Varanasi, Gaya, Bodhgaya, and McLeod Ganj

The next morning was, again, an early one. Not sure if it was the heat or the time adjustment or the excitement, but I woke up at about 3:30 and was out of bed at 4:50 to see if I could find a boat to take me down the Ganges to see the activity on the ghats coming to life. Lonely Planet recommends early morning for a boat tour because it’s cool and—even so early—there is a lot to see. Right outside of the hotel there were about half a dozen boatmen waiting for tourists. Haggling the price down was tough, but I managed to get the fee down from rs. 400 to rs. 300. One boatman steered and the other rowed; at times we were stagnant because of the current. Seeing the ghats from the river was a great experience, especially to get a sense of how many there are and what goes on on them. My favorite sights were some large elderly maharaja palaces. Also of note is the electric crematorium. Vanranasi is considered a very holy place to die and to be cremated. The richer are burned with fire on the ghats; the poorer go to the electric factory-like location.

Back at the hotel I peeked my head into the room to check if Melissa was sleeping. She has been having a difficult getting sufficient rest; being exhausted yet unable to sleep because of the heat is a poor combination. Glad to see she was snoozing (I guess it was still very early) I headed off into the winding streets of the old city.

I came across the “Brown Bread Bakery” again that we almost ate at the night before. Their muesli with banana, milk, and honey was a tasty breakfast; it was a fun restaurant with cushions on the floor for seating. A relaxed atmosphere which, coupled with the bakery-like items on the menu, was obviously a hotspot for tourists. Stepping out of the bakery I found my eyes caught by colorful strings in a street-side shop. The red and yellow color was easily recognizable as a Hindu emblem worn around the wrist and signifying good luck. Many people wear them and usually they are tied on by a guru or other holy man. Figuring it was time for new wrist wear, I allowed the store owner to cut the loose red string around my wrist—having until that point in time been on my wrist for 2 years—and replace it with a new red-yellow one. The pieces of the old one I released into the Ganges later that day. The new one has been working out ok, although the dye is getting all over my clothes. Perhaps it won’t be as bad later on when the string’s vibrant colors fade. Or maybe it will keep staining my cuffs and sides with more and more red and yellow.

Continuing to wander the streets, I found myself at the main cremation ghat, a few ghats up from Meer ghat where we were staying. I sat on a small wall and got talking with a kid and his brother. We had some lemon chai—less tasty then it sounds, I’m more used to milk chai. The brother spoke good English, although had only learned from having practiced with foreigners. He also helped me practice Hindi. I enjoyed his company; I could tell in some way that he was more interested in a few conversations and sharing information than adopting the wide-eyed, overbearing and overwhelming I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND demeanor that many others do, especially the ones that maybe want to form a good relationship so that money can be part of the equation. I forget the brother’s name. We talked for some time and he offered to show me around the places where they burn the bodies. This is something that Lonely Planet makes out to be a tourist objective, and many people visit to see, although I’m sure you can imagine it was a strange feeling for me to be taking in sights as a tourist which must be emotional and significant for the members of the dead’s family. I asked the brother what people thought of tourists coming here a few different times, each time he suggested that it was no big deal, that people didn’t mind having people come to observe. The air was dense with the smell of smoke. We stopped at the place where several people shoved ashes into the Ganges; the black ashes covered the entire side of a dozen-step ghat. On the ghat platform itself were about 3 or 4 spaces for burnings. They would stack wood up about to waist-level (the most expensive being sandal wood) to construct the pyre. The body would be wrapped in shiny silver and gold lining and dipped in the Ganges before being burned. We also visited the adjacent home where many old would come to live out their final days. Remember dying in Varanasi grants moksha, or the freeing of the birth and death cycle. After visiting the site where the wood was cut and weighed, I bid the brother farewell and thanked him for his time. I offered him rs. 100 for his time, which he took without having the expectation for it yet without having the surprise of it. Our whole interaction that day was educative yet soothing.

