Ozbus11 arrived at the Nepal border in what seemed like the dead of night. It was actually just gone 7pm and the stretch of road from where the bus dropped us to Immigration office was poorly lit and surprisingly insignificant compared to the Pakistan/India border. Apparently Nepal and India like each other whereas Pakistan and India don't. Thanks to good relations we were through in no time despite Charlie having to turn up without a Visa and hope that he go one at the border without photocopies of passports and any passport photos. We just love our Charlieboy we do. Anyhow we were on our bus and away, arriving at our hotel at 8.30pm in the border town of Lumbini.
We experienced a little bit of a blackout just before dinner at the hotel but at last I was able to eat decent, tasty food. As you know, I'm not a huge fan of the Spice (unless it's in the form of a girl band from the 90's) and I was greatful to eat proper meals again. It was only an overnight in Lumbini before we headed off in the morning to the birthplace of Buddha. This short visit sort of creapt up on me but as we parked and disembarked outside the gate of the sacred site I was quietly excited. Buddhism intrigues me like a rare wood intrigues a carpenter and I wanted to see if I could learn anything more of the belief from this cultural visit.
I ambled my way down to the official entance of the site, passing locals, tourists and pilgrims on the way. Before I saw any sign of Buddha I passed the usual 'buy this sort of crap' stalls. And then I found a temple with a single man chanting inside. It was dark in there and I couldn't see with my sunglasses on. I didn't dare go in, everything seemed calm and spirtiual and special. Outside the temple was decorated in wonderful images of flowers and amazing colours. The garden surrounding the temple was well kept, pristine and beautiful. Then onto the official site of Buddha to see his birthplace. It was marked by a stone near some other stones that made up some bigger stones. One wall was adorned in gold leaf. But outside was what I loved best. There, a service was being helf around a massive old tree. Buddists sat and listened, prayer flags moved in a slight wind amongst the branches. And I sat and listened. It was serene and reflective.
We arrived that evening at Hotel Parkside in Chitwan National Park. It was day 41 and for the first time Ozbus11 were in the countryside. It was a welcome relief and I felt like I had been waiting for this since leaving Europe. I'm a country girl at heart and too much of the concrete does my head in a little. As soon as our bags touched the hotel room floor we were immidiately served dinner of the most homecooked loveliness compared to India. Except I happened to have been locked in my room from the outside for that thanks to 'Lovely Linda'. She got ripped for that by the girls sure enough and she was incredibly embarressed. It was all rather funny. After dinner we headed to the river for our fist beer in weeks watching the sun go down. I finnally felt like I was on holiday and I was welcomed to Nepal with a smile on my face.
We were awake with another sunrise the next morning for a canoe trip to watch the local wildlife. We saw a rhino bathing – it was awesome. We disembarked at an Elephant sancturary where we were briefly introduced to the care and role of Elephants in Nepal. On the itinerary that day was an 'opportunity to wash the Elephants' described as needing a swimming costume, or bikini to take part. Along with an Elephant ride later, I wasn't sure how I would take to this, I needed to know more about the Elephants. We were taked to a bigger sanctuary with a very informatived one roomed museum on Elephant life in Nepal. It was a positive sign and along with the fact that the sanctuary had been blessed with a recent twin birth, one of only two in the world from Elephants in captivity, I felt the Elephants were being treated with the upmost care and respect.
Then it was time for 'Elephant Washing'. We were taken to the river where we had our sunset beer for this. It consisted of 20 or so people rushing into the water, five or so at a time to clmb onto the backs of three elephants being controlled by a man standing on it's back. I don't know who was meant to be washing who as the two/three passengers would be intermittently doused in water and plunged into the water on intructions from the man standing on it's back, shouting, stamping and poking it with his stick. It was less of Elephant washing and more of a ride for people who like that sort of thing. I don't. I don't believe animals in general are there for our entertainment. They may be cared for by us, controlled by us and involved in activities that we enjoy but they must have a purpose. Their involvement with out activity must have a justifyable purpose. I watched the entire thing and still don't know how the elephants are actually washed. Some say that's how they do it. Regardless, the elephants were being instructed to act on que for the human's benefit. Money was passed over and I put blind faith into the fact that it was going to a good place, whatever that entails.
The elephant ride later, after lunch back at the hotel, I partook in. There we saw another Rhino and Tiger trails. That evening was the last at Chitwan and it saw Hotel Parkside put on a surprisingly entertaining cultural show and outside dinner. We all laughed and danced and dreaded the morning departure. At least we could all take solice in the fact that it was not another early start.
