India: From Little Tibet through Little Israel to Delhi

We’re now almost leaving India and in our last days in Bombai. We traveled south through the beautiful desert areas of Rajasthan and Gujarat, where we felt, after more than a month traveling in India, that we finally arrived in India. But first we had to get there through places that were imagined abroad and brought ready-made to India…

Upper Dharamshala, also known as McLeod Ganj, also known as Little Lhasa and also known as where the Dalai Lama lives…

I knew that the ride from Manali was going to be tough, up and down and round and round. And this time I took some motion-sickness pills. So I got completely stoned and slept the whole way.

Quickly after we arrived in McLeod Ganj, we found Iohi’s sister with her friend on the main street of the town.

McLeod Ganj is the paradise of bored Europeans or people from the US that want to save the Tibet. You have where the Dalai Lama lives and his  monastery,and there are many activities and volunteering related to Tibet; and of course the “Save the Tibet” and Dalai Lama memorabilia. If you check the wiki travel page of the Dharamshala, you have a whole section with excruciating details explaining how to force a meeting with the Dalai Lama, “the dream of a lifetime for many people”. I have nothing against Tibetans or Tibetan Buddhist, but it’s a bit over the top. It’s just fashionable to “Save the Tibet”, when in fact they are not having such a bad time in India. If you go to Calcutta or many places in the West Bengal and Bihar states, you’ll see poverty beyond your imagination, Indian people without food, living and dying on the streets. But I guess they are in a really tough situation and it’s nicer to volunteer with healthy people and in a place with nice view.

And it has nothing to do with Tibetan’s autonomy, it’s true, they deserve an autonomous country, and they have been oppressed by the Chinese government. But who in China hasn’t been oppressed, intellectuals, artists, Falung Gong, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, you name it, it has been oppressed. And I haven’t meet Europeans trying to save the Uighurs and give autonomy to China's Xinjiang Region, and they deserve it as much as Tibetans. Well, of course, Buddhism is still more fashionable than Islam…

Tsuglagkhang Complex, Dalai Lama's monastery

At the Dalai Lama's monastery

From McLeod Ganj we moved to a quieter and smaller town just above it, Daramkot. It’s a backpackers bubble without all the Tibetan paraphernalia, but not so different from Manali: lots of Israelis, charas and tourist food, on the brighter side it’s less crowded with shops and people, and you can see the green mountains from the whole town. 

On our last day we walked from Daramkot to McLeod Ganj through another backpacker town: Bagsu. Bagsu is pretty much Little Israel. If you take South Tel Aviv neighborhoods and you put them in a slope you’ll get Bagsu. You have signs in Hebrew, falafel, Israeli shanty-hippy style clothes, people selling and making stuff completely unrelated to India but that the Israeli shanty-hippy community loves such as Australian didgeridoos and Jamaican dreadlocks. And of course you’ll find people that got stuck there for weeks and can think that Tibet is in Goa, complain that they can’t find the traditional chai as they drank it in Israel or look at a trash bin and say “this is magical”. This is India as Israelis want India to be, just as they imagined it from home, and Indians built it for them.

If you're shocked, read what the swastika really means

And the thing is I love Tel Aviv and specially the artsy South Tel Aviv neighborhoods, I also like very much falafels and I even find didgeridoos quite cool (and I have nothing against dreadlocks). But I love South Tel Aviv inside Tel Aviv inside Israel, not its bizarre image in India (and by the way I plainly think it’s quite stupid to travel to India to learn how to make a didgeridoo, especially when you have to carry the rest of the trip an excessively large and heavy piece of wood)

While we waited to aboard the bus back to Delhi we talked with a Hindu girl from Delhi who traveled to Tushita (near Dharamshala) to do some kind of retire with a Buddhism workshop. She told us that half of the people also there were Israeli and she even told us the well-known joke about Israelis in India:

An Indian guy asks an Israeli tourist how many people are in Israel. The Israeli answers 6 millions. The Indian guy replies: “No, not how many Israelis are in India, how many in Israel!?”