Back at the hotel Melissa was reading in bed. We had been thinking about going to a yoga class. The day before I visited a nearby studio but didn’t take a class because the off-season classes were halted and the private sessions were too expensive. I was thankful for the hour-long conversation I had with the yogi though instead. He explained about his life doing yoga as a child here and there, then joining the army in Hyderabad, then getting a degree in Psychology, then eventually running the yoga studio. His animated behavior was punctuated with eruptions of laughter. The other studio that Melissa and I had in mind though we didn’t make it to. She wasn’t sure if she was up to it and in any case we needed to check out of the hotel lest we be charged with another day. Packing up all our stuff ran well into the yoga session, so I just did some small exercises in our room. I had been accustomed to running etc at home about every other day; the same kind of exercise is more difficult to set aside time for here!

In the afternoon we enjoyed the central patio views over lemon juice and sparkling water, which also tastes good with a few shakes of salt in it actually. Quite a treat. A new taste yet quenching. I haven’t been eating very much—the appetite is very low still—yet somehow I had the strongest craving for this lemon drink. For lunch we headed to the Brown Bread Bakery. Remember the huge menu? Thai, Chinese, Continental, international Cheeses and breads, Indian, etc etc etc. Melissa tried the palak paneer. Unimpressive. I tested out the Thai green curry. How out of line my expectations were with the actual product was comical. The brown sludge smelled like the interior of an old dusty piano. The taste was worse. It reminded me of the smell wafting about in urine-laden toilet rooms. After a few bites, I was finished. No problem wasting this food. I settled with the white rice with ketchup drizzled over top, an unexpected lunch to be sure. Again, first impressions are only part of the picture. Just as a book cannot be judged by the cover, neither can a restaurant be judged by the impressiveness of the menu.

Back at the hotel, Melissa and I had some more lemon drink. I could have ordered food but wasn’t hungry. With a few hours left before we needed to make it to the station for our next train, I decided again to wander. Hopefully I would locate a place where I could look into why my Vodafone connection was not working. Melissa had been using the phone at the hotel to arrange plans with her family when the line cut out. It refused to receive reception after that. A sitar shop owner told me that to rearrange the plan I would need to visit a place far away, so I spent about half an hour or so soaking in the hustle of the main road before heading back to the hotel. Simply standing in one place and observing everything around you in a situation like that can entertain for hours. On the way back to the hotel while walking along the ghats I ran into the massagers that I had been introduced to yesterday. Yesterday after having initially arrived in Varanasi a boy invited me to his shop. Refusing like usual, the boy reached his hand out to shake goodbye. As our hands met in a flash he grabbed my hand and pressed his thumbs into my palm. Stunned but intrigued, I didn’t pull my hand back. In a few seconds he was squeezing up and down my arm in alternating clockwise and counterclockwise directions with the thumb and fingers. I was sold. Yes, take me away to wherever it is you give massages. Right here atop a burlap blanket on a wide step of the ghats? Ok. Up and down my arms and legs he and another went. As well as the back and the shoulders. Oh OH and the feet. That was my favorite. Toward the end I sat up and…how did this work…I sat and he had his chins to my back and he grabbed my arms in front of me and pulled back. And then to each side. A ripple of cracks ran up my whole spine each time. The mentality was always *don’t worry about the money* until the end when they asked for rs. 300each. While being messaged it’s hard to haggle. When on my feet after some time I negotiated down to rs. 50 each, which probably was still too high. I felt it was worth it though. Oh my, what a sensation. I was happy to have another that afternoon on my way back to the hotel.

I had booked the train to Gaya from Varanasi in the sleeper class because it wasn’t overnight. We had always traveled sleeper when traveling in Hyderabad 2 years ago. You still get beds and all, just not a/c and no sheets. With Melissa drained from the constant heat over the past 7 months in South Asia (the most hot of which being the entirety of the last 4 months, right throughout the summer), I negotiated to have us relocated to a/c class for an upgrade charge. Good move. I also slept the whole 5 hours to Gaya.

Gaya is a city that is usually only visited by foreigners and tourists as a jumping off point to Bodhgaya, the location of Buddha’s enlightenment. Because the train got in after dark, we decided to stay at a hotel across from the station in Gaya and head to Bodhgaya the next day. The room had everything we needed, but had a dark feeling to it. My whole memory of Gaya seems to be steeped in this dark shadowy hue. Gaya is located in Bihar, the poorest state of India. It’s a good idea to play it safe traveling through this state, although crime used to be a whole lot worse a few years ago than it is now. The government is really stepping up things like education throughout the state from what I hear; I believe it, Melissa saw so many schools and school children running about the next day.

