant) again, but I’ve had to go for a daily debridement and dressing change. He kept it open to make sure everything was drained and it looks like he’ll suture me back up in the next few days. He made a comment about how he’d try to minimize the scar but I’d definitely have one on my knee, and though it wouldn’t interfere with function he joked that I might not look as good in swimming trunks. I responded that I don’t look good in swimming trunks anyways so it’s all good!
India was an extremely intriguing and diverse country. Though it probably was the most difficult place for us to travel, we can now definitely see how many people absolutely love it (and also how others absolutely hate it). The poor infrastructure and city planning, awful train system, and the crushing poverty are certainly negatives that can really frustrate the most seasoned travellers. In fact many of us were quite astounded that India gets compared to China so much; it really still seems light years behind China in many respects. However, it was the amazing heart of the people and their palpable sense of passion and warmth that really left a lasting positive impression for Di and I. Something about their incomparable love of song and dance, something about the sparkling eyes of the average Indian and their ability to convey all their emotions with a glance, something about the addictively amiable head bobble, just something about the soul of this country permanently affects the substance of your heart and the genuineness to your smile.
The Parts of India That We Began to Fancy
Her husband was murdered by his business partner for 40,000RMB (that’s about 1000USD), and because of a bribe the murderer’s sentence was only 1 year in jail. She was left with 2 boys aged 7 and 9. Being in the Brahmin caste, she was not allowed to work and for 45 days after the death of her husband, she had to cover her head up entirely with her sari. There was no money for her and her children so her boys ended up secretly collecting travellers’ laundry from guest houses for her to wash, just so they could afford to eat plain naan with chilli sauce to ease their hunger. By chance, a foreign traveller came upon her cooking and enjoyed it very much; he suggested she teach people how to cook. So she did. She remembered very clearly that her first students were an Australian couple, and since she spoke no English she just used hand gestures to communicate with them. Another traveller offered to help her print her extensive list of recipes in English. Others came along to translate into their own languages and one of them designed a website for her. She eventually learned English from her students and her sons. It’s been 4 years since her first cooking class, and she is now considered wealthy in her community. She helps the poor and she helps travellers buy spices from the market for the “Indian” price since it was Westerners who first helped her. This is the story of Shashi, our cooking class teacher in Udaipur. Her English was not fluent but her usage of simple words, direct and to the point, brought tears in my eyes when she told her compelling story. We spent 5 hours with her in her cozy 25 sq ft kitchen and learned to make almost all of the northern Indian food that we see in restaurant menus: masala chai, pakora, paneer, naan, curries, you name it. We loved every single dish we made. We (mostly Eug since he’s a more talented cook) will make some for you guys when we get home.
After two weeks of experiencing the infamous madness of India that you hear about, we decided to chill for the rest of the trip. What better place to start than the most romantic city in the country, Udaipur. Besides taking Shashi’s cooking class, we did one day of sightseeing to see the City Palace, Rajasthan’s largest palace overlooking Lake Pichola. We spent some time in the City Palace Museum where there were collections of weapons, textiles, mosaics, glass and mirror work, and ornamental tiles. There are two islands on Lake Pichola, on one of which stands the romantic Lake Palace Hotel (picture above). It was a palace built by a maharaja in 1620 and it is said that the Taj Mahal was inspired by this palace. Most of the guest houses in Udaipur are around the old city by the lake, so most of them have rooftop restaurants with a breathtaking view of the floating Lake Palace. We chilled at the rooftop of our guest house a couple of times to soak up the serenity of this view and forgot all about the hectic week before. It was without doubt a relaxing break.
