Varanasi

Just getting to Gaya station is a mission due road closures. We’re subjected to a bumpy not-so-scenic tour of various random Bihar villages. The train station isn’t much of an improvement. As we wait for the delayed train to Varanasi, we witness the following:

• Cows roaming the ticket hall
• Vicious dog fight on train tracks
• Angry looking baboon patrolling the platform
• Woman scrambling over tracks to collect bits of coal dropped from a passing freight train.
• Worst of all - a suspected thief being thrown onto the tracks and set upon by a big angry mob. He’s dragged by his hair the length of the platform, all the while being punched and kicked. Really nasty.

Big relief when the train finally arrives. I’d say Gaya ain’t for the faint hearted!

We’re sharing our compartment with a chap who’s obviously dying to talk to us because he keeps making eye contact. After a couple of hours, he goes with the usual opening questions. Where you from? Where you going? How long in India? What he’s really interested in though is our relationship. There’s plenty of additional attention here because we’re a mixed race couple, especially because Shejal is of Indian origin. We’ve taken to declaring ourselves married when the questions start, it’s easier that way.

Varanasi is on the banks of the river Ganges. Hindus come here to wash away their sins in the river or cremate relatives. It’s one of the holiest places in India.

We booked a room with views overlooking the Ganges. We arise at 5.30 in the morning to watch the sunrise over the river.

New breakfast experience for me; sweet thalhi consisting of puris, mild curry, syrup, and jalebi. All for about 50p, bargain.

Varanasi’s riverbank is populated by various Ghats (steps leading down to the water). Most are used for bathing, but some are burning ghats, where bodies are cremated in public. Our guesthouse is located near to one, so we uneasily spectate for a while whilst a few cremations take place. An enthusiastic chap pops up and tells us that the pelvis is the slowest bit of the body to burn - nice.

Touts are everywhere in Varanasi trying to flog a boat trip. We choose a boat wallah in a quiet ghat who wasn’t all over us when we walked past. We spend an hour floating down the Ganges watching bathers, couples getting married, dhobi wallahs washing, and cows eating rubbish (Shejal saw one eating a magazine).

In the afternoon/evening, we sit and watch the world go by at Dasawarmedh Ghat. We catch the Ganga aarti (fire and dance ceremony).

This chap was interested in my camera.

Rounding off a great day, Shejal lit a floating candle and placed it in the river.

Varanasi is one of the most interesting places we’ve visited so far.

Bohdgaya

To get to Bohdgaya we catch the Rajdani Express train from Kolkata. The 2nd class carriages have upper and lower births, each the size of a single bed. Once the train gets going, blankets and pillows are handed out; we make ourselves comfortable.

Soon after this, the pantry chap shows up handing out snacks and chai. We end up eating more food in the space of five hours than we did the previous day! The novelty of travelling on Indian trains will never wear off.

We reach Gaya train station at 11PM. Gaya is located in Bihar, India's poorest state. We notice the poverty immediately and feel slightly self-conscious walking around the station after dark. We manage to quickly negotiate a tuktuk for a 15KM ride through deserted countryside, feeling relived when we finally make it to the hotel.

Bodhgaya is a very important place for Buddhists. It’s where Price Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment beneath a Bodhi tree and became Buddha. There’s a big template marking the spot where a descendant of the original Bodhi tree is located.

After a night spent battling mosquitoes in our room, we head out to explore the main temple.

We’re outnumbered by Tibetan pilgrims that come to Bodhgaya from Mcloeod Ganj.

Scuffles break out around the Bohdi tree whenever a leaf drops. I get chatting to a young monk who gave me a leaf he managed to grab earlier. Shejal put it in an envelope for safe keeping.

They have a ‘meditation garden’ in the temple complex. We paid the rps25 charge and escaped the Bihar chaos for an hour.

The afternoon is spent exploring other minor temples and the giant Buddha statue.

The temple is well worth visiting, but the town itself is rough. Perhaps two days here was one too many.

Kolkata (Calcutta)

The Southern portion of our trip completed, we’re now off to the North. The plan is to start in Kolkata and slowly work our way across to Gujarat via Mumbai. We’re dedicating a month to this.

The trip from Hyderabad to Kolkata would probably take 2-3 days via train, so we opt for a 2.5 hour flight. In the line for boarding the flight we notice that there are a lot of long haired Americans wearing shades. I got chatting to one of them and it turns out there’re the band Foreigner on tour (“I wanna know what love is”). India keeps throwing up surprises!

We’ve read a lot about Kolkata being pretty intense. It’s home to 14 million people, many of which live in slums. It was the headquarters of the Raj, so there’s lots of old colonial architecture to explore.

Once we arrive at our hotel we’re disappointed to find that we’ve been allocated a room in the ‘new wing’. Alarm bells start ringing immediately. It turns out our room is in the middle of a building site. They agreed to stop the building work at 5PM and start no earlier than 10AM. We end up getting a good rate and agree to stay. 

First impressions of Kolkata are good mainly because it has pavements! I’ve taken pavements for granted all my life, but there’re a rarity in India. Also they have yellow ambassador cabs instead of tuktuks; much more comfortable. We start with the Indian Museum; think V&A only in a building that’s crumbling to dust. Much of Kolkata is crumbling to dust which makes it quite photogenic. 

They have a section depicting everyday Indian factory life using plastic models. Shejal noticed this lovely scene of workers being checked of they’ve nicked anything before clocking off!

More stuffed animals and skeletons that we’ve ever seen in a museum before!

Next up we went to the Victoria memorial, Kolkata’s prinicipal monument. The memorial was built to mark Queen Victoria’s death. It’s very impressive, described in the guidebook as a cross between the Taj Mahal and Capitol Hill. We spend a good few hours people watching and lazing about in the surrounding gardens. Bliss. 

Some chap randomly introduces his baby girl by handing her to me! 

We finish an excellent day off with chai in the Maidan. 

 

We spent our second day in Kolkata walking around historic parts of the city. We crossed the famous Howrah Bridge (one of the words busiest) on foot with what seemed like a million other people. We also went to a flower market, which was a slight disappointment as we’d seen something similar and better in Mysore. Kolkata is known for its squalor as well as its Raj era sights. We certainly came face to face with extreme poverty whist being here.