With no check-out time, we decided to explore around Gaya a bit; the guide book spoke of a mountain in the southern part of town with great views; also Buddha preached his “fire sermon” here. I thought we could walk there, so on the way we stopped at a local eatery for some rice and daal and mixed veg curry. We also stopped at one of the many sweet shops; I spotted a milk-pistachio fluffy white sweet that I liked, Kalakan. Getting sufficiently lost, we hired a rickshaw driver to take us to the mountain. I don’t know why I thought I could navigate there, it would have taken all day. Realizing how much the richshaw wallah had to exert himself to transport us both there, I paid rs. 50 instead of our agreed price of rs. 30, a bonus that lit his face up. I didn’t mind the children beggars that followed us up the mountain. Melissa had had enough of the begging throughout her time in South Asia. I bet that in a few months’ time, I will be similarly intolerant of it. Shooing them away, there was nothing to be concerned about at the top aside from the 2 temple dwellers that asked for a donation. The view was indeed splendid. Gaya is huge and wound around as far as you could see in one direction, rice paddies extending in the other direction. The city did look like it was falling apart though somewhat. The crumbling brick walls were visible from the mountain, just as the half-finished roads and mud were noticeable while actually toiling about in it.

By the time we reached the base of the mountain, it had cooled quite a bit and became windy. It was such a nice break, but we knew a big rain was on its way. Being on the outskirts of town meant few autos, but we felt like searching for one rather than hire a cycle rickshaw. As the rains started, a diesel tank truck pulled up beside us, the driver and his friend poking his head out of the window to ask us where we were headed. He offered to take us to the train station (across from which was our hotel), he was headed to the station anyway to drop off the diesel for the trains. Eyeing Melissa a few times, we agreed with each other that the risk was acceptable and hopped in, me smooshing beside the two men and Melissa by the window to avoid any funny business. The rains poured and poured. How grateful we were not to be sludging about in the mud and puddles below us. We didn’t recognize the way the truck was taking (although of course we didn’t know the city), and were slightly fearful that we may have to resort to hopping out in the rain if things got too suspicious. We questioned his direction but he assured us he was going a back way to the station and not to worry about it. Out of nowhere our hotel popped up in front of us. I dug into my wallet for some compensation for the driver; he smiled, waved his hand and nodded his head, a claim that money was not necessary. With a return smile and a “thank you” our diesel truck was off and Melissa and I headed into the hotel to pack our things.

Bodhgaya is about 12 km away from Gaya. Annoying jarring speed bumps made me choose to hold my backpack on my lap for fear of the laptop inside breaking from the hard metal floor of the auto. The scenery was nice, more amiable than the crowded and noisy streets of Gaya. Gaya had the loudest horns I’ve ever heard. And they lay on the horns for many seconds at a time, in an auto it can be deafening. Many times I had to cover my ears. Especially during that time that the bike behind us blared his horn at us for about half a minute while waiting at a stop light simply because he saw that we were covering our ears. I suppose an adolescent having a little fun has turned out with worse outcomes before. Whatever, I could have been more upset, it was just dumb.

Dazed by the passing forests and countryside in the auto, something strange suddenly caught my eye up ahead. Focusing as I looked forward, in a split second I realized a cow was on its side sliding at high speed in front of a bus, heading in our direction. As we veered off the road, I braced myself for an ugly sight and my face cringed, eyebrows tensing. How the cow became propelled in front of the bus is a mystery, perhaps it was hit and thrust forward. The bus decelerated at about the same rate as the cow did, so it never went under. At the high speeds though, the cow slipped about as if it were on ice and slid at least 40 yards or so. The bus stopped and the cow got up and walked past us without a grunt, its friend catching up close behind. That was the second bus-cow incident Melissa had witnessed. The previous on a few weeks before ended up much worse, the victim ending up with a bloody horn and a limp.