Tuesday 10 November 2009
Thursday 5 November 2009
Ozbus11 - India Night
Ozbus11 left Lahore in Pakistan at 7am. We arrived at the Indian border at 10am. At 10.30 we proceeded through our first border check. We filled in forms we'd filled in before to get Visas, we stood in lines to fill in more forms before being told we could do it much faster if we stood somewhere else. It was hot, it was stuffy. At 11.30 we went through the Indian checkpoint. At 12.30pm the last of the group had been through the border. At 1.30 we finally left the border. It was the longest crossing yet and a reflection on how the two countries feel about each other.
However it was only an hour more to our stop over town of Amritsar and we were glad of it. It was day 32 of the trip and I had been worried about arriving in India. It's never been a country I have had a longing to go to. I know it's on the backpackers' route and those that have been always seem to come away with one of those life changing experiences, shouting praises of the amazingness that is the country. But I have no taste for Curry therefore not really time for the country at all. I think I tolerate Korma in Europe and THAT IS IT!
Phil the bus god thought some of us would get teary over the poverty we might see, disorientated over how busy the country was or annoyed at how many would pester us. If we had been stared at from a distance in Pakistan, we were certainly game fodder for the Indians when we arrived. Somehow we saw less smiles on faces and more of a need for the people around us to take our money. The country certainly was busy, but nothing I couldn't cope with. This surprised me as I thought I'd be the first to be disorientated. I saw poverty in India. I saw children, babies, dragging themselves across the floor with little or no clothes in. They begged, the adults begged and I put up an iron wall between me and them to get by. Only towards the end of our 8 days in India before Nepal, did I start to feel emotionally weary of the sadness I was seeing.
On the eve of the day in Amritsar I ventured up to the Golden Temple. This is a sight well worth seeing. Many had been there at dusk when the Indian light starts to fade and a huge array of fairy lights are switched on which is recommended also. On entering the temple suddenly the busyness of the city is forgotten and a calm, spiritual sense came over me. I walked clockwise, barefooted, the stone underneath still hot from the day's sun, around a central temple in the middle of a square lake. I wore a bindi Dee from Londahn had given me earlier and watched the lights dance on the water. I ventured into the kitchens to help with preparation of food as they cook for those who wish to eat. There are also rooms there for Pilgrims. I watched a surprisingly automatic bread maker punch out naans and cook them. I bumped into other Ozbusketeers, was told off for lying down the wrong way by the lake (never point your feet at the temple) and held an Indian baby in my arms whilst posing in a photo for the family. It was an enjoyable evening. Unfortunately, for me, not one of many.
The next day we left with me suffering a touch of the 'Deli belly'. God knows how I got that, I barely flipping eaten anything already. So it was with a grump and a tiredness that I arrived in Deli. The hotel in Deli was appalling. Ozbus had stayed in many dodgy places, inc. the one we thought must have been a brothel in Sukkur but those had always been for one nights and in places we understood as our only option. I have to say that in my heart I felt Ozbus dropped the ball with the Deli hotel. Access was down a dark unlit alley. Some rooms were without showers but the worst aspect to cope with was, and especially in India, was the perpetual dirt, everywhere. India is a dirty country. There is no way to describe how dirty it is. And I don't think anyone will ever understand why it seems Indians simply do not recognise dirt. Or if they do, it's acceptable. And in a dirty country one needs to come back to a hotel to clean up. This certainly wasn't possible in Deli.
However one might say that it was the booking agent that Ozbus went through that wasn't acceptable and not Ozbus' fault. I am more inclined to say that having spent just over a week in the country now that Indian's have no concept of service and so finding what 'westerners' would class as affordable accommodation is impossible. There are two standards of hotels in the country – the crap places and outrageous luxury. So it was with Keith, the man of mystery (he refuses to tell anyone what his job was before he retired) and Jean that I ventured into Deli. Were we off to the Gandhi museum? No. Were we heading south to the Contemporary Art Museum? No. We went and found the Meridian hotel and hung out there for refreshment. It was great. I had a lovely beer, paid over the odds for internet which I was so happy to do in this fantastic well designed, air conditioned palace and blew a weeks budget on coffee. This is how depressed Deli and where we were staying had made me! It got worse in the evening when Linda the shopaholic had escaped to another luxury hotel with our room key. It was one of those that turned on the lights also and I only survived by harboring another girl's key and indulging in a really bad American movie.
