India...The concluding part!

Being back with the truck has been a huge psychological boost for the past week for both of us, but at the same time I am not able to say that it has improved our enjoyment of India too much. The biggest difference of course is not having to lug all of our large bags around with us all of the time, and constantly keep an eye on them while using public transport. Of course being able to cook clean, safe, and most of all familiar food is also a fantastic draw to the truck.

From Amritsar , where we were at the end of the last post, the truck travelled back to Delhi. Delhi was already familiar territory for most of us that had missed out on Pakistan, as it had been our point of arrival into the country.

Having ticked off both the India gate and the government buildings on our first visit to Delhi, we were left with 2 main sights that we wanted to see in the 3 days that we had available; The Red Fort and the Lotus Temple.

With the heat being much greater down in Delhi than it had been up in the mountains, we had set ourselves the target of visiting one site per day before heading back to the hotel to miss the main heat of the day. So during our first full day we made our way to the Red Fort, and unknowingly our first main disappointment. The entrance fee to the fort was the first bone of contention for me, as locals are required to pay 10 Rupees (around 12p) while foreign tourists must pay 250 Rupees (just over £3). Not a lot I am aware, but I am really not a fan of inequality on any level.

The Red Fort from where it can be best appreciated...outside!

The fort itself was not what we had expected. More of a “palace” than a fort, the red outer walls were filled with lots of smaller buildings built independently from the main structure, and a lot of those weren’t even open to the public. Areas where channels and pools of water should have been were bone dry, which sucked the atmosphere out of the site. In short, what was left was a bit of a bore and a mediocre morning out.

Our second day out and our trip to the Lotus Temple proved to be a lot more interesting. The temple itself was constructed in 1986 (it was a good year!) by the people of the Baha’i faith. As a religion the Baha’i believe that all of the world’s religions have the same god, and that they only differ due to the social requirements of the time that they were “born”. In my religious ignorance, I spent half an hour convinced that I was talking to some Buddhists before I spotted the error of my ways. When asked what I believe in, my not very constructive but genuinely honest answer was “I quite like football really”.

The Lotus Temple

The temple itself was very strikingly constructed in the shape of a lotus flower, but from the wrong angle it could easily be confused for a section of the Sydney Opera House. Inside the decoration was mostly plain, as the temple is more of a quiet place for people of any religion, rather than being decorated to pay homage to any one particular faith.

By this stage it was good  for me to be rediscovering real food after our illness, although Vicky was still struggling, and one of the main attractions of Delhi is that there is a huge range of restaurants and places to eat. India is billed as the most vegetarian friendly country in the world, and it certainly backs up that claim without any shadow of a doubt. In fact at least 50% of the restaurants you come across in the major cities are vegetarian only, a nice change from some of the struggles I’ve had finding vegetarian food elsewhere!

At this point in the journey, we picked up two more passengers to add to our merry band. Gabriel and Yara are both from Vienna, and decided to join the trip at this stage after the truck had been through Iran and Pakistan. Welcome both of you to the truck, and we both hope you enjoy your journey with us.

From Delhi, we continued our way East and headed to Mcleod Ganj. Being back up at a higher altitude was a pleasant experience, as naturally the temperature was around 10C lower than down on the plains.

The view from our room in Mcleod Gange. One of the better views you will get in a cheap hotel!

Mcleod Ganj is the home of the exiled Tibetan Government, and so seeing the Buddhist monks wandering the streets became a very common sight. The town is known for it’s spiritualist and relaxing qualities, with plenty of adverts for meditation and yoga classes being plastered on the walls. The reality for me though was that there was simply no place to relax or even hear yourself think there. The town was packed with tourists (both Indian escaping the heat of the plains as well as foreigners), and the traffic was exceptionally heavy. The first day that we arrived the Dali Lamah was in town, and that only added to the people that had flocked into the hills.

Anywhere in India that there is traffic means that there is also noise. The horn of a vehicle out here is used to signify that you are overtaking another vehicle as well as when you are angry or something is in the way, and when the road is crammed with everything from bicycle rickshaws to trucks there is never a moment when a horn is not blowing. Many of the motorcycles and scooters out here are fitted with car horns to give them that extra punch. As a result, headaches are a daily occurrence whenever you are near traffic.

No seats available! This is certainly one way to travel in the country with the 2nd largest population in the world.

With there being actually very little to do other than “find yourself” in the town, we spent most of the 3 days trying to improve our physical health. I unfortunately had a relapse, and struggled for 3 days with an intense pain in the right hand half of my stomach. 2 other members of the group also came down with the same mystery pain, and to this day none of the 3 of us actually know what was wrong!

Jaipur however was a turning point for us. In total I thought that the hotel there was the best one we have had since we stayed in the Raj’s Palace back in Mandi, with clean modern rooms and a great rooftop restaurant. The food here was excellent, and it was at this point that Vicky was really able to start eating properly again which was a huge relief. My stomach pain cured itself, and duly my appetite also returned.

