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.