Indiestani

Last week our program gave us a break from classes and took us down to Central India to Orchha and Khajuraho for the weekend. We took a train from Delhi to Jhansi, where we then took a coach-bus from Jhansi, through Orchha, down to Khajuraho. There we spent 2 nights and 2 and a half days exploring beautiful Khajuraho – which is most famous for it being the birthplace of the Kamasutra.

In Khajuraho we saw these insanely impressive temples that were built around the 1st century AD, which the most intricate carvings all around the inside and outside. We had a guided tour in and around the Laxman and Kandaria Mahadev temples, from which I learned a lot about the representations of the Hindu deities and the significance of the erotic carvings in the architecture. We also got to see some really impressive Jain temples. Our time was spaced out, so we were able to enjoy afternoons lounging by the hotel pool and hang out at the bar with our tour director, Pulinji, who organized and accompanied us on our trips to Mussoorie and Agra and Jaipur.

We also got to go on this awesome jeep safari ride through the rural old villages of
Khajuraho, away from the newer, more touristy section of the town. They took us out to the jungle where we did a 1 km hike through the woods to this clearing where there were these huge canyons formed by inactive volcanoes.

We were scheduled to go back to Delhi on Monday around lunch time, and everyone had the rest of the week off from classes to do independent travel. Many of the other students went down south to Kerala, and some went up north to Nepal, but I had made arrangements to meet up with a friend of a friend I met here in India and stay in his hometown of Orchha and wound up having a really great time travelling around with him.
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I was able to have our tour bus drop me off back in Orchha, since it was on the way to Jhansi where everyone else would get the train back to Delhi. It was there that my friend, Raj, came and picked me up and drove me and my luggage further into town on the back of his motorcycle. He got me set up at a really nice guesthouse where I left my stuff, and the next 2 days I spent getting to know him and his friends in town.

Orchha is this beautiful small town in Central India that has one little main market bazaar in the middle of the town outside the main temple, and all these huge palaces, ancient temples, tombs and cenotaphs scattered around the edges. Raj took me on a personal tour of the sights and we climbed way up inside the deserted crevaces of some of the palaces which had spectacular views of the town.

My favorite part of Orchha, however, was getting to know Raj and his friends. I spent a lot of time just hanging out with the locals at their shops, at the temple, or just having chai and pakoras out on the main street. I got to meet Raj’s family, went swimming in the river, went to temple services at night, and got to know lots of local gossip. It was so fascinating to be welcomed into this world of people, and by the end of my very short stay I started feeling like a local myself. About an hour before I left I was sitting down at Raj’s friend’s food stall and this guy sitting next to me introduced himself. When I told him my name he said, “Oh, you’re the student from Delhi!”
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After Orchha, I had decided to travel East to the city of Varanasi, and I convinced Raj to come with me since he’s Indian and speaks fluent Hindi, I didn’t want to travel alone, and also because he hasn’t travelled much outside his home town and I figured I could do him this favor. We took a direct overnight train from Jhansi to Varanasi in non-AC Sleeper class which I will NEVER AGAIN do in my life. It took us about 14 hours in that crowded, unair-conditioned train, to reach Varanasi (which is also called Banaras).

I had always gotten the impression from people who have been, that Varanasi/Banaras was this incredibly holy city, known as the place where Lord Shiva resides, situated along the Ganges. My first impression was that it was extremely congested, crude, and dirtier even than Delhi. We pushed our way through the rickshaw drivers who rip off tourists to get their cut of commission and eventually made our way to a decently priced guesthouse with survive-able conditions that overlooked the Ganges. Our view, however, was obstructed by this large factory-looking building that actually turned out to be the main crematorium in the city.

[Without going too much into Hindu mythology, let me simply explain that the Ganges is the holiest of holy rivers and people travel to Varanasi from all over the country, quite simply, to die. It is believed that once you die, if your ashes or remains are thrown into the Mother Ganges, your life will be erased of sin and your soul with go directly to Nirvana.]

I was mortified to discover that people who cannot afford to have a typical burial celebration, donate the bodies of their beloved deceased to this crematorium, which I was told burns about 150 bodies per day, where the body is burned and this creates electricity for the town. I never got used to the fact that the smell and smoke emanating from that building was that of burning bodies, but was eventually able to just accept it. It’s economical at the very least, although that’s not to say there weren’t frequent power outages.

Raj wound up being a great travel companion and was always optimistic and never awkward or uncomfortable. Through him I got to know and trust our hotel manager, Kailash, who set us up with a rickshaw that took us up North to Sarnath on our second day there. Sarnath is most famous for being the birthplace of Buddhism, and even though I didn’t get to see it with Raj, since tourists and Indian nationals I guess aren’t allowed to tour together since they’re charged separate rates everywhere, I really enjoyed seeing all the temples and landscapes.

