Cheryl and Mike’s Adventure

Well, alot has happened since our last post, so let’s get everyone up to speed:

When we last left you, we were heading out of Pokhara, heading to the Royal Chitwan National Park! The trip there went well, it was kind of a mixed bag. We stayed at a place called the Gorkha Hamlet Resort, for 3 days/2nights (got there via bus)which was just outside the actual Park. We discovered that there are sort of two Park experiences, staying ‘inside’ and staying ‘outside’. The main difference, cost, plays a big part of how much you are going to do actually inside the park. We went, naturally, the less expensive route, and not that it wasn’t entirely bad, but we did alot of things kind of on the “outskirts” of the park, so to speak (For you Jackson-savvy people out there, compare it too doing activities in the Bridger-Teton National Forest vs. the GTNP). We did have some great experiences, we had a nice AM canoe ride along the border of the park, where we saw several alligators up close, and also had a nice visit to the Elephant training center (where, a loose baby elephant ran amok in the crowd, causing quite a scene and was actually very funny. We have some great video). Also, we had a nice morining Safari nature walk (saw a rhino from afar), and finally we had a pretty exciting elephant safari, where we actually rode on top of elephants (the put you in these little basket-things atop the animal) and rode through the actually park in search of wildlife. We saw two rhinos up close, which was pretty wild because they were literally at our/the elephants feet, and not necessarily too happy! Very cool, we got some good video of that as well. Riding on top of an animal that big was incredible, to say the least. Scary at first, but you get used to it and it’s pretty enjoyable if you can tolerate the lumbering bumpy ride.

From there, we decided to bag Lumbini ( the birthplace of Buddha) and start working our way down to the border, to begin our journey into India. We stayed right outside the border, close to Sunali (forgettable) for 1 night, crossed the border into India and stayed a night in Ghorkapur (wildy forgettable), where we were to catch our train to Varanasi early the day (the 1st main stop of our Northern India tour). I know we’ve said this before, but it’s impossible to describe even the simple act of crossing from Nepal > India. IMMEDIATELY, you are swarmed with vendors, touts, rickshaw drivers, taxis, and just your normal dose of general Indian chaos. We, fortunately, crossed over at the same time as a nice young Australian couple, who we shared a taxi/van ride with for the 3 hour journey to Ghorkapur. They had been traveling for a couple of months and gave us lots of tips on many of the places we were about to see, thankfully. Upon arrival at the train station (wow. I mean, the train stations deseve there own blog entry, we couldn’t have figured it out on our own, BIG thanks to the aussies), we learned that we couldn’t get out that night so we had to wait until the next AM for the 6:30 train. The ride was long, about 8 1/2 hours, but rather painless (pleasant surprise), and we arrived in Varanasi, one of the oldest and holiest cities in India (and in Hinduism), were we have been the last 3 nights.

Varanasi is known mainly for the ancient bathing Ghats, which lie along the River Ganges, were pilgrams come to bath in the river and be “cleansed” immediately…many people come to this city to live out there final days, and when they die they achieve immediate enlightenment (which is nice). There are about a dozen Ghats overall, several of which are actually ceremonious ones where dead bodies are dipped into the river and then burned along the banks…uh, needless to say the whole thing is something. In the early morning AM, hundreds of people “bath” in these waters (yup, the same ones the dead bodies are in) to cleanse themselves. We took a 6AM boat ride along the bank to witness the whole scene (as most visitors do), and it was quite a sight.

Overall, Varanasi is an interesting city, however not unlike many of the other cities in India (tons of traffic, people, pollution, general disorder). It is one of the oldest cities in India, and the first evening we stayed in a section of the city actually known as the “Old City”, right in the heart of everything and along the river (stayed in a place called the yogi lodge, pretty frightening place, but it was the only thing we could find at the time and we paid $4, so I guess you get what you pay for). The last 2 nights we upgraded a bit, and have been staying at a nice place called the Hotel Buddha along the outside of the city. Lots of tourists/westerners in this city, including aging hippies/young future-aging from Europe/America wearing long robes, dreads, body/face paint all thinking they’re Indian, and achieving some sort of higher conciousness…uh, not that there’s anything WRONG with that. But semi-entertaining to see nonetheless. Watching everyone ‘clean’ themselves in this holy river, (which they have been doing for hundreds upon hundreds of years) which includes fecal matter (tons), human body parts (ample), and loads of chemicals from the metal plants up the river just outside the city was/is quite something. Overall we’ve enjoyed it here but we are ready to move on, which is what we are doing this evening. We catch a 6:15PM train tonight, and are riding through the evening, arriving in Agra tomorrow morning, home of the world famous Taj Mahal. We are going to be in Agra for 1 day/night (which from what we’ve gathered is all you need, really), and head out for some (more) parks from there. Agra is one of the most popular tourist spots in India (obviously), however the city is one of the most hectic in India (due to the volume of tourists and the volume of locals trying to swindle/make money off of said tourists), which is saying something, so we’re bracing ourselves. But all in all, the Taj is suppossedly quite a sight, simply put one of the most amazing buildings in the world. Plus, there’s allegedly there’s a Pizza Hut in Agra as well (we’re still trying to figure out which Cheryl is more excited for). Hopefully, we can find an internet cafe and give a full report on one the Taj Mahal, we’re both pretty excited to see it. Until then, we’re signing off. Happy belated Thanksgiving to all (we unfortunately were traveling, and had some quick fried rice in our hotel room in Ghorkapur). HOWEVER, we DID come up with a great idea (Cheryl really), anyone in Jackson next summer is welcome to our 1st ever “Thanksgiving in July” dinner party that we are throwing, since we have missed it completely this year. We’re doing the whole schebang, Turkey, stuffing, etc., just for the heck of it and everyone around is invited to gorge on some great T-giving eats in the middle of summer. Mark your calenders.

Signing off for now, as always we look forward to your comments!

Cheryl & Mike

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 3:39 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.