We initially planned to go down to the south Indian states Goa and Kerala for the remainder of our time in India. However, after doing some research we decided to skip Goa since it’s now apparently another overly commercialized tourist location. So we chose Kerala and the Andaman Islands instead to finish off our trip in this country. We wanted to do a yoga ashram in Kerala, but we didn’t want a fixed schedule that started at 5:00am daily. And I bet Eug wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face around a roomful of devoted yogis chanting and singing. So I found a yoga homestay instead. It was in a very small town 4 hours away from Kochi called Kuttikkanam. It wasn’t even on any of our India Lonely Planet maps. The homestay was on top of the hills nestled amongst tea and rubber plantations. It’s a nice big house surrounded by gardens of vegetable and fruit trees. The amazing host and owner, Matthew, is an Indian originally from the area who lived in New Zealand for 15 years. His cook made us a fantastic variety of south Indian meals for all the 6 days we were with them. They were vegetarian but they made chicken for us as well. Matthew taught us how to eat the Indian way, which is to eat with our right hand. It wasn’t hard to eat the naan, roti, or chipati, but it got tougher as we moved onto the rice. It was fun to eat with our hands and it was interesting to feel the texture of the food on the fingertips. Matthew also taught 2 yoga classes daily. We were the only guests staying with him then so we were the only students. I’ve taken many yoga classes before but this was my first time having almost 1-on-1 instruction. Not only did Matthew tailor make the classes just for us, he also corrected our postures. On his own vacations he likes to go to monasteries and ashrams to meditate and see what some self-proclaimed gurus or monks have to offer. For those who want, he has no problem discussing issues of spirituality, meditation, or ways of living your life, without all the weird stuff that sometimes can be associated with those subjects. He also has a nice little library devoted to those topics. We really appreciated our time here so if you want to check him out he’s at www.mundax.com.
One day we took the local buses to Kottayam to take the public boat to Alleppey on the famous Keralan backwaters. We paid 10 Rupees each (that’s about 25 cents) for the 2.5 hour ride. There are tourist boats that you can hire for 1000 Rupees for the same route, or houseboats for 2 days around the same area for 20,000 to 40,000 Rupees depending on how nice the boats are. We were glad we did the 2.5 hour public boat because we got to see the local villagers hopping on and off as we went along. The backwaters were peaceful and really nice, understandably making them the number one tourist attraction in Kerala. The bus rides were amusing and adventurous too. We received countless head bobbles as the locals hopped on and off the bus walking by us. And on the way back, we were pointed to the wrong bus station when making a transfer to get back to Kuttikkanam. Long story short, the helpful locals led us back safely. Two men took us all the way back to our stop. They told us to take the seats right behind them to make sure we were ok. They didn’t speak much English but they tried to make conversation with us every now and then. A few passengers sitting close to us dropped by and told us approximately how far we still needed to ride before they got off the bus themselves. We are really grateful for how helpful and friendly everyone was when we needed help.
Kerala is also famous for its ayurvedic treatments. In Sanskrit, Ayu means life and veda means knowledge. Matthew briefly explained the ayurvedic massage and how people either love it or hate it. Since we were already there, we were obliged to experience it for ourselves. We did it at a famous ayurvedic hospital close-by. A doctor first checked our blood pressure and weight to make sure we were suitable for the one hour ayurvedic massage, then we were led to 2 separate rooms. I had a girl masseuse, and Eug had a smiley little guy masseuse (I’m sure you know where this is going). I was told to change into something that looked like a shoelace with an attached paper-thin piece of cloth down the middle that was about the same length and a third the width of a standard hand towel. I was completely lost as to what to do with it. Turned out that I was supposed to tie the string around my waist with the paper-thin piece in front of me, then loop it back and tuck the end of it to the string on the back my waist. It worked out fine for me but in Eug’s words, it was kind of like a sumo wrestler outfit that doesn’t really cover your package. In this new outfit, I was asked to sit on a stool for the head and face massage. By this point I was really laughing inside just thinking about Eug in the other room experiencing the same thing but with a dude. Then I was asked to lie on the massage table facing down and that’s when she untucked the paper piece on my back. I was on the verge of cracking up very badly thinking about Eug lying face down with his exposed naked butt. She poured warm oil all over my back and started the massage which was really not a massage but more like a rub down. Then she asked me to turn around to lie on my back and that was when I couldn’t control my laughter anymore, prompting my concerned masseuse to ask if I was ok. Finally, after an hour we got to shower the grease off. She told me to sit on a stool, but I almost slipped off because I was so oily. She then showed me 2 buckets, one big and one small. She took the small bucket and scooped warm water from the big bucket and poured it on me. That’s when it clicked. We’ve been seeing the big and small bucket combination in the washrooms of the places we stayed at. I thought they were for cleaning the washrooms, but they are really for showering! Anyway, when I met Eug outside, he had the same look as when he came out of the Hamman in Essaouira, Morocco (if you remember from our Morocco entry). I don’t think he’ll be doing the ayurvedic massage ever again.