When we got back that night, Kailash got us a great rate on a boat-ride on the Ganges where we got to see all the Ghats, which Varanasi is also famous for. From my understanding, a “ghat” is just a series of steps leading to a body of water. In Varanasi, there are dozens of beautiful Ghats which line the holy river that have been built and named after famous people throughout India’s history. Everyday at sunrise and sunset there are these Arti (fire) ceremonies where people pay homage to the Mother Ganges. Some are more elaborate than others, but the guy who took us out on the boat took us to see the biggest ceremony at the main ghat. It was so beautiful and elaborate and really made me appreciate the city a bit more.

Our last day in Banaras, we got up at the crack of dawn to see the sun rise over the river. It was absolutely stunning. Raj got to bathe in the river, which was really meaningful for him as a devout Hindu. Despite the fact that everyone kept telling me it was the cleanest, purest healing water in the world, I simply refused after seeing the trash, muck, and dead cattle floating in it. Call it cultural ignorance but there was just no way I was about to soak myself in that water, even though dozens and dozens of locals were out there at 6am performing ritual baths and doing their laundry on the banks of the ghats.

Later on we toured the huge Hindu University and got to walk around its museum. We did some last minute shopping, and Kailash saw us off to the railway station where I caught a 5pm train back to Delhi, and Raj got a train back to Jhansi where he’d then get a bus to Orchha. I had such a great time with Raj, especially in Orchha at his hometown, but I was ready at that point to go back to Delhi and get some rest. This time, I rode the train in AC class, but unfortunately my experience hardly improved. My train was an hour late arriving, which is normal, but what was supposed to be a 12-14 hour overnight train didn’t arrive in Delhi until 2:30pm Sunday afternoon – about 21.5 hours after departing from Varanasi. When we finally got to the station I practically ran off the train, I was so glad to be on solid ground.
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So that’s the short version of my September break. Classes are starting to pick up, I just had a midterm in my Social Stratification class at JNU. I’m starting to have to think about what I’ll be doing for my final projects, but in the meantime there is so much more of Delhi I have yet to explore. Tomorrow starts another week of classes, so I’m going to finish up some reading and head to bed.

Goodnight!

written by

Indiestani on September 28, 2008 from Khajuraho, India

from the travel blog: Khajjuraho - Orchha - Varanasi

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This past weekend, the IES staff took all 12 of us up about 6 hours north of Delhi to a beautiful resort town called Mussoorie located at the foothills of the Himalayas. An attraction site for many tourists, Mussoorie boasts a fantastic view of the mountain side from where ever you are in the town, and great shopping!

We had to take a 5 hour train ride from Delhi to a city called Dehradun, and we took the most insane hour and a half cab ride through the city way up the mountains to our hotel in Mussoorie. I don't know what you all have heard about driving in India, but seriously, anything goes. You think Massachusetts and RI drivers are bad? You ain't seen NOTHIN! Driving in Delhi is terrifying enough, but going 30-40 mph on a very narrow, very windy mountain road where your view out the window is a several thousand mile drop was just nauseating! We put a lot of faith into our awesome cab driver, though, who has grown up in Mussoorie and his father and grandfather still reside there. He knew what he was doing, and after we got used to the turns and the honking, it was quite exhilarating!

Our first stop when we reached Mussoorie was this tibetan school for refugees sponsored by an organization called the Tibetan Homes Foundation. We watched a short documentary and were able to ask questions and learn more about the school and the greater tibetan refugee network in India from one of the staff who helps organize fundraising. There are a lot of tibetan reservations in India, and they are all greatly supported by the Indian government. It was fascinating to learn about, and afterwards we got a tour of the tibetan children's village where all the kids live, and also got to see the temple they pray at - which is where the Dalai Lama comes to visit.

We arrived to our hotel on Saturday night and were able to walk through the downtown once to get a gist of where we were. The hotel was, in my opinion, absolutely gorgeous and completely unlike any hotel I've ever been in. It was so surreal walking through the town and right from the street you would look over and see thousands of miles of green, fresh, fertile mountainside. The air was the coolest, cleanest, purest air I've ever felt, and there were parts when we were driving up that we felt as though we were at the edge of the universe because you couldn't see past the edge of the road since we were literally in the clouds.
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The next day, a smaller group of us had decided to take one of the cabs about an hour drive away from Mussoorie to a small town called Dhanaulti. It's smaller than Mussoorie, but like Mussoorie, they rely on tourism as their main income, so there were lots of interesting shops in the downtown area. Our main purpose of going there, however, was to trek up the mountain by foot 10,000 feet up to a Hindu temple. The hike up was probably the best part. When you first start you walk through a gated entrance and ring a big bell to signal the start of your hike. The higher we went, the thinner the air got, and a couple of us had to stop because their asthsma was getting too bad. In the end, we all made it to the top, and got to look around this really cool site. We met some other Indian tourists who were excited to see white people and took lots of pictures of us.