Delhi

After a smooth bus travel we woke up again in Delhi. We stayed in the same place as last time on the extremely noisy Main Bazaar street. We spent only one day there and most of it went by trying to get information about how the hell we travel to Shekhawati region in Rajasthan. Shekhawati region is at the northern part of Rajasthan state and Rajasthan is at the south of Delhi. So we supposed it should be easy to get there. However, it’s a bit out of the beaten track and most of the transportation goes to more famous spots like Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, etc.

We went to the Governmental Tourist Information, to a private travel agency and to the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corp. and they kept saying that they don’t know or gave us information that proved it wrong. After a whole day walking and riding autorickshaws from station to station we almost gave up.

We went back to the hotel and I did what I know how to do: I looked in Internet. I think that by this point I should get a degree in Internet Searching. Anyway, I found a strange combination taking reserved seats in the AC three tier coach of the train to Loharu. Then we had to wait for 40 minutes and take unreserved seats in a local smaller train to Nawalgarh. It was quite easy and a nice ride; and even locals from Shekhawati were a bit shocked that we managed to arrive from Delhi (and not from Jaipur) but that’s another story.

When we finally sorted out the transportation issue, it was already evening. We decided to at least take a quick glimpse at Old Delhi. We managed only to see the Red Fort from outside and we started to walk through the open market just before it began to close. It was a complete chaos and there was a traffic jam, a bike congestion and even a people congestion. If you’ve ever been to an open market on the closing time, you know it’s pretty busy. But this was as if on top of the closing market, some shops had decided suddenly to swap places, and then also most of the neighbors from the buildings over the market decided it was their moving-day. And to that, you can add maybe two demonstrations going into opposite directions. Ah, of course add many cows to the picture. But this wasn’t the case, it just looked as if all this was happening, and actually it was the regular closing time of the market…

Sweating from Calcutta to Delhi

Kolkata

Our trip in India started in Kolkata, previously known as Calcutta. We were supposed to arrive at 1am at the international airport but our 2 hours flight was delayed for more than 2 hours. People we knew that have been to Kolkata frightened us so much about the city that we did our homework: we booked a very nice and expensive inn where we could arrive at 2am (although we actually arrived at 4:30am) and we previously found out that we could take a pre-paid taxi from the airport.

So we paid our taxi before we actually took it, we went with the ticket and we took the taxi to our Best Inn. We drove for around half an hour on huge empty lanes in the middle of the night, on a city that looked like a post-apocalyptic English city without survivors. We arrived to our Inn and we rang and rang the bell until the guy that was supposed to wait for us waked up and opened the huge metallic door. And of course, our pre-paid taxi driver made something up to ask for more money even though we had already paid.

Anyway, we arrived in peace and we had our night of sleep. On the morning (after a couple of hours) we were woke up by the guy that worked there. We managed to understand that we have to fill two strange forms where you specify how you eat your eggs or if you have the bread with butter or with honey.

Then I tried to communicate with the guy and understand where we eat the breakfast. So I started simplifying and breaking the English but still what he said doesn’t make any sense. I ask “You bring the breakfast or we go somewhere to eat the breakfast?” and he answers “Yes, yes, you bring the breakfast”.

So after breakfast we went outside to move to a more central area and then we were confronted for the first time with the poverty of Kolkata. With its English constructions falling apart and all the garbage and the crowded streets, our first impression of the city is reinforced; this was really how I imagine England after the apocalypses.

It’s poverty beyond our imagination and no matter that we heard a lot about the city; we were completely shocked. So many people developing their entire life on the sidewalk: begging, sleeping, cooking, eating, shitting there. The line between food stall, toilet, sidewalk and street is completely blurred and we walked avoiding stepping into a poll of urine, bumping into people or being run over by a car. The heat, never ending honks, the traffic and the crowds created a feeling of claustrophobia even in the open spaces which were crammed with open markets selling Chinese stuff.

We tried to visit some sights, we entered to the Victoria Memorial, and walked in B.B.D. Bagh but most of the time we tried to avoid the heat and the crowds, walking a few hundred meters took too long and was too tiring.

The Victoria Memorial

I had my birthday in Kolkata!

After a couple of days we took a night train to Bodhgaya.

Bodhgaya

Bodhgaya is the place where the Prince Siddhartha sat under a tree, obtained Enlightenment and became Buddha. You can see there an offspring of the original Bodhi Tree and an interesting temple that was build close to the tree. But since it’s one of the most important places for Buddhists, there are pilgrims from all around the world and there are temples of virtually every kind of Buddhism in the world.

