I must say India was not kind to us on our
return. First there was the assault of
the senses with the Indian filth, then the Indian Railway train journey from
hell and finally Bob’s severe and very scary food poisoning.
One would never call Nepal clean and tidy
but it was amazing how the level of garbage and dirt increased as we crossed to
border into India. Border towns are
always pretty grim but this was exceptionally dirty and chaotic with a huge convoy
of trucks going into Nepal stirring up the dust to impossible levels.
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| Nepales border |
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| Back in India |
We caught a local bus to Gorakhpur, the usual
feat of endurance, and when we arrived went directly to the train station to
get a ticket to Varanasi. There was an
overnight sleeper train which we thought would be ideal. We spent the day in Gorakhpur then headed back
to the train station around 9 pm to catch the train scheduled to leave at 11.05
pm. But it was running late and
rescheduled to leave at 12.05 am. We
went to the platform but no train arrived.
In India whole families camp out on the train platforms, they spread out
a mat and picnic or sleep to wait for the trains. When they sleep they cover themselves totally
and look like mummies scattered around the platform. Our train finally arrived around 1.30 am but
with no sleeper cars. The only carriages
were 2nd class non-ac – carriages that were about 60 years old and
had never been cleaned or repaired in that time. There
were a couple other Western tourist and we all accepted that we would just have
to find an empty bench seat and hope we could lie down and sleep. The scenes of everyone rushing into the
carriages were quite ugly. I saw an old
man just being pushed and shoved out of the door stumbling back onto the platform
as younger men wildly struggled to get on first. We found an empty bench at the beginning of
the train and were just settling in when an official came along and said our
carriage was at the other end of the train.
So we gathered up our bags and trudged to the end of the train – about 400m
- only for the official to look dumbfounded that there wasn’t any sleeper
carriage. So back to the front of the
train to reclaim a bench and once again an official said that the sleeper
carriage was coming – ‘just 10 minutes’ - and we were to wait at the other end
of the train on the platform. Three
hours later, while waiting outside being eaten by mosquitoes, the railway
admitted that no sleeper carriage was coming because the railway workers ‘forgot’
to add the carriage. So for the 3rd
time we went to the front of the train to find an empty bench seat and tried to
sleep. Two hours later the train finally
crawls out of the station. Once started,
the journey was suppose to take 6 hours but took 10. Finally about 3 pm we arrived in Varanasi, 9
hours after the scheduled arrival and having started our journey in Nepal at 7
am the previous day.
But all was put aside when we got to
Varanasi. This ancient holy city along
the Ganges has it all. The sunrise over
the Ganges, dhobi wallahs doing laundry, water buffalos taking a swim, kids playing
in the river, worshipers doing their prayers, and burning Ghats cremating the
dead.
The river is everything to Varanasi but I
had a hard time getting past the Hepatitis and e.coli threats and would not touch the water. Hygiene is not good here and I was right to
worry as although Bob and I were eating the same food, Bob came down with a
severe case of food poisoning. I won’t
go into the gory details but when he passed out three times I called the
doctor. We got him re-hydrated and
within 24 hours he was feeling much better.
It was very scary and nasty. Time
to say goodbye to Varanasi.
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