Madness? This ... Is .... AGRA!!!
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
darjeeling
18 hours on another train brings us to darjeeling. thousands of meters up in the air, it's a city of winding market streets that drop suddenly into steep mountain faces, big spectral clouds alighting on the tops of urchin-spiny pines. everywhere there are twists and turns in the roads, the ramshackle old buildings packed to tight against one another that you often miss the stairway alleys until you have already passed them. the tea and the people are both warm and delightful. the food is excellent. the cool mountain air and oxygen-thin atmosphere are a welcome change from the sapping heat of the northern lowlands. after the sprawl and challenges of veranasi, darjeeling is a delightful contrast.
our small room is slightly damp and cold all the time, and just outside a long balcony connects all the rooms of the same level. from here, you look out over a steep valley, impossible steep to take it. always there is the sense that you will tumble from the balcony, over the roofs below and down into the heart of the valley. yet there you are, tea in hand, steady on the wide concrete balustrade, watching the omnipresent clouds crawl over, down and up the hills. from under the heavy, over-stuffed blankets on the hard wooden bed, you hardly notice the cold or the damp.
awaking a few times in the night, i'm overcome by how quiet it is here or, rather, how the sounds you hear are pleasant and normal - a dog bark, the wind blowing, the building settling. no rickshaws put-putting up the roads, no motorcycles blasting their horns, no merchant calling out in the morning. the city is clean, too. well kept and, even if poorly planned, charming in it's chaos. i cannot say the same of other places we've been. perhaps it's just the elevation or the clean air, but i like this place very much.
the food here is all dumplings and warm broths and noodles. hot tea, decent coffee and the smell of grey-green cold make the comfort almost palpable. in a way, this trip has taught my this - that of all the places i love, it is the wet, gray, densely forested, wild places. give me trees, fog and a cold breeze, topped off with a little rain and a good book. between my wanders, that's where i'll be.
our small room is slightly damp and cold all the time, and just outside a long balcony connects all the rooms of the same level. from here, you look out over a steep valley, impossible steep to take it. always there is the sense that you will tumble from the balcony, over the roofs below and down into the heart of the valley. yet there you are, tea in hand, steady on the wide concrete balustrade, watching the omnipresent clouds crawl over, down and up the hills. from under the heavy, over-stuffed blankets on the hard wooden bed, you hardly notice the cold or the damp.
awaking a few times in the night, i'm overcome by how quiet it is here or, rather, how the sounds you hear are pleasant and normal - a dog bark, the wind blowing, the building settling. no rickshaws put-putting up the roads, no motorcycles blasting their horns, no merchant calling out in the morning. the city is clean, too. well kept and, even if poorly planned, charming in it's chaos. i cannot say the same of other places we've been. perhaps it's just the elevation or the clean air, but i like this place very much.
the food here is all dumplings and warm broths and noodles. hot tea, decent coffee and the smell of grey-green cold make the comfort almost palpable. in a way, this trip has taught my this - that of all the places i love, it is the wet, gray, densely forested, wild places. give me trees, fog and a cold breeze, topped off with a little rain and a good book. between my wanders, that's where i'll be.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
veranasi
we left veranasi about two days ago and i've been struggling with what to write about it. as the "holiest city in hinduism,|" people from all over india travel there to bathe in the ganges river, pray and die - for if you die in veranasi, it's believed you will reach moksha immediately (end of birth-rebirth cycle). people who die in veranasi are covered in silks and linens, carried to the ghats (stepped rises that come out of the river) and burnt on small pyres.
we rose early one morning to watch the sunrise over the river and paddle a small boat up and down its banks. we saw bodies being hauled onto little piles of sticks and set aflame. we saw men praying together and drinking the ganges water - reportedly 20 times more contaminated than the acceptable level of cleanliness for human consumption. we walked the too-narrow streets through alleyways where, inexplicably, a motorcycle, a cow, ten mourning wailing women, a guy selling statues of ganesha and two gringos can pass through a space 8 feet wide.
everywhere in veransi there is garbage and filth. cows are everywhere, made more apparent because of the tight quarters. but the city is so dense, so packed and so crowded that the smell of feces, the little streams and puddles of blue-yellow water and the puttering of black-cloud-spewing generators is in your face no matter where you are. the streets are too crowded, too dusty and too trafficked to be efficient. still, there is an overriding sense that many of the people that are there are there to see god. the others are a mixture of work-a-day chai and samosa wallas and young men trying to sell you hash.
because of the numerous security scares going on in the country right now, the army police were out in force. lazily looking up from newspapers or glasses of tea long enough to watch you pass. few people were stopped or patted down or questioned. and why would they? how do you tell a shopper with her bags from a criminal with her bomb? nonetheless, they could at least try to hold their guns with some dignity and a little less slack.
so what can i say about veranasi? if it is holy or special, i missed it. it is beyond me and i am quite possible stupid or blind for having not seen it. what i saw was the bad overtaking what small good there was. touts, pushers, twisted-limbed beggars, garbage, piss ... if i sound overly crass i am sorry. but what does it say when the holiest place is a festering open wound, full of rats and feces? is this intentional? is it my karma to see past the filth to the ceremony. or further still, past the ceremony to the filth?
who knows. veranasi is overwhelming. on to darjeeling.
we rose early one morning to watch the sunrise over the river and paddle a small boat up and down its banks. we saw bodies being hauled onto little piles of sticks and set aflame. we saw men praying together and drinking the ganges water - reportedly 20 times more contaminated than the acceptable level of cleanliness for human consumption. we walked the too-narrow streets through alleyways where, inexplicably, a motorcycle, a cow, ten mourning wailing women, a guy selling statues of ganesha and two gringos can pass through a space 8 feet wide.
everywhere in veransi there is garbage and filth. cows are everywhere, made more apparent because of the tight quarters. but the city is so dense, so packed and so crowded that the smell of feces, the little streams and puddles of blue-yellow water and the puttering of black-cloud-spewing generators is in your face no matter where you are. the streets are too crowded, too dusty and too trafficked to be efficient. still, there is an overriding sense that many of the people that are there are there to see god. the others are a mixture of work-a-day chai and samosa wallas and young men trying to sell you hash.
because of the numerous security scares going on in the country right now, the army police were out in force. lazily looking up from newspapers or glasses of tea long enough to watch you pass. few people were stopped or patted down or questioned. and why would they? how do you tell a shopper with her bags from a criminal with her bomb? nonetheless, they could at least try to hold their guns with some dignity and a little less slack.
so what can i say about veranasi? if it is holy or special, i missed it. it is beyond me and i am quite possible stupid or blind for having not seen it. what i saw was the bad overtaking what small good there was. touts, pushers, twisted-limbed beggars, garbage, piss ... if i sound overly crass i am sorry. but what does it say when the holiest place is a festering open wound, full of rats and feces? is this intentional? is it my karma to see past the filth to the ceremony. or further still, past the ceremony to the filth?
who knows. veranasi is overwhelming. on to darjeeling.
Very-ee-naazzz-ee
Some shots of Varanasi while floating upon the Ganges at dawn. Pilgrims lined the shore washing their sins away, funeral pyres burned the recently deceased on their way to Moksha and the sun rose behind us and lit up the sky. Pretty cool.
This goat was also there to wash away his sins. Or just hang out.
20 hours later, Darjeeling!
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