Part II: India - Shocking arrival to India

Mmmmm, my mouth is still burning from the last curry I had for lunch, not too sure for how long my stomach will handle it, I'm now in Jaipur, a horrible city in Rajastan. Although the city is horrible, the hotel is quite nice. It has a nice garden to lay back on the grass and even roof swimming pool, that judging by the colour of the water, I think it must be from the Ganges itself (holy swimming pool??),...

Today I took the day off from touristing to rest from all the hassling of yesterday

what is your name? Where are you from? For how long are you staying in India? Are you married? Do you have children? Are you alone? No friend? Do you need a rick saw? Come to my shop? Taxi? Do you need anything? Money? Chocolate? Pens?...

Yesterday I discovered the best trick, the headphones!! You can go quietly while listening to the moment selection of music, dodging away all the vultures trying to get your money. I even had a go on a guy. I met him while having a chai (tea) in the street. He looked nice, we started chatting for some time, a pleasant talk, so at some point he tells me to go to someplace to see I don't know what and he pay for the teas, mmmm, bad sign, at the end as l was prognosticating he took me to the shop of his friend and tried to sell me the scam of the return taxes, at that point got very indignant, after the long day of hassling, this was the drop that overflows the glass, so for ten minutes I gave him a deep talk about anthropology and the sense of the truth, poor guy, don't know if he understood a word, but listened the whole thing without a comment, he probably didn't give a damn for what I was saying, neither did I,

So after that, I decided to calm down and look for a relaxing place to finish well the day. Right in front of me a mountain with a buddish temple in the top. mmm, looks perfect, the sun was falling into the mountains, so the nice sunset was secured. When I got to the top, there was monkeys everywhere, you never know with them, they always look cheeky, I remember at some point grab a stone from the floor, just in case, later I had to embarrassedly throw it away, trying people not to see me. In the Buddhist temple there was a family living, the son approached me, so we talk for a while, for the first time in the day, someone talked to me and didn't asked me for money, I could go then relieved after seeing a nice sunset and have a nice talk,...

Conclusion of the introduction: India is a beautiful colorful country, but I don't know if Buddha itself would have patience enough to cope with all the hassling that as tourists we receive.

This time I won't do a timely description of each day, as last mail, will try to make it shorter.

Katmandu-Delhi: It was about time to leave Nepal and go to India, so after checking the price to fly there, I convinced myself that it was much better to go by bus. At the end of the day, I got more time than money and it always makes better stories these bus-hell-trips. The bus departure from Katmandu central bus station in the afternoon, arriving to the border at 4:30 in the morning, after nine hours trip. As the departure time got closer, the bus started to get packed, by the time the bus started moving there was maybe space for a small goat. It is amazing what this people put up with, I was in the window seat that was confortable-ish, the guy sat next to me had one person sat in the arm support and other that was swapping between to be seated on his knees or in the seat within his legs.

After nine long hours half asleep half awake, only stopping in a few dodgy places to have dubious food and see how a soldier, got blasted with a bottle of whiskey before getting his shotgun to go for a round, we got to Sunali, the border with India, at the scheduled time, got a rick saw (one of this bikes with a seat in the back) for a few kilometers to the actual border. The street was poorly lighted and the sky was clear so all the stars where glowing. When got to the border the guy went straight through all the barriers, we had to come back after some guy run after us, asking if I had the visa signed, oppps. A few hours later, at seven in the morning there was the next bus, sulani-varanasi, where I could take the train to Delhi.

This was a tourist bus, so there were even some spare seats. The journey was supposed to be five hours, but there was some bridge broken, I didn't know bridges brake up, so it took eleven hours instead. Although it was longer, it seemed shorter since the atmosphere was quite friendly between the tourists, some people from Israel, Spain, Slovenia,… We arrived in the evening to Varanasi, where I shared room with the Spanish guy I met in the bus. Beautiful sunrise from the terrace of the hotel, Varanasi lays along the Ganges, where apparently there are dolphins, amazing fact after seeing the colour of the water. After half a day, sightseeing got into the last bit of my trip, the 15 hours train to Delhi. The train was a sleeper. In my continuous process to learn the tips of the good traveler, I didn't know yet about the chain to secure the rucksack to the bunker bed, so had to sleep hugging my big pack like if it was my girlfriend. It is amazing the number of tea sellers there was in the train, the last two hadn't gone out of the carriage when the next one was stepping in singing special masala tea,… One girl in my carriage recorded it to play it within her music on the decks…

Ok, I wrote up to here in Jaipur, almost one week ago. I’m starting to feel lazy about going to internet. I'm now waiting to get the bus from Udaipur to Bombay, on my way to Goa, Yeaaa!!! After so many mountains, cities and other sweats, now I finally hit the beach. I just come from having a shave in the street, so good. First because you don't have to fight against the crappy mirror, the empty foam bottle, the old razor blade that doesn’t cut, and secondly, because it gives you a head massage as well, well, he banged my head for about five minutes. At the beginning I didn't know if he was just hitting me or doing the massage. Surprisingly I feel quite relax now, buh?

Night out in Delhi: After a hard day in Delhi trying to do some sightseeing, I managed to skip at least 80% of the people trying to sell me something, getting better. So on my way back, had a traffic jam of one hour on the rick saw, they will remind me as the man who gave bananas to the rick shaw drivers, for some reason I had so many bananas in my backpack, so since I was bored just gave them away. When I got to the hotel, I just needed a beer, so I had a shower, put on the only shirt I have, and went down to the street.

First I looked in the Main Bazaar, but it was too touristy and bad, so got on a rick saw, to some place was supposed to be good, there were only very posh bars to have a drink in the table, so since this looked very boring, managed to get a good fare to go to some famous club, in a very good hotel, After 45 minutes, wandering around, because although the driver didn’t recognized it we got quite lost. I got to the club at ten and it was absolutely eeeempty. After all the pain to get to the place, I was sure I was going to have a drink in a normal place, so I got to the next hotel, another super hotel that only Americans and Japanese people can afford. It was so beautiful everything. Since I had to wait for one hour to go to the club, I just enjoyed, with my rather creasy shirt, all the facilities, including an amazingly clean toilet, with slave to dry your hands. At the end I could get to the club where for 500 rupees (Three nights price in a normal cheap guest house) could get in. I met some Indians with Thai face, really funny-crazy people. I leave the place at 4 o’clock, just on time to get my luggage and crash in the train to Agra.

After Agra, where I took enough pictures of the Taj Mahal to reconstruct it in case of demolition, went to Jaipur, and later to Pushkar, where I got trapped for 5 days. Such a nice city, First night I stayed in a good boring guest house, but that night, walking around the lake, I found a really nice guest house right in front of the lake (main feature in Pushkar together with the camel feire) so I changed next day and since then I lived in Pushkar big brother house for 4 days. Such a nice guest house and so nice people there!! If you wanted to do something in the morning you would have to leave before anyone woke up. Because otherwise you would entry in the circle of teas, banana lassies,… and wouldn’t be able to leave the hotel until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Since it was the camel festival there were many Indian people doing a pilgrimage to the holy lake to have a bath, so all the gaths in the small lake were full of women with all these beautiful colorful sharies. The camel feire was amazing as well, hundreds of camels everywhere with all these guys with big moustache and colourful turbants. I have attached a few pictures, including the ones of the gypsies, ohhh my god, so pretty!!...

Ok, I’m going to get my bus to Bombay,

Ciao ciao,

Qr….