We thoroughly enjoyed our stays in Udaipur and Kuttikkanam. Thanks to Shashi and Matthew and the people in the small town in Kerala, we began to fancy India.
The Kama Sutra, The Taj Mahal, The Pink City, and The Indian Head Bobble
After our time in Varansi (or Verynasty, as Ron so affectionately called It in our previous blog entry’s comments section) we took another quick flight to Khajuraho. Khajuraho is a small town famous for its thousand year old temples. The temples, in turn, are famous for their art, most notably their erotic carvings of the Kama Sutra. After entering the temple grounds I immediately was reminded of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. There were far fewer buildings here, and these temples were Hindu and not Buddhist, but the intricate carvings and the shape of the pillared pavilions were definitely reminiscent. The carvings themselves were really beautiful, and though this place is known for its eroticism, the non-sexual sculptures (gods, warriors, animals, etc.) were far more prevalent. Ok back to the stone-porn. There were a lot of well endowed ladies in sensuous positions all around (so far so good), but the ones with one or more men were what held many peoples’ attention. There were orgy scenes aplenty, with the crazier ones involving people in headstands and/or strength defying positions. Women “helping” each other out was not uncommon, though no homosexual male carvings were to be seen. However, there was one scene involving a man and his unlucky horse. I’m pretty sure that’s not in the Kama Sutra, but if I’m wrong please correct me. The temple complex itself was extremely relaxed compared to Delhi and Varanasi as it was calm, clean, and quite empty inside its walls. It took about 3 hours to check out the whole thing, and even if there was no erotic art on the walls the temples would have still been magnificent (though just not as awesome).
The next day we headed to the town of Agra to see the Jewel of India, the Taj Mahal. We first hired a car to Jhansi before boarding a train in coach class to Agra, which was an interesting and crowded 3 hour experience (before Di’s friends scold me, first class was sold out!). We arrived in the evening after a long day of travelling and crashed early so we could wake up in time for sunrise, supposedly when the Taj Mahal is visually at its best. The Taj, completed in 1653, was erected by Shah Jahan, ruler of the powerful Muslim Mughal empire at the time. He built it in memory of his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, after she died giving birth to their 14th child. Legend has it that he was so distraught when she passed his hair turned grey pretty much overnight. We woke up at 5 to make it in time for dawn, and when we got there the Taj Mahal not only lived up to the hype, it blew it away. It was the most beautiful building I had ever laid my eyes on, and just looking at it actually invoked an emotional response in me, the first of any edifice to ever do that. Maybe it was its faultless symmetry, or its elegant lines and perfect proportions, or its sparkling white marble with the gentle pink dawn sky as its backdrop. Maybe it was because it was built out of love, or the grieving heartbreak of death. Maybe it was all of that, and something else indescribable. Whatever it was, it was a wonder to behold and something I couldn’t remove my gaze from. It was not only stunning from afar; a view up close revealed the unparalleled skill and mastery of its builders. The carvings, the calligraphy, the domes and arches, they were all amazing. Though obviously biased, when Shah Jahan beheld the finished building he said it made ‘the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes’. I don’t think he was too far from the truth.