We had hoped to stay at one of the monasteries (each dedicated to a different country, and made in the image of that country) in Bodhgaya, although the guest houses in all were being renovated. An energetic thin Indian, Sudhir, about my age found us and started talking about his family’s guest house as soon as we stepped out of the rickshaw. After investigating a few other options, we decided that his guest house was a great deal for the price and took him up on the offer. Sudhir drove us and our luggage to the guest house. That evening after settling in Melissa and I walked about the town and ran into Sudhir again, just as energetic as before he started talking about all the places we could go in town to see the tourist sites or to use the internet etc. Melissa went to an internet café and I went to a local phone shop to see what I could do about a new sim card for the phone; the Vodafone card was still without reception. The AirCel chip had the lowest rates I’ve seen for international calling to the US at rs. 1.5 a minute, about 4 cents. Loads less than the 3 dollars or whatever with my AT&T phone. The card required not only my passport and visa photocopy and passport photo but also a local’s id. I’m still puzzled why this is. A local reference? But what if I didn’t have a reference? Sudhir was more than willing to photocopy his passport, jumping in the opportunity to help.

That evening the three of us went to a local restaurant with Tibetan specialties. What we ordered was ok but the soup I’m pretty sure gave me quite the bout with diarrhea that night. After Sudhir left to go home, a talkative schoolboy fired some questions at us, followed by a computer science college student talking to us for a good half hour about this schooling and studies.

That night: diarrhea diarrhea diarrhea. Not much sleep. Melissa wasn’t feeling too well either. Darn Tibetan soup. Still without having recovered my appetite from many days before, I was mostly living off of rehydration salts. That morning Melissa and I went to a nearby café with wireless internet access where I was able to post my last blog entry. Also got some porridge. Sudhir dropped by and was anxious to take us through the sites of Bodhgaya.

Although he rattled off mountains we could visit and….something else I can’t remember…and a lesson with a Buddhist guru, Melissa and I really only had the time and energy for the main sites of the tree under which Buddha achieved enlightenment, the nearby temple, and exploring the monasteries. Well, the original tree was uprooted by a ruler bent on ridding the area of Buddhism, but a sapling from it was stolen and cultivated further in Sri Lanka. The relative tree was replanted in the spot of enlightenment and is now about 2 millennia old, about a dozen steel pillars supporting its massive and lengthy branches. A few dozen people were meditating under it. I sat under the tree too. What did I think about? My seventh grade history class. We learned about Buddha’s enlightenment then, and the Bodhi tree. I found it such a cool kind of thing then, the story of the enlightenment being tied to a tree under which it happened. Reminiscent of Newton and his apple. Revolutionary event occurring in a simple space connected to nature. And now 9 years after seventh grade, I was here.

We walked around the area and made our way to a massive 60 foot high Buddha state and the monasteries. A salesman outside of one offered for me to listen to his prized largest hand-crafted singing bowl. The sound was so deep and relaxing. Making you still. The deep pitch, about as low as you can hum, had an overtone pitch floating softly above it, exactly a fifth (+octaves) higher. The result: still music that could make anyone pause in peace for at least a moment. I hadn’t the space to lug around something like that. Curious, I asked the price anyway. A whopping 400 Euros.

From five to six in the afternoon Melissa and I attended a meditation session at the Japanese monastery. Maybe 2 dozen people sat in the open-aired and high-ceilinged room with a large Buddha statue, murals, dangling gold plates, and other beautifications at the front. The smell of incense filled the air. Our monk slowly rang a large gong a few times, beat a large drum once or twice, and chanted in a sustained low tone for about 20 minutes. The remainder of the hour was held in silence. I was able to have my legs in lotus position for the majority of the time. Just as I readjusted to half lotus due to pain, the session was over. Calm and spaced out, we were driven back to the guest house by Sudhir to collect our bags. Sudhir arranged an auto for us to take us back to Gaya. I gave him about 5 dollars in rupees for all of his enthusiastic help and guidance. Despite all his time, he never mentioned about us paying him, even at the end. I doubt it if he would have brought it up. He was appreciative and accepted it graciously.

And again we were back in Gaya. I liked Gaya. Somehow. It was dirty and chaotic and LOUD LOUD LOUD. And dark. And the smell made my stomach turn a little. But somehow it was nice, like I was forging a frontier or facing discomfort head on or managing something unmanageable. I guess that means I appreciated it for reasons that had to do with me in the place, not for the place itself. Sharing a final meal and lemon-salt fizz water together, Melissa and I reminisced over the past week, sweat dampening our clothes and the jingles of obnoxiousness echoing from outside.