It was cold and rainy, so to prevent getting sick we eventually hiked back down and got some hot tea and soup for lunch back in downtown Dhanaulti. We headed back to Mussoorie and had the taxis drop us off on the main street so we could do some shopping before heading back to the hotel for dinner.
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Sunday we woke up early, piled into taxis, and headed further up the mountain to a local NGO office. I forget the name of the NGO, but what they do is help educate the women in nearby villages about proper health and hygeine care. In many rural areas in India, women are seen as impure while they are menstruating, so they are not allowed near the men, in kitchens, or places of worship. Because of this custom, many women who are pregant wind up giving birth by themselves in the cow shed, which is (obviously) extremely unhygeinic and frequently results in miscarriage or death of the mother. This NGO teaches the women proper pre and post natal care, and helps them to understand how to fill out the necessary paperwork to get vaccines and checkups at the nearby hospital, since many of them are illiterate. It was a fascinating place that does really great work.

After that, we drove down a little ways and visited a small village school for grades 3 through 10. You know those commercials you see in the US about "saving the children" in poor third world countries and you see the shots of their dilapadated schools? That was basically what we toured, except the children weren't moping around tired and hungry, they were genuinely happy to be in school and really excited to have us as guests. The students asked us our names and let us take pictures with them. Their attitudes reminded me a bit of those in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; optimistic and perfectly content despite their less-than adequate resources and surroundings. Then again, their school is in the middle of the Himalayas overlooking mind-blowingly gorgeous mountainside vegitation. Also, the director pointed out to us that Marijuana grows wild there and we actually saw a few plants! Crazy, huh?

We all have been doing really well about not getting sick, but a couple of the other students were starting to get pretty light-headed and dizzy because of the altitude. Not bad, though, considering all the different kinds of food we've been eating and all the things we could have gotten sick from.
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Later on that day, we packed up our stuff at the hotel, piled into our taxis once more, and headed back to Dehradun so we could catch the next train back to Delhi. One other cultural obstacle we have had to over come during that trip: Indian toilets. For the most part, the bathrooms are...relatively clean, but it's still strange having to pee in a ceramic hole in the wall. And on the train, that hole doesn't go anywhere but down. You can actually see the tracks flying by underneath you. It's really not too bad...until you reach a stop and the mixture of train tracks covered in extraments with humid, India air is just NOT pleasant.

It was nice coming back to our residence later on that evening and sleeping in our cool, dry, comfortable beds. Our hotel in Mussoorie was beautiful and spacious, but one thing about being in the mountains during monsoon season is that there's sooo much moisture in the air it made our sheets feel damp, which made it difficult to sleep through the night.

Overall, our weekend excursion to the Himalayas was so amazing. Every moment was breathtaking, and every breath was a moment to remember. I remember feeling a bit uneasy at first, being a big group of white tourists walking down this touristy resort town. But the shops here are only open from June to September because the winters are very harsh here. It's a bit like ptown, in that sense. People hustle and work very hard for a few months so that they can afford to live throughout the year. On our way back from one of our shopping trips downtown we actually met this 16 year old boy dressed in a school uniform and started talking to him. He spoke great english and told us that his dad is a business man who owns a shop downtown. For me, that cleared my conscience because it set in a reality that the money I spend here indulging in senseless consumerism is actually supporting local families and paying for this kid's education. It was gratifying, in a way.

Anyways, I gotta run. We're in the midst of taking tours to different colleges, scrambling around trying to choose courses we want to take for the semester. I'll update later, and in the meantime check out the pics from Mussoorie!

written by

Indiestani on July 23, 2008 from Mussoorie, India

from the travel blog: Mussoorie

tagged Mountains, Mussoorie and Himalayas

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Trips:

Shorthand link:

Buddy List

Fall Break

Khajuraho, India

Rishikesh, Agra, and Jaipur

Agra, India

Mumbai Pride!

Mumbai, India

Northern India

Amritsar, India

Hindi class and JNU

New Delhi, India

Beautiful Mussoorie

Mussoorie, India

Prelude to the trip of a lifetime

New Delhi, India

Heading South?