Finally I left India!!!! Challo Pakistan, I can just say. One year I have spent in this country and I think I saw a lot. I tried hard to understand the Indian macro and micro cosmos and I think I got to know quite a bit by now. Working and living in this country was the basic to see India with a lot of its aspects, travelling rounded up my understanding. Under the line I can say the following: it was an amazing experience and I don't regret a single moment I have spent in this country BUT I definitely did not fall in love with it. I hate it and I like it but I don't love it. There is too much I cannot share with the values and the culture in this country. I think I have learned a lot about a different culture and also developed my own personality. This was my goal and intention before I came to Asia and this is what I have gained now. However, I have left the country and I am glad about it.
One year I am away from home and I have moments when I really miss Zurich and my life there. I feel that after this big trip time has come to go back and settle for a while, again something I have found out only here. However, the trip continues!! I am in Kathmandu right now, the capital of Nepal on an altitude of around 1400 m/a/s. The wheather is sh**t. Raining, clowdy and quite cold. I have to get used to this wheather change after more than a month in the tropical and subtropical zone of Rajasthan, Delhi and Varanasi, my last destinations in India. Maja returned back to Switzerland after we visited together Pushkar, Jodhpur (as mentioned in my last post!), Jaisalmer - where I did an amazing camel safari trip -, Udaipur at the Lake Pichola (one of the quietest cities I have seen in India!) and finally Jaipur (horrible city!) before we went back to Delhi. On the same day when we arrived Maja took the flight back to Zurich and I stayed another two days at the comfortable 'upper-class-apartment' of our new 'friend' Upendra or also called Mr. President (as he claims one to be:-)) However, on the 11th October I headed to Varanasi, one of the holiest places of the Hinduism Religion. It is located at the holy Ganges river. The place is, as so many or let's say almost every Indian city, a big mess, horribly dirty, full of cows, street dogs and other vermins. But the place is one of the only ones I have seen in India where there are some different energies. There is something mystic around this place. The Hindus believe that if they will be cremated in Varanasi they can outbreak the cyclus of rebirth and get directly to the Nirvana. Furthermore a bath in the holy river whashes away your sins so it also serves a method to purify yourself. The city is spread along one side of the Ganges shore and countless ghats serve as places where people whash and bathe. But again, the river is just a horrible polluted brown cloake. The Indians don't seem to care like everywhere in the country. They bathe next to the water buffalos in the middle of downstreaming rubbish. Some of the ghats are calles 'burning ghats' where 24 hours a day dead bodies enwrapped in red-golden 'death-sheets' are burnt on piles of wood. The corpses are carried on bamboo stretchers by Untouchables (the lowest caste within the Hindu hierarchy!) down to the river. The Untouchables continuously chant a prayer in doing so, dip the corpses in the water of the river and finally put the body on the piles of wood before one of the relatives lights the fire. The 'fire-ghats' are overcrowded with poeple (only males of course!) and bodies are carried down to the place continuously. The pyres are located anywhere on the ghat, chaotically arranged and the burnig processes in different stages. Some of the bodies don't really burn so you just see shrivelled and sore corpses sometimes lying in strange positions in the glowing wooden branches. People and animals are crowding the place which is - again - horribly dirty, full of rubbish, wooden branches and ashes. When the corpses don't burn, the Untouchables rearrange them with long sticks place them on a hotter spot in the pyre, smash the bones, the skulls and in consequence expose parts like the brain or other limbs and organs which are not burnt yet. I must admit, the first time I saw it, I was just shocked and also disgusted. The entire ceremony is held - to my western eyes - without any dignity, something which I missed so often in India. On top of that, when you go and watch this spectacle from a spot at the ghat which is supposed to be reserved for non-Hindu visitors, you are - again like everywhere in India - penetrated by Indians who claim not to beg (because this is a holy place!) but try to get money from you, telling you made-up stories about poor poeple you would support to buy the very expensive wood for the pyres or to support hospices where old poeple come stay in order to wait to die. When you refuse to give money they become rude and tell you to leave. Even on this 'most holy place' where people are cremated, the Indians just try to rip you off, to cheat you, simply try to get the piss out off you. For me it seems just the way I have experienced India countless times. To me it lacks the dignity, the culture, the respect for anything. So finally I have ended my trip at the place where the Hindu Indians want to die. Varanasi, a grotesque, a macabre and still mystic place.
On the last day befor my visa expired - who would have thought me to stay that long:-)) - I took the bus to the Nepali boarder. In the touris bus I mingled up with some funny poeple from Poland and Israel who also were on their way to Kathmandu. After a too long travel of 12 hours we finally arrived at the boarder point at Sunauli. It looked like a boarder point in the middle age in Europe. There was no electricity at all. Some random Indians, not even dressed in uniforms (which usually is so important in India) were seated at tables, smoking, eating their Chapatti, chatting and doing nothing. This place, the 'Immigration Office', was only lit by two candles. We had - of course - to fill in another useless form and I finally got the Emmigration Stamp! We walked further to the Nepali boarder. The place looked like anywhere in India, full of poeple, lingering around, stables with food for sale, playing children; in short, just a big chaos. On the Nepali side we moved into a shabby and dirty guesthouse where we stayed one night. The next day we were supposed to leave in the morning but as soon as we installed ourselves in the local bus we were in formed that the bus would not leave because the Maoists had declared a strike for the entire day. Consequently we had to stay another night in this horrible place we were so eager to leave. Lucky us, the group of us were a real good batch and we kind of enjoyed staying there together in this horrible place. It had the slight feeling of a scout camp. 6 of us shared a big room and we enjoyed the cheap beer and good food in the next-door restaurant. The next morning we finally left to Kathmandu and here I am still. Nepal is definitely better than India. I have approached one step further back into civilisation. Kathmandu is very touristy which I appreciate. The city has good shops, bars, clubs, restaurants where excellent steaks are served, you get cheap alcohol and toiletpaper. In spite of the overwhelming poverty, poeple and country are cleaner and more organised. The waiters in the restaurants can read and write, they can remember two things at once, you don't have to repeat yourself 5 times for every request, and you don't have to wait for hours to get your food. There's less hassles in the streets. The Nepalis understand the word 'NO' as no and don't penetrate you continuously. The place is more or less the same expensive like India but you get more quality for everything. After one year India you really appreciate such things and I am glad I am here. I'm planning to do a alternative trek in the Himalaya with an Israeli travelling-comrade. Well, welcome to Nepal, I can just say.
Cheers.
m.
