trains and the Taj.

From the sheer craziness of Varanasi we shot along the railway to the more touristy craziness of Agra. An ugly, dusty little town that smells of rotten eggs, we were keen to spend as little time here as possible. While I slept off the train ride of the night before Will went to visit Agra Fort, then after a lunch of lassis and toast it was off to see the Taj. The whole reason for visiting this town and the whole reason it doesn't matter the town itself is so horrible. The Taj Mahal is a beautiful amazing tribute to an obviously slightly insane man's wife who died giving birth to their 14th child. It is also an opportunity to do the hilarious tourist photo where you pretend to hold up a famous monument with your fingertips.
Since the Fort and Taj are the extent of Agra's sights, we spent our next morning there with our new book purchases in one of India's most ubiquitous, air-conditioned chain coffee shops, waiting for our train out.
We were bound for Mumbai, having decided to skip the desert state of Rajhastan owing to ridiculously high temperatures.
Our train ride was broken up by a stopover in a dusty little nothing town where we met a luggage attendant who was reading Paulo Coelho (of The Alchemist fame) and had an incredibly discounted lunch at the restaurant of a nervous young man who had just opened the business and was very eager to please.We also met an interested and curious young boy who was keen to see anything from our lives in Australia and was especially excited when I pulled out the computer and took some photos of him.
Then it was back to the train station to wait for our over-nighter, while curious Indians stood in quiet groups around us and stared.
(Sorry, still no photos. I am trying so as soon as I am successful you'll be able to see proof of our amazing adventures in the sub-continent. Til then, patience my friends!)   

varanasi.

So. Our worst 36 hours ever...The other day when we were in the curs-ed town of Lumbini and I was half insane from lack of sleep I had written a very whingey and ranty post about how horrible it was; luckily it didn't save because the internet cut out.

Just in a nutshell though: we spent all day on a slow, bumpy bus to Kathmandu then spent all night on slow, very bumpy bus to Lumbini (this was our worst bus trip in Nepal), the town where Buddha was born, in which I thought we could have a peaceful few days before entering the fray of India. We arrived, exhausted, found a guest house and settled in to sleep. Then after several hours we began to hear songs and prayers being blasted from a loudspeaker that was basically just outside our window. This didn't really stop the entire time we were there. We had to yell to each other to make ourselves heard. So, not peaceful. I'm really not sure what Buddha would have made of it all.

But we have moved on. Both emotionally and physically. Now we are in Varanasi, the no-holds-barred city on the banks of the holy Ganges River. The "old town", where we are staying, is an insane tangle of tiny alleys and streets crowded with cows, humans and lots of poo. It's smelly, noisy, dusty and full-on. It all opens out onto lots of different stairways leading down to the river bank: the ghats. This is where it all happens. Early morning sees boat-men ferrying people to and fro, women washing, children with empty bottles tied to their backs having swimming lessons, people bathing, people praying, people begging...people everywhere. And dogs and goats and cows. It is hot here now, edging 45 degrees everyday, so in the middle of the day it is all but deserted. For India anway. The (slightly) cooler evening is the time for riverside cricket and the nightly prayer ceremony (I think in honour of the river...not sure though). And for selling...postcards, religious items, boat rides, flutes, hash, anything.

A constant is fire. Everyday, all day, there are fires burning. Just in two of the ghats, the burning ghats. This is where people come to cremate the deceased, on little bonfires on the river bank, after they have bathed them in the river. It is all very public and people are welcome to watch. We did the other day. It sounds a lot more confronting than it is when you are here I think. It is something we have never seen before and I know it will stay in my mind a long time but here, among all the humanity and normalcy of people swimming, fishing and doing their washing, it seems to fit right in. And that is this place I think. Anything that would seem outlandish (naked holy men covering themselves in white powder and sitting under shade cloths all day), illegal or unacceptable in any other city is just what happens here.

It is quite a captivating and intriguing place, despite the chaos. We are here at the wrong time though: it is far, far too hot. The filthy Ganges is starting to look very inviting so we need to leave this place before we jump in and fall victim to whatever diseases lay hidden in her murky depths.  

an ascent into madness

Don't worry, I just was very proud of that play on words so I wanted to use it in this post- we aren't really going mad. We did spend the last week ascending higher and higher above sea level though (that's the pun- you get altitude sickness and go a bit mad if you go too high too quickly).

After leaving Chitwan we caught the bus to Kathmandu to deal with some beaurocracy and have some real coffee, then we had an extremely long and at times terrifying bus ride north. From Kathmandu to the town of Syabrubesi in Langtang National Park is only 190km...the trip took 9 hours. There were cliffs involved and buses that were at 3 or 4 times capacity- from this I think you can probably guess how we felt when we arrived. (Funnily enough, that wasn't the worst bus trip we have done in Nepal).

The trek through Langtang National Park was lovely and scenic though- if a little tough on the legs. Syabrubesi is at 1470 metres above sea level and at the end of 3 days walking we were at 3870 metres. It was a steep climb but there was no lack of tea houses, restaurants or snack shops along the way if we needed an energy boost. As well as enterprising Nepalese, we saw monkeys rustling in the trees above our heads, waterfalls and the occasional snowy peak in the distance. As we got higher the scenery slowly changed and the monkeys gave way to yaks, the forest to open plains dotted with shacks and Tibetan prayer flags until we were walking in a valley surrounded by mountainous forest on one side and snow-covered mountains on the other. It was a spectacular view.

Although we weren't at a ridiculously high altitude (by Nepalese standards) the air did get thinner and thinner and on our last morning of walking we were stopping every half an hour or so, just to catch our breath. Admittedly I did have a cold, which didn't help. I was exhaustedly relieved when we came over a peak and saw the final town sitting just in front of us.

The town, Kyanjin Gompa, is home to 10 or 12 lodges, 2 bakeries (one of which sold us the best apple pie we had in all of Nepal), yaks, ponies and lots of mountains. It sits in a valley entirely surrounded by them. The mornings were quite sunny and warm so we sat outside with snow on all sides and enjoyed the vew. It also snowed every night, so every morning we would wake up to a thin layer of white over everything- unil the sun came out and melted it all, ready for the next evening.

Will has developed a new passion now, in the form of mountain climbing. So while I lay in bed trying to get rid of my cold, he was out in the cold, climbing the highest easily accessible peak in Kyanjin Gompa. He made it to the top and can now proudly say he has climbed to 5000 metres above sea level (for the un-mountain inclined that is only 500 metres lower than Everest Base Camp).

After that success we headed back down to warmer weather, to reward ourselves for our efforts with a deep-fried snickers bar. (We were rewarding our brains and tastebuds, not our hearts or arteries). And since then we have had the most horrendous 36 hours I have probably ever had. I'll put that in a new post. Stay tuned!