The main feature that we visited while in Jaipur was the Amber Fort, and excellently it was everything that the Red Fort in Delhi was not. Situated on top of a large hill around 11km from our hotel, Vicky, David and I took an auto rickshaw (or tuk tuk) to the bottom of the hill, where elephant rides up the hill were available if you desired them. We decided to save our money and walk. During the rickshaw ride, the driver actually gave Vicky the opportunity to drive us while the roads were quiet, and she was ably capable (after some short instruction) of navigating us around a couple of obstacles while she drove for a few kilometres.

Elephant rides in front of the Amber Fort with David looking on

As a side note I will at this stage say that auto rickshaws are the most amusing and enjoyable way to get around the cities, even if there is always a slight feeling of peril while you are in them (in a funny way it adds to the enjoyment). They seem to have their own personality as the cheeky chappy of the streets as they dodge and weave while enjoying their fair share of near misses! Sometimes you forget that they only have 3 wheels with the aggressive cornering manoeuvres that the drivers pull. While the bicycle rickshaws are cheaper and more environmentally friendly (not friendly to the poor fellow that has to peddle us for half an hour in the 45C heat though) they are both slower and lacking in that certain entertainment factor.

Vicky takes the controls from the rickshaw driver

Getting back to the point, the Amber fort was actually a great example of 17^th Century architecture that was used in it’s day as both a palace and a defence structure. Pretty much all of the structure was available to the public to explore, and we had excellent fun following the corridors, tunnels and stairs to see what we could find. From the open areas near the top of the fort, some great views down the hillside were available, looking out across the lake at the bottom of the hill.

The security guards in the fort however know how to make a bit of money on the side, by acting as impromptu tour guides for the more tucked away or hidden areas of the fort. They lead you into an area that you might not have explored, try and take your photo while you are there, and then hold out their hand for the donation to their back pocket that they would like from you. I’m guessing not too many people don’t give money to the man with the big rifle! You soon learn however that by refusing to follow them does not mean that you cannot explore the area by yourself, saving you a small charge on a frequent basis. We were left to laugh at the sign on the wall that says “please do not tip the staff”!

Vicky in the Amber Fort

Our time in Jaipur was over quicker than we would have liked it to have been, and sure enough we found ourselves on the road in the direction of Agra, famous of course for the Taj Mahal. During our drive there we decided to stop at Fatenpur Sikri, which is an abandoned city with a mosque and palace, and it has now of course been turned into a tourist attraction. Now throughout this journey we have never been far away from touts, beggars and salesmen (I will talk about those in greater depth later), but this one day in particular was simply unbelievable and unbearable at the same time. For the entire 2 hours that we were off of the bus, we were plagued by anybody and everybody that thought they could get some money out of us. People offering to drive you in their rickshaw, people wanting stupid amounts of money to act as your tour guide, people trying to sell you novelty pens and other gifts and of course the ones that just bluntly say “give me money”. I will be honest and say that by the end of the 2 hours I’m not quite sure how I didn’t completely lose it with somebody! Really it completely ruined the day, and neither of us were able to take any form of enjoyment from the buildings at all.

The entrance to the mosque at Fatenpur Sikri

I will at this point make a direct comparison with Iran. In Iran, you will have countless number of people offering to show you local areas or monuments and give you information about them. They do this because they are proud of their country and their heritage, and they want you to know more about it, and they are more than happy just to stand and talk to you. In India, plenty of people will also come and talk to you about their local areas and monuments, but they do it because they want to get something out of you and it is completely selfish. There are as far as I can see 2 reasons that this is likely: 1) Iran, although cheap to us, is actually a very well off country with only 3% of it’s population living below the national poverty line, and so comparatively people do not need the money. 2) Iran is by comparison starved of tourism, and it is still largely free from the greed and corruption that mass tourism can bring. India however is a country that attracts tourists from all over the world, and that unfortunately brings out the worst in people that have little or nothing.

It was at this very place that a man who claimed to work at the mosque “just to help people understand the dynamics of his religion” decided to explain why the temple that existed there was created, and to show me how it was built. He would repeatedly say to me “Do not worry, I will ask no money of you. I am a religious man and one of the 5 pillars of our religion is charity. I will ask no money”. Suddenly he offered to show me something else….his shop, where unsurprisingly he became a very aggressive salesman! After a long time and a lot of negotiations I bought a small item from him, but that apparently was not enough. As I turned to leave he grabbed me roughly by the wrist and tried to sell me 2 more items, even having the cheek to tell me that I must have spent a lot of money to come to India and that I would not miss a bit more money. Needless to say he got nothing else from us. Religious my backside!

The lengths that people will go to get money out here are outrageous. Many of the beggars on the streets are actually working for a syndicate, with the money that they beg actually going to a ringleader behind it all. Women who carry young children to use as a persuasive tool for you to give money for milk often do not even have a connection with that child, and they have been given the child as a prop. For those that cannot get cold hard cash, there are scams where beggars will ask for food and then sell the food you buy them back to the vender spitting the cost with the vender. Finally there is the hardest type to deal with mentally; those that mutilate their body and ask for money for medical care which of course they never seek. On one occasion we were confronted by a man who had clearly sliced the top of his foot off (the wound was far too perfect to be an accident), but you know that there is a high chance that he will only spend the money you give him on drugs with which there is a large problem here. It is a very sad state because you know that some of the people that approach you will be genuine, and it feels so alien not to give help and to remain so cynical, but you know that if you give to one person everybody else in that area will expect the same treatment.

