Hypertravel with Hardie #11: Northern India

#11 North India Hi all; Welcome to my Hypertravel with Hardie video series, in which we’ll travel the world through my eyes and my pictures, all of which were taken more than ten years ago, in this case. If we usually go around several countries, this time it’ll only be one, India, and only part of that one. And, if that seems strange, consider the population of India and maybe it makes more sense. What IS strange, though, is that I only went to India after some forty years of previous travel, when it is often the first place for many boomers like me, especially those with inclinations toward spirituality and certain hard-to-find herbal remedies, haha. But that was the 1970’s and I had no money, okay, so maybe $538, but that won’t get you to India from Mississippi, but it would get you to Guatemala, so that’s where I went, for a few months. When I finally got $5000 I started a business that would keep me going and coming for a long while, there and South America, too. I finally got to Bali in 1989, Thailand in 1992, and Nepal in 1994, still doing that same business, handicrafts, but somehow never got captured by India. Maybe Nepal counts, but, then again, maybe not. I didn’t even get to Europe until 1996. By the time I finally arrived in Kolkata on December 31, 2013, I was seriously past my original business phase of life, and a second phase, too, and even considering Buddhism as a thing I’d like to know more about. Kolkata is probably not the usual place to start in India, but the flight from Thailand, where i often lived, was only $100, so hard pass up, with a double entry visa that I planned to use for a side trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan, if all went well. Kolkata is nobody’s pleasure dome, of course, but not so bad on New Year’s Day with the Christmas decorations still up in a Hindu country only slightly Anglicized. Everybody celebrates New year, though, so I saw some of that on my midnight flight, if only from a distance. The main goal was to find my hotel, without the usual street addresses so common in the rest of the world, but not India. That’s my first surprise. What’s the nearest landmark? How would I know? Fortunately they spoke English, since I did little research for my advance booking, or I would’ve gone straight to Sudder Street, the Freak Street of Kolkata. I found it soon enough, though, even with Wifi, which India was the world’s slowest in getting, surprise number two. And it hasn’t improved much, YBH, but a tiny bit, yes, maybe. I knew nothing of Bodh Gaya then, either, or even Patna, but I did know of Varanasi, aka Benares, so that was my next destination, all by train, of course, the India standard. And if Modern China is somehow defined by its universal bullet trains, then India is defined by its old clunkers, slower even by night, if that’s possible, with cows lined up on the platforms as if waiting for a train themselves, surprise number three. This cow shit is real. But Benares was the real deal, not just some faded colonial capital like Kolkata, but a real river with real carcasses being cremated for inclusion into the holy waters on display here, cows holding court over dozens of cremation sites up and down the riverbanks. The food is good, too, and the weather is not bad, not for January, even a bit chilly at night on the train. There are ashrams and retreat centers all around, but that will be a later phase in my life. If China is known for its future, then India is known for its past. Next I'll going to Agra to see the Taj. The Taj is everything that its host city Agra is not: beautiful and stately, a monument to the beauty to be found in this world. But the city itself is much the opposite. So, I make quick tracks to Jaipur. This route bypasses New Delhi, but I’ll go there later on the way back. My schedule is off track now that my train was late, causing problems at my hotel but my new Japanese friend Yoshi can help. This is the so-called Pink City, but the city’s layout is uninspiring, with nothing too convenient. Jodhpur is better, the Blue City. But it’s all Rajasthan, complete with camels and gentleman with maybe more than a little Mogul blood stirring in their veins. Women wear burkhas and speak Urdu, not Hindi, salaam aleikum not namaste. Yoshi drives a hard bargain on the room but splurges on meals. There are a couple of prime tourist sites that make excellent day trips, such as the massive Mehrangarh Fort and the Jaswant Thada wedding-cake-like hilltop retreat. I don’t know why. Bikaner is the next stop, home of the eponymous camel festival. Wifi is better now than at the start of the trip, but that breaks down in more remote Bikaner. The problem is that no one is up front about it, pretending it’s down temporarily or something, rather than admit that they’re too cheap to provide it. Sometimes I call their bluff, though, refusing to honor