Because of the pilgrims, the town has also a myriad of stalls selling Buddhist souvenirs and clothes and of course an army of beggars.

A beggar at the entrance of Mahabodhi Temple

We stayed two days, having a pleasant and relaxed time there. And then we moved to the main town, Gaya, where we had to take an early train. The way to travel from Gaya to Bodhgaya is with autorickshaw: a kind of motorcycle with a closed space for two or three passengers but that actually transports an unlimited number of people. Once you’re in and you’ve arranged a price, you have to start fighting with the driver to actually get to the place you said. The driver may want to drop you as soon as possible but he might be a tout as well and might have in his agenda to leave you at the place he receives a commission.

The problem is that there are too many places with almost the same name. If, say, Raj Hotel enters in some guidebooks, you’ll see popping up like mushrooms: New Raj Hotel, Raj Guesthouse, The Raj Hotel, First Raj Hotel, and every other variation on every corner.

When we were in Gaya, we asked for the Vishnu International, and we found ourselves in front of Vishnu Resthouse. We managed to get to the right Vishnu but the driver tried to ask for more money claiming that it was our fault.

On the following morning we waited our 4-hours-train to Varanasi that was 7 hours late…

Varanasi

So we arrived late evening instead of at midday. Varanasi is situated on the banks of the river Ganges and it’s one of the holiest cities for the Hindus. They believe that bathing in the Ganges frees from sins and that dying there ensures release of a person's soul from the cycle of its transmigrations. So all kind of ceremonies, including bathing and cremations are conducted on the ghats: kind of open spaces with steps that sink in the Ganges.

So as soon as we arrived at the guesthouse, we got a nice map and explanations from Rahul, the owner of the place. However, instead of walking around and see the ceremonies at the ghats, I stayed in bed for 2 days with fever and a terrible diarrhea.

On the meanwhile Iohi walked the city, entered to Kashi Vishwanath Temple or the Golden Temple and attended to an evening ceremony in Manikarnika Ghat. Then she tried to go the Brown Bread Bakery, a bakery that supports a local school and where you can volunteer to help in that school. And it’s the number 2 of the things to do in Varanasi according to Lonely Planet site. But, there are two Brown Bread Bakery one in front of the other, like the place and its reflection. It’s just that you don’t know which one is the real one. And they both claim they are the real thing. Iohi even checked the schools that they support; each one has a different school! Later, she heard the story: the owner of the original bakery had some problems with the place he was renting, so he decided to move the bakery. Then the guy who had the property decided not to remove even the sign and maintain the Brown Bread Bakery exactly as it was creating two places with the same name and blurring the copy from the original.  

Next day when I more or less came back to life, I visited the Golden Temple. I had to pass a strict security check to go inside, where I was asked about Israel and its relations with the Philippines! The guard was completely puzzled when I told him that I had no idea. I thought maybe the Indians have some issues with the Philippines and I didn’t want to screw it up and being kicked out of the temple. Anyway when he started talking about the Muslims I understood he was referring to Palestine.

I still wasn’t feeling so good so we spent some hours seeing the city on a cycle-rickshaw. The advantage is that when you’re on a rickshaw they can’t drive you crazy about taking a rickshaw!

Agra

Later we took the short four-hour train to Agra.

We stayed for only one day: we saw the famous Taj Mahal (and there's a reason why it's so famous) and the not so famous but pretty cool Agra’s fort. And then the heat, the souvenir sellers and rickshaw drivers drove us completely crazy and we were more than happy to leave the city.

Taj Mahal!

Agra's Fort

Delhi

In Delhi, it was Iohi’s turn to be sick. Now she had exactly the same I had (only that I was still not entirely ok). And we didn't  do much; we just tried to recover. And then we fought with the guys of the same company that sold us the Reliance internet net-stick. We bought it in Kolkata and we were very happy with our portable internet. But it stopped working after a week, and no one knew anything there. They even had the great idea that we should go back to Kolkata to the store where we bought it! Then we went to the Reliance main store where the system was down and then… just fuck it, it was too noisy and too hot in Delhi and we traveled anyway to Rishikesh, which was slightly higher and cooler.

All the pics in Iohi's picasa!