Crossing into India, Varanasi

Varanasi Photo Gallery

As the rickety (yet colorful) converted public school bus bounced along to its final stop in southern Nepal I groggily regained consciousness thinking I had reached the Nepal-India border. Waking at 6am is difficult under the best of circumstances, much less after a patience-exhausting 12 hour ride with no leg or wiggle room. Thus, you can imagine my delight when a local explained to me (in the kind of broken English that makes me wonder if it will ever be working) that the border crossing was still another 15 kilometers further along the road. "Just great," I thought.

Since there weren't too many other options, I was soon back on the main road, thumb up, waiting for the next vehicle heading south. I eventually hailed down another school bus gone public bus, pointed South and subsequently handed over 20 rupees to the driver. But as I tried to climb aboard the bus, the driver grumbled something in Nepali - presumably, "Not so fast!" I looked at him wondering what I had done wrong now, but he nonchalantly pointed at the top of the rickety bus and I took the hint.

Without a moment's hesitation, I shimmied up the side railings and braced myself and my pack as best I could manage. The Nepali roads are awful (I experienced an entire night of bouncing to attest to this), especially considering we were well outside the child-sized ring of urbanized Nepal. However, with the sun beginning to peak over the horizon to my left, even the bumps that sent my body flailing and my heart flying couldn't stop me from feeling on top of the world. There is no better way to ride into India.

When I reached the border I stopped to eat some breakfast before clearing Nepali immigrations. There was little to choose from apart from a spattering of road-side stalls, so grabbed a stool and order curried vegetables, white rice, and kopi (a kind of coffee). Eating with my hands posed a bit of a problem since I was all out of wet-wipes by this point, but I did my best to clean my hands with some running water and the inside of my t-shirt. It is strange to remember how I once spurned food if someone had so much as burped in its general proximity, whereas now my stomach is a veritable garbage disposal that can handle anything.

This ends my trip to Nepal, and now on to India...

I have heard many things about India - many of the stories are quite good but a seemingly equal number are quite bad. Nevertheless, every description involves a superlative of some kind. In India, it seems there is no such thing as a middle ground - only extremes. I was looking forward to the country as exactly my kind of place, despite warnings from other travelers who said, I'll Never Do It Again.

I spent an entire day waiting in line at the Indian embassy in Katmandu, but it paid off because clearing India's customs was a painless procedure with my documents in hand. The officers on duty even spoke fluent English and took the time to share a few laughs with me. However, once I stepped out of the customs office and into the "real" India I realized I had entered a place I never would imagine could exist on the same planet. As my earlier postings describe, I have grown accustomed to filth and pestering people, but as I mentioned before with extremes, India takes everything to a whole new level. The street was lined with standing cows, feces (animal and even human, I suspect), pile upon pile of rotten food and garbage, a man urinating on the sidewalk, and enough festering water to guarantee generation upon generation of flies. Not much of a first impression, I suppose, but I have never been one to judge a book by its cover. The next things that hit me (and have not let go yet) are the flies, and people trying to sell me something. India is dirt poor, and life for much of the population stems from tourist dollars.

I eventually made my way onto a government bus (not trusting any of the others), and ended up in a place called Gorakhpur. The city is not worth noting, but it is a travel hub for much of the region. I picked up a train guide, and reserved a ticket to Mumbai (Bombay), India for the following day. With my ticket in hand, I searched the city for another public bus that would take me to th sacred Hindu city of Varanasi for the evening. The entire time I searched, I had people swarming me screaming "Hello!", "Rickshaw!", "Taxi!", "Money-Change!", "Bus to Nepal!", "Bus to Delhi!", "Bus to Varanasi!" - ahh, that's me!

I arrived in Varanasi at 11pm. Having been traveling for nearly 30 hours without a break, I was completely worn out. This did not help me any because it is paramount to stay on your toes when arriving in a new city, especially at night. Thus, the first thing I did was buy a knife from a nearby shop. I then took a taxi to the center of the city in search of a place to stay. The driver claimed he could take me to my hotel, which was great because the old city is nothing but winding alley-ways (much like Venice).

My worst fears came to light in the back alleys when a group of thugs emerged from the dark, blocking my path. My rickshaw driver continued walking away. Either he was in on it, or he figured it was not worth his time to get tangled up in the mess. Either way, I was left to fend for myself. I had been getting a bad feeling the entire time because the alleys felt dangerous, and so I was lucky enough to have my knife ready at hand. After laying into them with my harshest profanity (I was simply not in the mood to deal with this after all I had endured), and slashing the air with the knife, they ran off. My guide book warned about Varanasi being an unsafe city, and even warned that exactly this type of thing can happen, but who ever thinks it will happen to them?

I had a hard time finding a room for the night as most hotels close their doors at 10pm because of the crime. The place I ended up in was as bad as it gets, but I was thankful to finally lock out the rest of the world. Even if it was only for a few hours.