my hotel booking unless they honor their wifi commitment. So here I got a free dongle in lieu of real Wifi, which is something I’d only used once or twice, it a relic of a bygone era, between the era of desktop computers and the modern smartphone. The Bikaner camel festival was something incredible, though, men and women dressed to the hilt and in their finest, engaging in feats of strength and displays of beard length, camels dressed similarly and ready for action. The locals are friendly and inquisitive, silly and corny and endearing all at the same time. Next stop is Delhi. The bus from Bikaner drops me off in Delhi in the middle of the night, or so it seems, but it’s really only 6 a.m. and I’m in the middle of nowhere with no idea where to go. That’s what taxis are for, and so soon we’re in the middle of Pahar Ganj, just like it’s the 70’s all over again. Delhi wakes up slowly, but it looks no better by the light of day, not in the thick fog and muddy streets, not even in the backpacker quarter of Pahar Ganj. Some raised sidewalks would help, as would some Valium. Fortunately I'm accustomed to it by now. It looks like Freak Street, Kathmandu, c.1974, about the time High Times printed its first issue. Some of these old-timers look like they've been here since then. But the real Freak Street scene in Katmandu long ago moved to upscale Thamel byt the time I went in 1994. This place never changed. Hashish must be cheap. That’s okay. It'll do until something better comes along, another stop in the road or blip on the screen. From Delhi you can take some decent side trips, too, which I did a couple months later on the way back up and out. The first of those was Mathura, which I had read was a good place to see the Holi festival. Maybe my expectations were too high, or my standards too low, but this place is quickly not working for me, getting off the bus on the edge of town, and from there it only gets worse, dodging turds on the sidewalk where cows walk until a rickshaw finally overcharges me on a ride to town. The hotel is no better, usually a haven, but here cretinous counter clerk just clucks when I ask for the WiFi password, yeah right, no serious, I give you later, no you give me now, whenever you're ready, I'm ready NOW, withholding my money and passport until they prove they can produce the slippery stuff of dreams and deliverance, the other dimension that threatens to render biology superfluous, room itself a miserable mass of misanthropic mosquitoes and miasma, it takes a raucous ventilator, rogue renegade from World War II war-plane wreckage propellers to keep them at bay and keep me at peace, diving for cover under the covers. The mosquitoes are intent on invading the thinly guarded and thinly screened room, of course, and I can’t blame them, but I can try to avoid them. I complain to the desk, but the desk has no remedy, only bug spray. Holi never happened much here, either, just piles of cheap dyes in sidewalk stalls for later to celebrate the rites of spring and new beginnings, somewhere somehow. But I never quite saw it, not really. And it was no different in Delhi, just kids playing with the colors on the street while the adults in the room took a much needed holiday break from the trials and tribs of the working life. I think Holi gets its rep from the rave fest out on the edge of town which is something like a Burning Man for Indians, probably equal parts groping and griping about the high price of entry. So, I took a ride up to Rishikesh instead, the famous site of the Beatles’ and other famous rockers’ entry to India back in the 60’s when they all went to get high and holy with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Transcendental Meditation backup singers, including Donovan, a Beach Boy or two, and assorted Hollywood celebrities, not Bollywood, not yet. And there was probably still some of that when I went, but it wasn’t Buddhist, so not focused enough for me, maybe later. But still it was nice, small by India standards, and perched upon a lazy Ganges river high enough in elevation to make at least a little bit of difference in the heat. Yoga is still its raison d’etre. But all that was later, and I needed to go to Pakistan first, and maybe Afghanistan, too, so that meant going to Amritsar, the largest city near the Pakistan border in far northern India. It’s something of a sister city to Lahore in Pakistan, or WAS, but now it’s mostly just the political and religious capital of India’s Sikh populace and region. That means vast pools for bathing, true, but it also means vast rains for gathering in those pools. It’s dreary. But I persevere, digging the diffs between here and normal India, haha, waxing philosophical and trying to stay warm. It’s time for Pakistan, and maybe Afghanistan, if the 2000mt/7000ft heights don’t freeze me out. We’ll see. This trip is entering a new phase tomorrow. Good-bye India, hello Pakistan.