A Black Hole and a Tree of Enlightenment

STATS: Day count=59; Current Illness count=1 (Chris recovering from minor bout of the expected “Delhi Belly”); theft count=0; rip-off count=0.8 ; tourist screw-up count=1.7; Chris’ photo count=618; Emma’s photo count=29

It certainly was goodbye to Thailand – India is very different. We spent four days in Kolkata (Calcutta) and were pretty glad to leave. We did try very hard to like the place – and did spend a nice final day there so left on a good note, but the place is busy, dirty, noisy, generally fairly unfriendly and quite stressful.

To start with the worst points to try to end on a high – the traffic is deadly. I’ve not yet worked out if India drives on the left or the right since everyone drives wherever they wish. And they seem to take great pleasure in actually aiming for you as you cross the road. That would be fine, fun even, if it weren’t for the fact that everyone seems to have their thumb glued to the car/bike/rickshaw horn. The old adage that if you do something too much the effect is reduced doesn’t seems to have hit home there. The constant beeping of car horns just gives you a headache.

Then there’s the dirt. People do a good job of sweeping the road outside their shop, and generally keeping their own little areas relatively clean. And I’m sure it isn’t easy keeping a city with 15million people in it clean, but in my blinkered, tourist viewpoint, the practice of pissing anywhere in the gutter, spitting everywhere (I’m sure my delicate Western sensibilities are at play here, but I still cannot get used to the sound of people hawking and spitting 24 hours a day) and littering without regard just serves to make matters worse than it could otherwise be.

After the friendliness and intense politeness of Thailand, India seems rude in comparison. It is just a matter of getting used to it I think but people in general seem to be a lot more out for what they can get out here. I say in general, as we have encountered some very nice, friendly and helpful people during our stay.

Having said all that, we are trying to (and succeeding, slowly) adjust to the culture. There is a lot more poverty here, although Kolkata was not as bad as I expected in this regard – a number of beggars, but a polite no and they move on, and many families living on the street, but, while by no means ideal, the people make do and seem generally healthy.

Our hostel in Kolkata (well, they call it a hotel) was nice enough. We retired there a few times just to escape the noise of the city. The short taxi, and then metro ride from the airport was enough to set our expectations. Some very helpful people helped us to find our hotel and we spent the rest of the day exploring the area and getting headaches from the incessant beeping of horns, and trying to be as open minded as possible to the spitting, pissing and general unfriendly stares that we regularly got.

The next couple of days was the end of the Hindu Holi festival – a sort of welcoming of spring, and termed the ‘festival of colours’ since the way of celebrating it is to smear coloured powder, or paint made from the powder over each other. As we walked around the city we saw many families and friends plastering each other with the stuff, looking very wet and colourful. As you can see from the photos, we were accosted and played our part – on the Sunday by a nice friendly guy in the street and on the Monday by a completely drunk bloke who was much less artistic! We both got many more smiles and laughs as we walked around the city looking like this than we normally got!

On our final day we visited a number of the ‘tourist’ spots in the city, and had a really good day. The photos are of the Victoria Monument, an impressive structure with beautiful (and peaceful!) gardens and a rather humorous (unintentional, I suspect) and sanitised, but still interesting video and light show about the history of Kolkata in the evening.

Moving on from the city was harder than we found in SE Asia. The buses are all packed and not ideal for people with large rucksacks and the trains are all booked days in advance – a common problem but much worse right now due to the Holi festival.

We did manage to escape after 4 days and took an overnight train to a place called Gaya, followed by a rickshaw to Bodhgaya. The train was fine – we had our own sleeping berths that were comfortable enough. Everyone except us had blankets. We learnt why. It was freezing at night. We would have slept fine if we had bothered to get a few extra clothes out of our rucksacks! Lesson learned there.

Bodhgaya is a very religious place. It is the place where the Buddha is reputed to have achieved his enlightenment sitting beneath a bodhi tree. Much more importantly than that, however, it is the place where we managed to forget Kolkata and start liking India! Still people spit everywhere, but the place is friendlier and quieter and very interesting. And very colourful, with all the monks in their robes and women in brightly coloured saris. It is however small, and we are moving on tonight (5th March). The difficulties in having to book things in advance means we will probably have to be a little more organised and a little less impulsive in India.

There is a big temple next to the place where the Buddha sat beneath the tree, and a cutting from a sapling of the actual tree was planted here (the original tree was destroyed) and grows here and is obviously very important religiously and many people visit it. Not only that but pretty much every country that has a significant Buddhist following has built a temple in the town and it is interesting wandering around the temples and contrasting the opulence of some against the basic structures of others.

 

We’re staying in an empty hostel run by a very friendly guy where cleanliness isn’t top priority and the second floor of the building doesn’t exist any more. But we are in the middle of a small village with wandering cows, pigs and goats and a very peaceful feel. (Note: The photo above is NOT our hostel. It is the area just outside it!). This morning we got talking to a group of local school-kids who ‘just wanted to practice their English’. We are overly suspicious of rip-off scams while travelling, and sometimes you just have to trust people or risk missing out on interesting opportunities. We chatted to the guys for a while – their English was very good – and they took us to their school nearby. The kids in the school were very polite and stood up as we entered the room and listened as Emma played teacher for a few minutes. The school was dark, damp, crowded and falling down. An interesting diversion for us. Of course they asked for a donation at the end, and I’m not sure the inflatable globe I gave them was exactly what they had in mind! We did give the school a small amount of money too – I’m sure the original ‘can we just talk to you to improve our English’ was a bit of a scam to get money for the school, but with such poverty around, you can’t really blame them. And giving to a school is, in our humble opinion, more beneficial than encouraging begging.

Moving on to Varanassi tonight. Another big, overcrowded city so we are not expecting to love it, but we will enjoy the experience nonetheless!