Afterwards we hopped on a bicycle rickshaw for 2 kms to check out the Agra Fort, nicely made of red sandstone and white marble. Much to the rickshaw driver’s delight Ron switched spots with him and pedaled the last bit to see what it was like. The palace/fort actually ended up becoming a prison for Shah Jahan during the last 8 years of his life as his son forced him there after usurping the throne. If we saw that fort anywhere else in India, I would have said it was pretty sweet. The unfortunate truth was that we saw it immediately after the Taj, so it was painfully underwhelming in comparison. Even writing this in hindsight I really don’t have much more to add as I couldn’t hold my attention to the structure while I was there, which is a shame.
Early next morning we parted ways with Ron as we went to Jaipur in the province of Rajasthan while he headed to Egypt. We caught the train (in 1st class this time) and made it in about 6 hours. After we checked into our guesthouse we quickly headed to the Amber Fort just outside of town to fill our afternoon. With a long train ride to compare it to instead of the Taj Mahal, I found the huge hilltop fort to be pretty cool. We actually got lost for a bit inside while checking out its maze of rooms. With a picturesque lake and garden below and defensive battlements all around the fort is definitely a worthy setting for an epic Bollywood story of love and war. The next day we headed to the old part of Jaipur, otherwise known as the Pink City. It was painted “pink” back in 1876 by the then Maharaja to welcome the Prince of Wales and it has remained that colour ever since. I put “pink” in quotation marks because it looked more like an ugly orange with a thick covering of mildew and pollution added in for extra flavour. We first checked out the city palace which also doubled as a museum, housing an impressive collection of art, weapons, and fabrics. We then walked around the corner to Hawa Mahal, Jaipur’s landmark. It’s a 5-story honeycombed structure that was built for the royal ladies so they could people watch in safety. The face of this building was definitely the cleanest and up kept of all the buildings in town, thus giving its viewer a glimpse of what the old city may have looked like at one time if not dirtied by the stains of time and pollution. We did find the unique honeycombed façade to be a lot more impressive than the building’s comparatively plain interior. After sightseeing we walked around the streets of the old city checking out the bazaars and daily Jaipurian activities. The mad traffic, dirty streets, thick smog, aggressive shopkeepers and general craziness prompted us to stop that quickly. Our guidebook recommended that for a break we should experience afternoon tea at Rambagh palace, an ex-residence of the Maharaja now converted to a luxury hotel which costs up to 5000 USD a night. So we walked up to the gates of the massive property looking forward to some cucumber sandwiches and scones. Our eagerness was met with rejection by the gate staff. Ouch, in our face! Supposedly the hotel was fully booked so its courtyard and restaurants were open to guests only. Disappointed, we headed for coffee at a far classier joint, McDonalds. Back in your face Rambagh!
After our sultry coffee in aristocratic red and yellow plastic surroundings we decided to head back to our hotel to call it a day. When we got outside to the waiting rickshaw drivers they surrounded us, vying for our rupees. I showed them our hotel business card, written in Hindi and English, when something very humbling happened. I realized that most (if not all) of them were illiterate as they all asked me to tell them the name of the hotel after blankly looking at the card. I looked up the stats and as of 2008, 40% of India still could not read. I offered 50 rupees to the group to anyone who would take us back, and they all denied, as usual. I turned around to walk away, which usually prompts one to grab me and say OK. I should have known there was something wrong when only a young guy agreed to the price while all the others were shaking their heads. We hopped in, and within 10 minutes we knew he was completely lost. He kept taking our hotel card and showing randoms on the street, asking for directions. These conversations would always attract others, and every time he asked there seemed to be a conglomeration of strangers trying to help us. After about 20 minutes he realized he was in over his head and said in broken English that our hotel was too far and he wanted more money. I could tell by the dejection in his face that he wasn’t lying (plus all the more experienced guys were not willing to take us for that price), but I was still kinda pissed off at the situation as he adamantly said he knew where our lodgings were when we hopped in. So I just gave him his 50 rupees and Di and I got off and started walking away, with both us and him being quite disappointed. We then entered the nearest store and showed the 2 guys there the hotel card and asked for directions. They discussed the issue for maybe a minute before one of them, with a wide smile and decent English, told us to get in his car. He drove us for about a kilometre and dropped us off at the front of our hotel, shaking our hands and wagging his head, grinning as he left. That experience actually sums up a lot of what we’ve felt while in India. At times it can be mind-numbingly frustrating, but then the cheerful help and the warm smile of a stranger inevitably comes, more than balancing out the initial negative experience. Di and I are working on our head-bobble so that hopefully before we move on to the next country we can respond to all the random acts of kindness here with that uniquely Indian gesture we are starting to love.
