On her own two bare feet

Sadly left Rishikesh after saying heartfelt good-byes to my coffee-wallah, thali-wallah, fruit-wallah. Spending weeks in one place certainly gave me more of a sense of the people, the pace and the way of life there. It was also much more peaceful than frantically transiting from town to town every 3 days (my original travel attitude). But my departure is fast approaching now.
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Hindu philosophy course
A favourite saying of my Hindu philsophy teacher. Another rhetorical question said with a balance of power and humour “you think you understand these things? you know nothing!” The opportunity to attend these classes has been one of the highlights of my trip to India.
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Ten Fast Facts: Rishikesh
Where: Ned Viketan Ashram, Ram Jhula, Rishikesh, Uttranchal, India
What: An intensive hatha yoga, meditation, hindu philosophy course, chilling out by the clear waters of the Ganga, meeting interesting and irritating people, learning about and experiencing ayurvedic massage and medicine
When: 24 March – 6 April 2005
With who: Solo
How: Overnight bus from hell from Delhi (don’t do it, take the train, TAKE THE TRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Why: Spiritual seeking
Reading: Yoga and Ayurveda
Listening to: Bob Dylan, the Police, the Smiths, Swami Nick Drake
Loving: How’s the serenity!
Hating: The evangelical western convert guys found in every cafe in Rishikesh who, in the guise of conversation, sermonise to awe-struck (and seemingly struck dumb) young women – and everyone else within sufferable earshot

Still in Delhi in the days leading up to Holi Festival (26 March) which is a mass anarchistic ‘celebration’ typified by the whole country saturating each other in paint, indulging in extreme psychadelics, and being allowed to run completely amuck on the streets. Foreigners are warned to stay indoors on this particular day, because it can be taken as a free permit to attack us with all kinds of hand-thrown missiles. Already today (24th) we have all been saturated by various kinds of water and paint bombs whenever we get in or out of a rickshaw.
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I have spent the last week in the state of Rajasthan. After Pushkar we arrived in Jodphur – the blue city – unfortunately any endearing features of the city were completely overshadowed by the amount of harassment we got on the streets and even from the staff in our hotel: staring, groping, pornographic slurs all became startling real. So I spent most of my 3 days there angry and losing my temper (not fun). The highlight was going to the Fort and doing a tour around, a much easier way for me to digest pieces of Indian history, and the views both within the Fort, and of the blue cityscape and desert horizon, were magnificent. We stayed in Jodphur longer than expected (we were both keen to leave the night we arrived) but my friend got very sick with food poisoning.
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Ten Fast Facts for Pushkar

Where: Hotel Natural View, Pushkar, Rajasthan, North West india
When: 8 March 05 -> 13 March 05
How: 21-hr train from Varanasi to Jaipur, 4-hr bus from Jaipur to Pushkar
Who: travelling with Julia who i met on the train, also hanging out with some women from Holland and random other travellers who join our table
What: haggling to the death at markets (colourful garments, indian music, multitudes of incense, eclectic second hand books), watching the sunset over the sacred lake to the soundtrack of drumming/jangling/chanting, outdoor yoga, feasting on vegetarian food (in this vegetarian town!), visiting hill-top temples
Why: the peaceful exhale that accompanied every travellers’ reaction to the utterance of its name
Loving: feeling safe to wander the streets at night
Hating: inedibley bad imitation western food (just let it go)
Listening to: my new music Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Prem Joshua, Jagit Singh
Reading: Arundhati Roy’s political essays The Algebra of infinite Justice
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Where: Hotel Temple, Assi Ghat, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, india
When: 28 Feb 05 – 6 Mar 05
How: Evening train from Siliguri
Why: Holy city
What: Boat rides along the Ganges river, hindu altars and temples, the ritual of bodies burning, buddhist ruins at the historic place where Buddha first preached, markets of indian clothes/jewellery, reiki treatments and indian head massage. . .
Who: Mostly solo, a few days with my aunt Di, a few times hanging out with the french girls i met in Sikkim, a few dates with a local Brahmin boy
Loving: Zen cows in the middle of a chaotic street
Hating: Dishonest, sleazy rickshaw drivers (this describes most)
Listening to: Tori Amos and the Hindi hits
Reading: V.S Naipaul’s iNDiA

The short version: having a ball. india is wild, crazy, spiritual, surprising, frustrating, challenging, and bloody hard work!

After Darjeeling i got stuck in Siliguri – a busy, uninspiring, transit town – trying to get out as quickly as possible in time to meet my aunt in Varanasi. i had two similarly unappealing and downright concerning options:

a. catch an overnight local bus to Patna (the capital of india’s poorest state, often beseiged by illegal road blocks and bandits) and before sunrise make my way from the bus stop to the train station and then wait a few hours for a train to Varanasi

b. catch the only available train to MGS station (12km from Varanasi – for some reason the train doesn’t stop iN Varanasi) and arrives at midnight. now this is a city where, and i paraphrase, 2-3 tourist simply ‘go missing’ every couple of months, a city where it is not safe to be alone on the streets after dark, a city i have never been to and do not know.

i took the train option. . .
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Yuksam
i spent the night in the charming one-street village of Yuksam in a gazebo filled to capacity with French travellers. There appeared to be a curfew at 8pm, enforced by a lone man wandering the street with a piercing whistle. The following morning i managed a short climb (agony) and took in a tremendous view of the sparse village, mountain homes, and snow-peaked mountains. There is an awe-inspiring juxtaposition of green, flower-filled fields and brightly painted homes, alongside towering white snow caps.
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i arrived at Kolkata airport in the middle of the night (of course) to a shirty immigration officer who, not satisfied with my listing of 3 well-known centres, demanded details of my complete two-month itinerary. At the baggage carousel, i noticed that airport services were suspiciously lacking and most worryingly i could not see any place to sleep – only customs and then The Exit into Kolkata’s night streets (which i have been trained to fear). So i sat on my trolley and waited for guidance. i remembered one solo girl on my flight, so i waited for her, and approached her to share a taxi. Synchroniously, she was on her way to Sikkim (in the Himalayas) and invited me to travel with her, free accommodation to boot because her Sikkimise boyfriends’ cousin owns a hotel there. So we slept apalling on some couches until sunrise, then feasted until midday, then were delirious all the way to Bagdora where we landed, and i gasped and giggled all the way through the 4 hour jeep ride to Gangtok (the capital).
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