Melissa wasn’t surprised to see that her train was delayed, that specific one was notorious for it. We used it to get to Gaya and it was only 10 minutes late, but the time before that Melissa used it 2 years ago and it was delayed 7 hours. It was only delayed 10 minutes at a time, so we didn’t really know how long it would amount to. I was fearful of the station. People were everywhere, most of them just staring at us. Very little English was understood. I fidgeted constantly as every other second I would feel another bug on my skin or crawling in my hair. Once for a few seconds, the power went out and nothing could be seen. I kept bags close by. All the while we continued to retell events from the past week, giggling at strange bargaining situations and remembering old Hyderabad study abroad friends. After an hour, Melissa’s train to Calcutta was still absent and mine showed up to whisk me away to Delhi (the express train got you there in under 12 hours, an impressive feat for the distance travelled). I knew she would be fine being there alone. She would take it like she takes most things, level-headed and calmly. With a hug goodbye, we parted. I hope her train was not delayed 7 hours into the night.

Serious diarrhea followed me throughout the night on the train to Delhi. As we pulled into the station at 11 am, I was geared up with my bags (one in front and one in back) and jug of orange rehydration salt-elixir in one hand and jug of regular water in the other. Again, without an appetite, the rehydration salts were my best friend, lest I have much less energy than I did. Slightly weak, I embarked to find a place to keep my bags for the day before I caught my train in the evening to head up farther north.

New Delhi train station has 16 platforms. That is a long distance. Going to one end, I was disgruntled to figure out that luggage storage was on the other side. After finally getting to the cloak check, the line was huge and I rethought my plan. Perhaps there would be a cloak check at the station I had to be at that evening, Anand Vihar in east Delhi. I’d rather have my bags there waiting for me than have to contend with the commotion of New Delhi station in the evening again, possibly making me late. To try to figure out the best way to get to Anand Vihar, I tried my luck at the enquiry booths, each one having a crowd of about 60 people contending for the booth operator’s attention. Standing off to the side, I realized the inefficiency of the whole mess. Everyone was shouting and pushing in the humid, sweaty outside area. The booth operators sat calmly with slight frowns on their faces in swivel chairs behind computers in a/c, protected from the bustle outside by thick glass. It seemed that every once in a while she would look up at someone and half listen. Taking a few seconds to…think? she would maybe whisper some response. Every once in a while she’d talk into the microphone so people could hear outside. No one was angry, just pushing for the front of the line. I fumed. Ticket salesmen operate the same way. It takes forever.

After asking a few people I figured that that Anand Vihar was accessible via the metro system. Shoulders aching, I slowly made it to the metro station nearby. While waiting in the lengthy security check line, I had to support myself against the wall and was out of breath under the weight of the bags, my shirt and pants drenched with sweat from the extra insulation in the already heavy humid heat. The a/c in the metro cars themselves were a blessing, I’m sure you can imagine. Yet still standing for the half hour or so to get to Anand Vihar was taxing. Anand Vihar metro station was spacious and looked new, as did the railway station I’d soon find out. As I stepped out of the metro station, I gladly handed over the bags to a rickshaw driver who took me to the station. Although it was visible and certainly within walking distance, I was caught at a good time for a nice sit.

Although Anand Vihar station was new, there was no cloak room. Sitting for a few minutes with a crooked look of frustration on my face, I wondered if there were a hotel nearby where I could leave the bags. A taxi driver outside offered to take me to one after I negotiated the price down 4x less. The guest house he took me too would keep the bags for thousands of rupees. I guess the generosity of the guest houses I had stayed in before to hold onto bags was not consistent everywhere. Disgruntled, I decided it best to head the whole way back to New Delhi station to the cloak room that I knew was there rather than drive around looking for a place on the off-chance they would house them. Safely. The taxi driver demanded I pay him his original price back at the station. I gave him half and despite his protests walked away.