Bustling Delhi and Holy Varanasi
Eug and I are very lucky people. Right after we parted with our dear friends in Bhutan, we met up with one of my best friends Ron in Delhi, India. Ron had one week in India with us and one week in Egypt on his own before heading home to Seattle. He really wanted to see the Taj Mahal and the rest was up to us. Our one week itinerary with him was to visit the sights in Delhi, Varanasi, Khajuraho, and saving the best for last, the Taj Mahal in Agra.
Eug and I were in Delhi a day before Ron arrived, and we were running errands like there was no tomorrow. I felt more like a local who just moved to a new city than a tourist. It was a bit frustrating having to run around everywhere, especially when we ended up not being able to get anything done. We wanted to mail our wedding outfits back home, get Myanmar visas, and fix the most essential gadget of our trip, our SONY netbook. Unfortunately our netbook was dropped by the cleaning lady in Bhutan, and it turned very slow ever since. We need it to upload pictures, research places to stay, and most importantly keep up with our blog! We were sent to a few places and given a few telephone numbers, but they all led to dead ends. The netbook is useable still but it’s slowly dying day by day. For example, Didi gave us some of the wedding pictures he took for us but they all disappeared from our hard drive. Thanks Susan for uploading them on Facebook for us! I hope our netbook can survive 3 more months before it completely dies. And yes, only 3 more months left for our around the world trip, crazy hey? Due to the Diwali holiday (the Festival of Lights, India’s most widely celebrated Hindu event) we weren’t able to get visas, and the post office was not helpful either. So big thanks to Ron for offering to take our wedding outfits back home with him.
I was very excited to see Ron in Delhi. The last time I saw him was in March in Portugal which seemed like a decade ago. And I was looking forward to doing some sightseeing again like worry-free tourists and not having to run more errands. We first visited the Red Fort, a massive 2 km long structure. The Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan completed this fort in 1648 but never moved his capital from Agra because he ended up being imprisoned in Agra Fort by his own son Aurangzeb. The fort was pretty cool and we walked across the street to the market in Old Delhi after to see Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque. To our dismay the mosque was closed to tourists that day. We weren’t sure why but a scrawny uniformed man with a bamboo stick came out of nowhere and shooed us away without providing an explanation. Even though we didn’t see the mosque, we had quite an eye opening experience just walking through the market (Chandni Chowk). We certainly had never seen such poor hygiene and stunning poverty in the countries we visited so far and Ron had never seen anything like that, period. Eug and I walked through numerous busy Middle Eastern medinas and souqs, so we thought were used to the sensory overload. But we definitely weren’t prepared to witness something like ‘Slum Dog Millionaire’ right before our own eyes. It served as another reminder of how lucky and blessed we all are. Afterwards we checked out Humayun’s tomb which was very pleasant and peaceful to walk through in comparison. The city of Delhi itself was beautifully covered in lights and flowers due to the Diwali festival. The lights were meant to guide the Hindu god Lord Rama home from exile, and at night there was a constant barrage of festive fireworks.