We left Delhi to find the old Mughl capital that had only been used for 50 years before it ran out of water. Slight oversight that. We were on our way to Agra for the Taj. It was an early start for this as we wanted to see it at sunrise. I was sharing a room with Dee from Londahn and Sam from 'up north', well Cheshire but its much the same to me from E.A. I had set my alarm for 5.30, Dee had set hers and Sam was relying on us two. Unfortunately I had set mine for 5.30pm and Dee had her phone half hour out as we found out at 10min before we had to leave that morning. So with Dee practically still in the shower and Sam and I bleary eyed and confused, we climbed aboard our tuktuks and headed to the Mausoleum. Arriving at Sunrise we were in after a few moments in a non moving que.
The Taj Mahal. It's been photographed a thousand times, I've seen the image all my life. I saw 'that' image with Diana and well, it's pretty. Kipling may have remarked on it's perfection but to me it was just another tourist attraction for people to photograph the same way and pose on 'that' bench. Lovely though. We spent that evening watching the sunset on the other side of the river overlooking the Taj from a dirt track with own bought beers. That was probably my most enjoyable moment so far. Just a couple of people, laughing, chatting, having fun.
We left Agra on day 37 to arrive in Lucknow in the evening. It was on to Varanasi the next day where I was treated to a chicken burger in McDonald's. Having starved myself and being hopelessly disappointed at not being able to eat after countless people have said “It's not spicy”, Western eateries, no matter how much I avoid them in the Western world, a joy to be in. Varanasi saw another early start for a Sunrise ceremony on the River Ganges. Another picture postcard moment and incredibly interesting to see. We saw monks bate themselves in the river where only a few minutes upstream dead bodies were being burnt before being pushed out onto the river.
Day 40 we left Varanasi to get to the Nepal border. It was a long and arduous day to get there but I was desperately looking forward to it. I had had an interesting time in the country but it was now time to leave and see another. Unfortunately we had to come back into India after Nepal to get a cheap flight to Bangkok. This was when I lost my rag with the country. We were no longer going to head to touristic, 'Western' places and if the country had been dirty before, it was in the words of Charlie “What a s**thole” then. After leaving Nepal it was nothing but four one nighters in crappy hotels, with no food I could stomach. Breakfast might be included on Ozbus but don't expect one in Indian hotels. One morning we were given a slice of crumbly dried bread, rancid butter and a banana. Bananas happened to get me through the country.
The last straw was in Calcutta. Being officially the dirtiest city, a friend of mine had to come into my room as her bed was infested with fleas like so many other rooms that night, and many many before. A few went out to dinner in the Oberoi that night and I made a promise to myself if I ever did come back, that would be where I'd stay. It was day 54 the morning we arrived at Calcutta airport. It looked like a train station and was being used as a toilet. We eat, tried to exchange money, checked in, shuffled about. We boarded the plane and escaped.
However it was only an hour more to our stop over town of Amritsar and we were glad of it. It was day 32 of the trip and I had been worried about arriving in India. It's never been a country I have had a longing to go to. I know it's on the backpackers' route and those that have been always seem to come away with one of those life changing experiences, shouting praises of the amazingness that is the country. But I have no taste for Curry therefore not really time for the country at all. I think I tolerate Korma in Europe and THAT IS IT!
Phil the bus god thought some of us would get teary over the poverty we might see, disorientated over how busy the country was or annoyed at how many would pester us. If we had been stared at from a distance in Pakistan, we were certainly game fodder for the Indians when we arrived. Somehow we saw less smiles on faces and more of a need for the people around us to take our money. The country certainly was busy, but nothing I couldn't cope with. This surprised me as I thought I'd be the first to be disorientated. I saw poverty in India. I saw children, babies, dragging themselves across the floor with little or no clothes in. They begged, the adults begged and I put up an iron wall between me and them to get by. Only towards the end of our 8 days in India before Nepal, did I start to feel emotionally weary of the sadness I was seeing.
On the eve of the day in Amritsar I ventured up to the Golden Temple. This is a sight well worth seeing. Many had been there at dusk when the Indian light starts to fade and a huge array of fairy lights are switched on which is recommended also. On entering the temple suddenly the busyness of the city is forgotten and a calm, spiritual sense came over me. I walked clockwise, barefooted, the stone underneath still hot from the day's sun, around a central temple in the middle of a square lake. I wore a bindi Dee from Londahn had given me earlier and watched the lights dance on the water. I ventured into the kitchens to help with preparation of food as they cook for those who wish to eat. There are also rooms there for Pilgrims. I watched a surprisingly automatic bread maker punch out naans and cook them. I bumped into other Ozbusketeers, was told off for lying down the wrong way by the lake (never point your feet at the temple) and held an Indian baby in my arms whilst posing in a photo for the family. It was an enjoyable evening. Unfortunately, for me, not one of many.