Again with the long metro ride. And sweaty back-breaking walk to the New Delhi Station. I forgot which side the cloak room was on. I trudged through the crowd of people to platform 1 on the other side because someone on the metro claimed that was the correct side. Nope. Trudged back to platform 16. Cloak room. Ok. Made it. Oh, oops I’m on the return side of the cloak room. Ok walk around a few hundred feet to the other side. Fill out the form. Whew I can take the bags off. The cloak room man looked at the bags and shook his head, fingering the loose zippers. *No lock, no storage.* My heart sank. What the hell was I going to do with these f***ing bags. It was 3 pm, perhaps my best option was to go back to Anand Vihar and wait 6 hours for the train. After catching my breath and drying the sweat from my forehead, the cloak room man pointed to a vendor booth nearby and said *lock.* Perhaps that meant I could by locks. Yes, it did. Remarkably still disgruntled, I bought locks for the zippers (If you wanted the bag, you could take it anyway, it’s not stored in a safe, just placed on a shelf). Locks in place, the cloak room accepted the bags and finally after 4 hours of trudging around Delhi I was liberated.

At nearby Connaught Place (CP—basically the city center of Delhi), I found a park located at the center of the three concentric circle roads that make up CP. I bought a raspberry-mango popsickle. Then a lemon one. And laid sprawled out on the grass. Ahh.

Glancing through the guidebook to see what places to eat were nearby, I realized that all the Indian options (that I had always sought out and for which Delhi was prized) made me feel sick, perhaps my body saying ‘dammit stay away from that stuff, you’re pissing me off with this shit.’ I hope my appetite and taste for Indian food returns soon. A smile spread across my face when I read about a Ruby Tuesday’s nearby. Mmmm a burger and fries. Or maybe a salad. It was funny how I was definitely not hungry for some things (sickened by them actually), and yet hungry for another. It wasn’t food that mattered but the kind of food. A few seconds later I caught myself. I would never NEVER eat at a burger chain like Ruby Tuesday’s in the US. In fact, I seek out Indian at home. I’ve only been here in India a week and a half, and you’re in the Indian food capital of the world, and you want to go to….a Ruby Tuesday’s. And then I was like…well, yeah I do. I guess what you want is what you want, and I knew that I needed to eat after my lack of food for so long.

I made my way in that direction. CP had all kinds of higher end a/c stores and clothing places etc with police guards in front ready to welcome you inside by pulling the all-glass door open for you. Yet outside—a dichotomy that falls in line with so many opposites existing side by side in India—was a tangled and dusty/muddy mess of concrete chunks, steel bars, deep holes in unexpected places and thin workers with dirt-stained and torn clothing. CP was under some kind of heavy construction. Kind of like Pahar Ganj was torn up too. Ruby Tuesday’s must have been too, as I couldn’t find it, but ducked into a Starbucks-like coffee shop for a cool mocha/vanilla ice cream latte. Yum. Then nearby I found Subway. That peaked my interest. Again, 2 weeks ago I would have kicked myself for going to a Subway for my last meal in Delhi. My appetite now guided me differently. I ordered one 6-inch sub, then another. And a diet coke. How rejuvenating. After eating I spotted 2 other foreigners and talked with them—study abroad students from France—for about an hour. Filled with energy, I headed back to the New Delhi Station to collect my bags, much more manageable after my rejuvenating day, and boarded the much less-crowded metro to Anand Vihar to catch the train waiting there for Chakki Bank.

Chakki Bank is a station near Pathankot, a bus/train hub in the north, right below Jammu/Kashmir and right by Punjab and Pakistan. Today I after arriving at Chakki Bank, I caught an auto to Pathankot station where I waited an hour for the 5 hour train ride to Kangra (only rs. 16). The train serpentined through high mountains and across bridges that towered over massive river basins. From Kangra train station I caught a bus to Kangra bus station, then another bus to Dharamsala, then another bus to McLeod Ganj where I’m staying the evening in a guest house run by an energetic Kashmiri. McLeod Ganj is the seat of the Tibetan government in exile and is the residence of the Dalai Lama, as well as a backpacker hub.
As soon as I arrived the rains came and poured and poured. The steep hills of the area flooded with rushing water. The guest house owner claims such rain happens every day during the monsoon season. The climate is cool, with green and moss and trees everywhere all caught up in the mist of the clouds. You can’t see the bottom of the mountain where Dharamsala is from here, the clouds are too thick. Tomorrow I will go to Tushita Meditation Center to participate in a 10-day Buddhist philosophy/meditation course. This area looks like the perfect place for it.