The next day, feeling slightly calmer, we headed out early to visit the Taj Mahal before all of the tourists arrived. It is a shame that so many of the guidebooks and blogged reviews set the bar so high for India’s top (and most expensive) attraction, as it meant the reality of “the building that can’t fail to blow you off your feet” was that it was just “pretty impressive”. It goes without question that it is one of the most attractive buildings in the world, and the quality of it’s architecture is indeed superb, but it just lacked that feeling of being slapped around the face and saying “WOW!” that everybody claims is inevitable. The story behind the building is undeniably romantic though, with the King building the palace as a tomb for his favourite wife who died following the birth of their 14^th child. Her burial chamber is the central feature to the building that was made with perfect symmetry (a fake mosque actually exists on the site to mirror the real mosque on the opposite side. Of course only one of them can be facing Mecca, and so that is the real mosque) A number of years later, the King’s body was actually laid to rest about 2 metres from the burial chamber of his wife.

Us at India's prized asset, the Taj Mahal

From Agra we were due to have a routine day of driving, stopping to camp in the wild, and then a further day driving to reach our final Indian destination, Varanasi. Things for the first time in the trip however didn’t quite go to plan…

After 8 hours of being on the road we finally spotted a good place to pull the truck over and camp for the night. As soon as we stopped the normal routine of cleaning the truck and cooking the dinner began. One addition to the party however was a crowd of at least over 100 people. Trucks and buses were pulling over at the side of the road to come and join the group of locals staring at what we were doing. We tried to appear friendly and welcoming, despite the fact we were all feeling uncomfortable with the number and proximity of our guests. Jaymo even resorted to juggling the potatoes we were cooking to keep them entertained. Curiosity we decided had got the better of them, and they must simply just want to see what we were doing as they seemed happy just watching us cook. With the crowd of people ever encroaching we were forced to put anything that did not need to be out of the truck away, and to keep a very close eye on anything that we did have out. By the time dinner was served an hour and a half later, only a small percentage of the group had gotten bored and left. It was at this point that things took a turn for the worse. While we were sitting eating a stone came sailing through the air and hit Vicky on the back. We turned round angrily and after a few words we decided it was probably just one of the children doing something stupid and that the rest of the locals would pull them into line. It was however the start of something that would not stop, as stones started flying in every 20 seconds or so. Several of the group were hit, but suffered only small bruises, while one stone of a reasonable size narrowly missed my head (if it had hit I have no doubt that I would have required stitches). After trying desperately to shoo the crowd away, a few determined individuals had stayed and continued to rain stones down on us and we made the only decision that we could; we had to pack up and leave heading on to Varanasi that night. Jaymo was one of the few people who had already put his tent up, but when he went to take it down he found that one of the locals had cut the supporting rope attached to the side of his tent. I cannot see any reason for the way that we were treated, and really it compounded the bad feelings I have had for a lot of the local people over the last week especially. I don’t want to generalise and give all Indians a bad name, but it certainly shows how a number of stupid or greedy people can damage the reputation of a whole nation.

Panoramic view of one side of the truck, while the locals were still playing friendly!

Varanasi is a very strange city in that it’s culture and it’s population are mostly focused around death. The Ganges river runs through the city, and it’s holy waters are used for everything from bathing to floating funeral pyres. Any people that die in Varanasi are, according to our guide book, automatically granted enlightenment and therefore many people come to the city to live out their final days. There are 2 areas (or ghats) on the banks of the river that are dedicated to burning the dead, and the fires are seen throughout the whole of the day here. There are certain people who are not burnt however, and these include children, pregnant women, victims of cobra bites, holy men and leprosy sufferers. The bodies of these people are wrapped in a fabric and cast into the holy water of river, along with the bodies of cows, dogs and birds which are all considered important here. During our boat ride earlier today, it was rather disconcerting to see a human body floating by as we rowed upstream. Yet all of the locals still come to bathe, swim and wash their clothes in the river despite its incredibly harmful water quality.

One of the burning areas on the river banks taken from a distance. You can see 2 of the fires on the right hand side of the picture.

I know that what I have written about India has been from a negative position, but I think it is only fair to say that India had it’s card marked down really just by the time of year we are here, and the places we have visited. We have arrived at the hottest time of year, with temperatures reaching a high of 49C, and the humidity making it even more uncomfortable. The temperatures also fuel the viruses that have made us ill and irritable, and during the cooler months these issues would be far less problematic. We have travelled to all of the touristy places, and seen where people are most corrupt. Tomorrow we head into Nepal, and hopefully back to positivity!

We will leave you with this cheeky pair eating a banana. While they may look cute, the monkeys here can be a real nuisance and are one of the main carriers of rabies. They will try and take food and anything that looks of interest to them.