Long Day's Journey into Night

We got up at 3:00 AM yesterday and were out of the hotel by about 3:20. We had to navigate the maze of alleys to get to a main street and hopefully find an auto-rickshaw to take us to the bus station. We were a bit concerned about wandering around at that hour and were taken aback to find the streets packed with people. It turns out there was a Shiva festival going on and literally thousands of people were queued up in the street to gain entrance to the Golden Palace which is located very near to our hotel. It was very noisy with chanting, singing and yelling at top voice. If we hadn't recognized it as a religious event, it would likely have been a bit frightening. Although our most familiar path was blocked due to the festival, we managed to make it to the street and find a rickshaw who got us to the bus station in record time through the empty streets of Varanasi. We made enquiries at the ticket counter and were told that our bus would leave at 5:00 AM (the same counter had told us 4:30 the day before) and that we should wait for it not at one of the platforms, but around the corner at a gas station. It seemed dodgy, but it worked. The bus had probably been outfitted like a school bus at some time, but it had definitely seen better days and was quite dilapidated and filthy.

When the bus arrived we asked what to do with our luggage. We assumed the rack on top of the bus was the most appropriate place for it but we were told to take it on board. There was one other Westerner, an Irish bloke named Jeremy, on the bus and we all piled our backpacks onto a seat and settled in for a long ride. Fortunately, for the first few hours, the bus was only about half full so we could spread out a bit. The roads are very bumpy which meant we couldn't read, which makes for a very boring ride. I tried listening to my iPod for a while, but I had to turn it up so loud to hear it over the din of the bus, its horn and the passengers that I was actually worried I was damaging my ears.

After about 11:00 AM, the bus became much more full. Over the next few hours, people got on and off but the population generally grew until we were packed in like sardines. Fortunately, there were no livestock or other life forms besides the human kind sharing our space. The seats were small enough that my legs didn't fit in straight and after a while it was so tight that I couldn't even squirm or change the orientation of my knees, so it was quite uncomfortable for the most part. Once the bus got full, they came and told us that we couldn't have our backpacks on a seat (which is reasonable but came about 6 hours later than it should have) so they threw them on the floor. For the next few hours people were walking over them, standing on them and generally kicking them through all the dirt on the floor. Finally, the ticket guy came and passed mine and Jeremy's bags up to the front of the bus, but Wayne's stayed on the floor until the bus emptied. All our gear survived, but the bags were just filthy. We never really stopped for a meal break, but at about 11:00, Wayne jumped off the bus and grabbed us each a banana and a minuscule bag of crisps at a roadside stall. I was hesitant to eat anything in case my stomach acted up again, but all was fine. We didn't even drink any water as there was no chance that we would find a loo if we needed one.

One rather eerie aspect to the trip was our apparent appeal for the locals. They stared unabashedly at both of us throughout the journey. This was certainly worse for me but they also seemed very taken by Wayne. We could stare back in an effort to embarrass them, but there was nothing we could do to make them look away. There was one very old lady in particular who just couldn't take her eyes off me. There wasn't really anything threatening or scary in this, but it was very disconcerting when it when on for 15 or 20 minutes at a time. And there was no escaping it - everywhere I turned, someone was staring at me.

We understood that the trip was to last 12 hours, which was a huge disappointment to Jeremy who thought it was only 10 hours. At about 6:00 PM (13 hours after we left Varanasi) we pulled out of yet another way station and we expected to be in Khajuraho shortly. We got here at about 9:00 PM, a 16-hour bus ride and 18 hours after we had awakened that morning. The excruciatingly loud horn on the bus had been blaring for about six of those hours - the driver was absolutely manic when it came to the horn. Honestly, it was so disruptive and upsetting I was ready to just throw myself out the door into the darkness by the end of the ride. Wayne and I agreed that the good thing about India is that it makes you want to go home.

There was no power on in Khajuraho when we arrived, but at least there was a rickshaw waiting at the bus station which took us to a hotel. Incidentally, power outages are very regular here - several times a day is normal. In Varanasi they seemed to have two different power grids, one of which seemed more reliable than the other. We had both a fan and A/C in our room, but the A/C was on the inconsistent grid and went out frequently. At least when this happened, we could still use the fan. A couple of times they went of concurrently but this didn't happen often. We also didn't have TV for about three days there, as the power had gone out at the cable place and didn't get fixed for that long.

Anyway, we got to the first hotel on our list and it was lovely so we stayed there. Wayne and I have a room with a fan but no A/C (which is okay here as it's not as hot as Varanasi) and enough space that we could hold a G8 summit in there. We went out for dinner with Jeremy last night and we all filled the huge voids in our bellies. Wayne and I shared a bottle of Indian wine which wouldn't win any awards but was not as bad as we expected. We were then summarily kicked out of the restaurant and fell into a coma in our beds.

This morning we all had breakfast in the hotel and then went out to do the touristy thing. This is a very small town which has nothing to offer except its fabulous display of temples which have been deemed a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These are left over from a dynasty from about 1000 years ago and beautifully preserved. Much like Angkor Wat, the temples are built from stone and very intricately carved. However, the carvings are largely erotic in nature while a small minority bear likenesses to Hindu gods. Pretty much every sexual position you could imagine (and definitely some new ones for me) are represented here, and there's even some bestiality. The carvings are really beautiful and the workmanship is very impressive. The grounds where the temples lie are impeccably maintained, and they don't let people onto the grounds unless they've paid the entry fee, so it's very quiet and peaceful. We spent most of the day there and it was really lovely to be in such a beautiful place and to experience some serenity. If all of India were like this, I could stay forever. Unfortunately, once we exited the gates, we were back to reality and the touts were all over us again. The good news is that the touts here are much more congenial and manageable than the ones in Varanasi, and I definitely caught a glimpse of a kinder, gentler India.

Wayne has coined a phrase "TII" (this is India) which applies to the way they do pretty much everything here. The luggage handling on the bus was a perfect example - why didn't they put our bags somewhere suitable when we boarded the bus at 4:30? They just don't seem to think ahead, or really think much at all. Wayne reckons they'd make lousy chess players. We are using the phrase TII virtually every five minutes when we see yet another example of ineptness, irrationality, theft, scamming or outright insanity.

I'm not sure what the plan is for us from here. Given that I haven't really done any research on this country, I'm just going with the flow. The only thing I really want to see is the Taj Mahal, which will no doubt be worse than Varanasi, so I'm just letting Wayne make the decisions. We may decide to follow Jeremy's path for the next day or two - he seems to know what he's doing. The internet is much better than expected here, so time permitting, I should be able to stay in touch. Please feel free to write.