We then took a short flight (instead of a long overnight train ride, thanks to Ron since he only had a limited amount of time with us) to Varanasi. Varanasi (picture above) is one of the holiest places in India. Hindus believe that they can wash away a lifetime of sins in the sacred waters of the Ganges River, so a lot of them come to bathe in this water. They also come here to cremate their loved ones so their ashes can become one with the holy river. Lastly, many Hindus come here to die with the belief that it offers liberation from the reincarnation cycle of birth and death. As soon as we checked into our guest house on the riverbank, we quickly got ready, eager to take a stroll down the Ganges to see some action. Our eagerness soon dissipated after walking no more than 20 minutes down the river. First of all, the street was covered in cow and goat and who-knows-what droppings left and right. If you only looked up for a second, you could easily step on one of the dangerous fresh poopie-traps. There were a ton of stray cows walking around aimlessly, as they are holy to Hindus and this is their holiest city. Lots of locals (both adults and kids) were just walking around barefoot, not caring if they stepped on crap. What I found to be the most disturbing was seeing a street dog eating a pile of faeces. I was seriously grossed out. Secondly, everyone who passes by you seems to want to shake your hand and talk you into visiting their stores or accepting their massage or shaving service. No thank you! I was lucky that they didn’t try to shake my hands because I am a girl. Poor Eug and Ron had to stick their hands in their pockets to avoid the constant physical contact because once they grabbed your hand, they wouldn’t let go. Thirdly, witnessing 4 visibly clear corpses being publicly burnt on top of 4 separate stacks of wood didn’t exactly make us feel particularly pleasant. The sight and smell of everything foul combined together was just unbearable. It was not an easy stroll I tell ya. Finally, the Ganges River from up close was very obviously dirty. There was garbage floating around everywhere and the water was dark greyish brown in colour. All 116 cities on the Ganges dump raw sewage into it. Water safe for swimming is supposed to have less than 500 faecal bacteria per litre; the Ganges has 1.5 million/L! Even with all that, the river was full of people bathing, swimming, drinking, and submerging themselves in its waters repetitively. We turned back after walking across the cremation site and found refuge in the rooftop restaurant of our guest house. It had an amazing view of the Ganges minus the distractions from the street. That evening, Eug and I got a sore throat and Ron got a severe bug bite on his cheek that didn’t stop draining pus for the rest of the night. We should’ve done what the Japanese tourists did and wear those SARS masks. We recovered shortly but oh boy, what an introduction to the city.
We woke up very early the next day and hopped on a boat ride down the Ganges to catch the sunrise and the dawn prayer ceremony from the water. The boat ride was much more comfortable than being on foot. The devout prayers and washings of the pilgrims were fascinating to see but the most memorable part of the river trip was seeing a dead corpse floating face-down on the river. When I saw it, I quickly looked away and asked Eug and Ron in Cantonese if it was what I thought it was. Eug was like “no, it’s a mannequin”. Then there was a long pause before Eug and Ron both agreed it was indeed a body. We learned that there were dead bodies in the Ganges from other travellers and our research, however, I didn’t think we’d really see one. Supposedly some poor families can’t afford to buy firewood so their relatives’ bodies would just be placed in the water. Others would buy wood but not enough due to lack of funds, so partially cremated bodies would also be placed in the water. Our boat driver was considerate enough to row away from it, but not another boat that was just 5 feet away from us. There were 3 western tourists on that boat, and their boat actually rowed into the corpse as it got knocked away. One of the girls covered her mouth immediately, she looked like she was about to throw up; I felt so bad for her. At this point, Ron was trying to hold in his laughter so badly that his body was vehemently shaking. He didn’t laugh because it was funny, but because the whole thing was just so far-fetched that you couldn’t help but to react in some way. I just had a very grossed out face. Needless to say, for the rest of the day we chilled in our guest house to recuperate both mentally and physically. We did manage to find a nice restaurant with an excellent view of the river to have dinner. In the evening, the river was beautifully lit with lotus flower candles set adrift from the shore, and there were fireworks on land because of the Diwali festival. We also checked out an evening ceremony which attracted a huge friendly crowd. In contrast with the day, it was a rather delightful evening.
That was quite an experience for our first 3 days in India. I am not sure if I’ve digested all that myself yet, but I know our eyes have definitely been widely opened. Ron, Eug, and I talked about some of the living conditions we’ve observed and if there could be any feasible solutions to improve these conditions. Hopefully with the massive economic growth in India we all hear about the government will be able to increase funding in education, infrastructure and housing, thus putting India’s poor on the first rung of the ladder of economic development, lifting them out of abject poverty.
fromwonderintowonder 
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