The next day we left with me suffering a touch of the 'Deli belly'. God knows how I got that, I barely flipping eaten anything already. So it was with a grump and a tiredness that I arrived in Deli. The hotel in Deli was appalling. Ozbus had stayed in many dodgy places, inc. the one we thought must have been a brothel in Sukkur but those had always been for one nights and in places we understood as our only option. I have to say that in my heart I felt Ozbus dropped the ball with the Deli hotel. Access was down a dark unlit alley. Some rooms were without showers but the worst aspect to cope with was, and especially in India, was the perpetual dirt, everywhere. India is a dirty country. There is no way to describe how dirty it is. And I don't think anyone will ever understand why it seems Indians simply do not recognise dirt. Or if they do, it's acceptable. And in a dirty country one needs to come back to a hotel to clean up. This certainly wasn't possible in Deli.
However one might say that it was the booking agent that Ozbus went through that wasn't acceptable and not Ozbus' fault. I am more inclined to say that having spent just over a week in the country now that Indian's have no concept of service and so finding what 'westerners' would class as affordable accommodation is impossible. There are two standards of hotels in the country – the crap places and outrageous luxury. So it was with Keith, the man of mystery (he refuses to tell anyone what his job was before he retired) and Jean that I ventured into Deli. Were we off to the Gandhi museum? No. Were we heading south to the Contemporary Art Museum? No. We went and found the Meridian hotel and hung out there for refreshment. It was great. I had a lovely beer, paid over the odds for internet which I was so happy to do in this fantastic well designed, air conditioned palace and blew a weeks budget on coffee. This is how depressed Deli and where we were staying had made me! It got worse in the evening when Linda the shopaholic had escaped to another luxury hotel with our room key. It was one of those that turned on the lights also and I only survived by harboring another girl's key and indulging in a really bad American movie.
We left Delhi to find the old Mughl capital that had only been used for 50 years before it ran out of water. Slight oversight that. We were on our way to Agra for the Taj. It was an early start for this as we wanted to see it at sunrise. I was sharing a room with Dee from Londahn and Sam from 'up north', well Cheshire but its much the same to me from E.A. I had set my alarm for 5.30, Dee had set hers and Sam was relying on us two. Unfortunately I had set mine for 5.30pm and Dee had her phone half hour out as we found out at 10min before we had to leave that morning. So with Dee practically still in the shower and Sam and I bleary eyed and confused, we climbed aboard our tuktuks and headed to the Mausoleum. Arriving at Sunrise we were in after a few moments in a non moving que.
The Taj Mahal. It's been photographed a thousand times, I've seen the image all my life. I saw 'that' image with Diana and well, it's pretty. Kipling may have remarked on it's perfection but to me it was just another tourist attraction for people to photograph the same way and pose on 'that' bench. Lovely though. We spent that evening watching the sunset on the other side of the river overlooking the Taj from a dirt track with own bought beers. That was probably my most enjoyable moment so far. Just a couple of people, laughing, chatting, having fun.
We left Agra on day 37 to arrive in Lucknow in the evening. It was on to Varanasi the next day where I was treated to a chicken burger in McDonald's. Having starved myself and being hopelessly disappointed at not being able to eat after countless people have said “It's not spicy”, Western eateries, no matter how much I avoid them in the Western world, a joy to be in. Varanasi saw another early start for a Sunrise ceremony on the River Ganges. Another picture postcard moment and incredibly interesting to see. We saw monks bate themselves in the river where only a few minutes upstream dead bodies were being burnt before being pushed out onto the river.
Day 40 we left Varanasi to get to the Nepal border. It was a long and arduous day to get there but I was desperately looking forward to it. I had had an interesting time in the country but it was now time to leave and see another. Unfortunately we had to come back into India after Nepal to get a cheap flight to Bangkok. This was when I lost my rag with the country. We were no longer going to head to touristic, 'Western' places and if the country had been dirty before, it was in the words of Charlie “What a s**thole” then. After leaving Nepal it was nothing but four one nighters in crappy hotels, with no food I could stomach. Breakfast might be included on Ozbus but don't expect one in Indian hotels. One morning we were given a slice of crumbly dried bread, rancid butter and a banana. Bananas happened to get me through the country.
The last straw was in Calcutta. Being officially the dirtiest city, a friend of mine had to come into my room as her bed was infested with fleas like so many other rooms that night, and many many before. A few went out to dinner in the Oberoi that night and I made a promise to myself if I ever did come back, that would be where I'd stay. It was day 54 the morning we arrived at Calcutta airport. It looked like a train station and was being used as a toilet. We eat, tried to exchange money, checked in, shuffled about. We boarded the plane and escaped.
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