TRAVEL FROM NEPAL TO VARANASI | LETTERS & PICTURES FROM ASIA, 1988 | PART 5

In 1988, when I was eighteen years old I set off from New Zealand to Asia on an adventure. Accompanying me was my high school friend David. We were inspired by Tintin comics and National Geographic magazines. Although we had never actually been overseas before, we wanted begin our travels somewhere more exotic than the usual teenage Kiwi destinations. Our plans were vague - first Nepal, then India - then, after that, as far as our meagre holiday savings would take us. Once on the road, I wrote detailed and mostly illegible aerogrammes home, which my father kindly typed up to make readable for the rest of the family. My father also generously lent me his Pentax Spotmatic camera to ensure I got some good pictures. 

This is the fifth letter, sent after finishing the Everest Base Camp trek in Nepal, then travelling from Kathmandu to Varanasi in India. Read the first letter from Kathmandu here.

Varanasi
2 April 1988

Dear Everyone,

I sit on the whitewashed roof of our hotel in Varanasi and it's around 7am and getting hot already in the shade. I can see the river Ganges in the East and the jumbled city to the West. Fortunately the sun is not right out so it is only about 30°. It is really tropical and hot here, temperatures reaching over 40° in the middle of the day. At this time you just lie on your bed under the whirr of a big fan. Although hot, I personally don't find it that bad; perhaps the heat's unbearablness is overrated!

Yesterday I managed to go out a fair bit during the day and it was OK.

So. I'll start back in Kathmandu. After talking to you on the phone and writing we set about getting ready to go. I suspected that I might have Gardia so I took some local antibiotics called Tinibia. This made me very sick for two days. I found out later that it is pretty bad for you and has heavy side-effects on some people. I was mostly nauseous and unable to do anything at all and hallucinating really badly in the night and morning. I was imagining that there was a big egg on my bed and I had no choice but to smash it. All these people were calling out to me not to do it; it was really strange.

Anyway, I recovered quickly and we left straight away. We caught the tourist bus to the border because it is four hours faster than the public one.

Excuse the interruption; a little squirrel has just jumped on to the roof here. I am watching him right now eating something. He has a stripy back and a long tail. He is only about 3 metres away. There are also lots of monkeys around here.

Back to the bus. This driver was crazy. He was a puny skinny guy with lots of beads and big ears. Bus drivers always have lots of devoted cronies standing around them. They all cheer every time he overtakes a truck or something on a blind corner at the side of a cliff. He looks around at all the terrified passengers as if to say, "Ha, you didn't think I'd make that one, did you?". As usual, he tooted his horn every two seconds.

We arrived at the border, alive, after passing through many rice fields and a forest. The hotel was on the Nepal side and we crossed the border in the morning. It was a very casual affair, we could easily smuggled a nuclear bomb across or just walked through without stopping to have our visas checked.

The bus we caught was overflowing and the only seat that I could get was at the back where you bounced around all over the place. We were in the heat now so everyone was really sweating. The bus was full of mostly Indians with a few tourists. I was sitting by someone from Ireland, a Canadian and an Israeli. A mixed bunch.

India is flat. It seemed quite green and there were plenty of trees. Later it got much dustier and brown. Everyone was getting the fields ready for the monsoon. We passed through fields and rivers, always with many people all just working or doing their thing. At one point we were driving along beside a steam train full of people.

Another interruption: A monkey just jumped up right beside me then walked across the roof and proceeded to eat some watermelon skins. He was only about l foot away and I was worried that he might bite me because they sometimes are quite vicious. People often sleep up on the roof here because it is cooler and once someone was attacked by a monkey. This one has finished his watermelon and is now jumping from roof to roof. They sometimes steal things.

We arrived in Varanasi at sunset and as usual were jumped on by hundreds of persistent rickshaw drivers. Sometimes I have to shout. The Varanasi rickshaw drivers are notoriously bad.

We arranged for a rickshaw to take us where we wanted but of course he didn't; he took us to another place where he could get a commission. We argued with both him and the hotel owner and at a much increased price he agreed to take us where we wanted. Again he didn't. I argued with him again and refused to pay the full price. From here we decided to walk although we had absolutely no idea where we were. This is the part that I'm proud of! I followed the moon, in the East where the Ganges is, asked directions and used our map, although there are no street signs in India, to find our way through the narrow bustling streets. I have never seen so many people in my life, and with every person there is a bike. The alleys are all only about 3 metres wide and the larger streets are impossible to cross because of the rickshaws and the bikes. By now it was night time.

David followed along as I found the way across this crazy crowded city. All the time there were salesmen and beggars hassling us for things. Towards the end the maze of alleys were so narrow even rickshaws couldn't fit. Finally I found the place, which I thought was pretty clever. We really had to just fight to find the place.

This hotel is really very good; the Yogi Lodge - it was recommended in that India travel book. Everything is near and it is cheap. There are lots of other travellers here and the place is old and has character.

The next morning I got up at 4.30am and went down to the ghats on the Ganges. It is a beautiful river. One side is lined with ghats, temples and buildings, and there) is a big sandbank on the other. We hired a boat and boatman and we paddled out on the river to watch the bathers. By now the sun was rising throwing everything into a lovely red light. The sunrise in itself was amazing. There were holy men, pilgrims, families and everybody all bathing in the river. Many were going through holy rituals and others were being just hooligans. The women were bathing discreetly in their saris and the men going into great spiritual contortions. All the beggars were there giving the people a chance to do their karma some good. It was a truly amazing sight.

After that I went and bought watermelon, papaya and bananas for breakfast. There is so much fruit here and it is so cheap; all this cost about 60¢NZ. It does get very tiring always bartering; they usually start at about 10 rupees and end up at around 3.

Later in the day a group of us went to the burning ghats. It was very explicit; you could see arms falling off and bones sticking out of the bodies! They throw the ashes in the river and holy men (Sadhus) are tied to rocks and thrown in. People with diseases are thrown in unburned as well. There is so much leprosy; every day you see many beggars with missing fingers, arms or legs.

At the moment we are not sure whether to go to Agra and see the Taj Mahal, to Delhi and then Himachal, or whether to go straight to Himachal and do the other later.

I am enjoying the Indian food; mostly it is rice, dhal and vegetable curries. They also have many nice sweet shops. In India, Coca-Cola was given the boot so there are only local soft drinks. They are very sickly-sweet and go by names like Thumbs-Up and Campa-Cola, but because it is so very hot you have to drink a great deal of them. Yuk! I've developed a terrible sweet tooth; they put so much sugar in everything that I have got used to it.

We are probably leaving tomorrow, so the next letter will either be from Agra or Himachal. We should be in Srinagar by June at the latest.

Read the next letter HERE.