After spending a grueling 2 days, traveling on rickety old buses from Varanassi to Kathmandu, we’re finally out of the nightmare that became India. We’re so glad to be away from the crowds, the touts, the cheaters, the rickshaw drivers, the tourist agents, and the constant and persistent hassle. We’ve had enough of having to fight, to shout and scream for every little thing that we wanted to do. The problems that we faced in traveling over the last few days really made it very clear to us that we had to get out of this maddening place. If I had been told 6 weeks ago that I would be leaving India, with such feelings of loathing and anger, never wanting to return here, I wouldn’t have believed it. But, this is almost what has happened.

After leaving Udaipur we traveled to Jaipur, the capital and supposedly most colourful city of Rajastan. But, as soon as we arrived, we knew that it was going to be a difficult couple of days. Coming out of the station we were met with an onslaught of rickshaw drivers being baton charged by the local police. There must have been over 100 rickshaw drivers and a dozen police officers locked in a crazy battle, the former trying to fight there way towards the tourists and the latter trying to keep them at bay. To make matters worse, the commotion had caused traffic jam, forcing all forms of transport to take liberties with the footpaths and the grounds surrounding the train station. Even for India, It was bedlam. Somehow we found ourselves in the back of a rickshaw and on our way towards the city center. Unfortunately, that is were we stayed for a number of hours. All the hotels that we choose to see were full. We went from one to the other to no avail. My mind began to swim. I could feel the Delhi sensation starting again. Eventually, we found a place and accepted a room more out of tiredness that actually liking the place. A mistake. We forgot to check the restaurant to see if it passed the cleanliness test. Unfortunately for us, Jaipur doesn’t have many restaurants and even the so-called ‘good ones’ are almost impossible to find. We spent the first 3 hours trying to find a place that we could eat something, anything that looked like it wasn’t going to give us a week of the trots. Unsuccessful, and starving, we settled for good old Pizza Hut! And besides another fast food place that we miraculously managed to find, it became our dining room for the next 2 days. So much for great Indian food!

Besides the food, Jaipur was a nightmare for the rickshaw drivers and the touts. They hassles us everywhere we went. You couldn’t look at anyone or anything and if you stopped to cross the road you were finished. They stop and block your way preventing you from crossing at the desired spot. I think we must have walked around a dozen bikes every time we tried to cross the road. Then they follow you for miles saying the same thing over and over again ’Indian helicopter, air conditioning’. Hilarious after the hundred time. Then we away from the richshaw drivers there was the touts. They to constantly harass you as you walk along the bazaars. Even if you pretend to look at the ground they block your way, almost tripping you,forcing you to notice them. Over and over again, the same tactics. Whether on the road, the footpath, at the tourist attractions or indeed anywhere, it was a constant battle to keep your wits. The attractions themselves where really poor compared to the other hot spots of Rajastan.

Agra, our next stop, was a surprise. We actually enjoyed ourselves. Learning from the previous bad experience we took an excellent hotel, with good restaurant right beside the Taj Mahal. We dispensed with any notion of trying to meet anyone or see the city and opted instead to see just the Taj and the Agra Fort. Most of our time was spent between visting these glorious sites and enjoying the gardens surrounding our lodgings. The Taj is absolutely magnificent. We went at sunrise and spent two hours there watching the light change as the sun came up. Think the photo says it all…..

Then came Varanassi, one of the holiest of cities in India. The most abject place imaginable. A city where one can find what’s best and worst about India sitting side by side. For us, besides a memorable boat journey down the river Ganges, it was a place that brought out the worst in us. We got scammed at the burning ghats, the place where Hindus go to burn there loved ones- a sight that Isabelle physically sick. After getting a tour of the ‘hospice’ we were duped into making a donation for poor Hindus, that supposedly couldn’t afford their cremation costs. I was shocked that the cheaters would stoop so low as too make money from the dead and the dying. Up until this point, we had been reasonably tolerant of the plight of the Indian, overpopulation, survival of the fits and all that. But now everything changed, the last straw, so to speak. An old frail woman, who looked much like my own dear departed grandmother, along with her to fellow cheaters were conning the unsuspecting tourists in making a charitable donation. That was it, we couldn’t trust anyone. We decided to book our ticket to Kathmandu and be done with the place. The next morning, we left for the bus station, thinking that we’d be in Nepal within 48 hrs. We’d arranged two seats, hassle free, long distance tourist BUS to Kathmandu. But again we had problems. The tour operator tried to scam us! Instead of a luxury coach he had laid on a jeep for 10 people. The last straw of last straws! I couldn’t take it anymore. I flipped. I let him know actually what I thought of him, his scam, his fellow countrymen. Isabelle says that I reacted quite calmly but to me I exploded. He knew in great detail what we all thought. The great thing was, we all teamed up together against the brut, Irish, French, Japanese, Israeli, Spanish and Argentinean. We got our money back, every last rupee. Unfortunately, we paid for it with our backsides. Instead of reaching the border within 6 hours, it took the local bus 11 hours. But, at 11 pm, tired and hungry we made across the border to the Nepalese side.