OnTheRoad

Make sure you've got a good cuppa with you or something; this one's a long one.

Back in Pakistan once again, and I see that I have been miserly with my updates; short and few, they seem to be. In my defence, I've had a low level sickness in operation almost since entering India, with surges to a much higher level later on, falling back to a mid level malaise that plagues me even now. At least I have company in my misery, as Melia is much the same way (but seems to bear it better - it's only me that ends up yelling at rickshaw wallahs and touts). I'd like to state my gratitude here to the wonderful drug Ciprofloxacin, which has finally gone in and kicked all kinds of shite out of the bugs ruining my digestive system. I've got about ten times the energy I had a few days ago and the whole world seems much more pleasant a place.

That said, being back in Pakistan, dear Pakistan, which suddenly seems much more (pardon me Grandma) Fucked Up than before, perhaps requires those rose tinted glasses. I mean, I'm sure it was, but it wasn't obvious. Islamabad, where we picked up our Chinese visas just two days ago, had a suicide bombing last night. Mingora, a town I've passed through three times (actually, Mum's been there twice as well) was hit by a suicide bomber the other day (the army is in there now, more bombs going off yesterday, targeting them); three cops and six civilians dead. The Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad has presumably been international news; an unknown number dead when the government finally went in guns blazing. Al Qaeda putting out press releases; striking while the iron is hot and so on. A range of other events, largely unknown to me (we've been in India, after all) taking place as well. More bombings taking place more or less daily; making your travel plans is like finding your way through a maze, with people recommending that we avoid this place, and that place, and this other place. Flying is starting to look like a reasonable prospect. Insh'allah, all of this will die down to a background simmer as per usual soon enough.

Just thought I'd keep some excitement going ;)

India then, India. I must admit that the heat on the plains, coupled with my general sickness, then added to once again by many sleep deprived nights on overnight busses and trains could possibly have coloured my views. Certainly once I hit the hills, it seemed a much nicer place. But the touts, the rickshaw wallahs, the dirtiness, dustiness, noisiness, the general manners... it doesn't leave such a good impression. Had I stepped straight from the north of Vietnam I may have took it better also, but after coming through Iran and Pakistan, countries where the general manners are excellent and the hospitality stunning, it was a sharp shock. Stepping through the border, the first clues were evident. Before I sat down, I had several touts trying to pull me into their restaurant bars for a beer. Pulling away, I sat down on my backpack to consider my options; immediately a crowd formed around me, all apparently people who'd got eyes for Christmas. In Pakistan, Iran, they're curious alright; but the manners are better, they don't tend to crowd and they stare a lot less (at men, anyway).

Escaping from the border in a vehicle rented by other tourists (a nifty piece of hitch hiking, executed by latching on to the first backpacker types I saw), I reached Amritsar, where I promptly enjoyed the most expensive meal I'd had in the last four months; wasn't it meant to be cheap here? The place was Indian oriented and swarming with locals. It would seem that the massive, and growing, Indian middle class is throwing their financial muscle around, places like this are rare over the border.

In one regard, India has given me a happy suprise; I'd been expecting, after many stories, the transport system to be an absolute nightmare. Given that I only travelled between relatively major destinations, it could well be that in many places, but in the main it was pretty good. I didn't have a single bus break down, someone could always point us to the right bus and the tourist train booking office in Delhi is like a slice of cool, comfortable, clean heaven after stepping from filth and noise of Pahar Ganj Bazaar, by reputation the dirtiest place in Delhi. Air conditioning, free wireless internet, you've already got me sold... But back to the travels. Most intercity busses lack air conditioning, which is fine so long as they keep moving and you can muscle a seat near the window (given that the "queue" is a shoving mass of people and Indians aren't, on the whole, that large, this is suprisingly easy to achieve). Again I was hit by a pleasant suprise as we flew through the middle of a Sikh festival somewhere en route; turban headed, big bearded men, accompanied by youths who aspired to be so, jumped aboard the bus and dished out free plates of some sweet, samolina ***check spelling*** like dessert, with cups of sugary orange juice.

I should clarify here, in the interests of fairness and saving me from vengeful Indians, that most people in India really are very pleasant and polite; it's just that there are so many that it's easy for the worst to crowd out the rest. So it was when I arrived in Delhi, that I was assisted from my intercity bus to a city bus terminal and pointed out the bus that would take me to a hotel, in the aforementioned trash and tout filled lanes of Pahar Ganj Bazaar.

Immediately upon entering the bazaar, I happened upon the most persistent tout I had ever met. In his defence, a white skinned tourist, with a large backpack on, is practically begging to be taken advantage of, but a smarter tout would have given up after the first few refusals and my walking straight past of each hotel he tried to lead me into. He ended up wasting a lot of both mine and his effort and still got no comission. Luckier than the one that caught me after an overnight train in Varanasi though...

Delhi isn't an entirely ugly city, but the majority is unappealing. The dirt, rubbish and open sewers on display as you ride the bus into the city prepares you a little, but I'd rather remain unprepared and avoid it if possible in future. I made my way out to the airport (a slightly tricky affair for those on a budget) and waited for Melia to arrive; unfortunately the information I had was sketchy, I knew she was flying from Frankfurt and I knew the time. Unfortunately the arrivals board had no flights from Frankfurt, and none at her time... After waiting a few hours I gave up and returned to the city. Turns out she had arrived, but had spent a long time waiting for me inside, wondering where I was. I was waiting outside, as they have a bizarre practice of charging to enter the waiting lounge... It seems we actually left at more or less the same time even, just failed to connect. Ah well.

Using that wonder of the modern age through which I speak to you all, we managed to track each other down (I really do miss my cellphone some times... It languishes in the bottom of my bag, with its Thai SIM card, waiting for a return to friendly cellular networks) and, after several more abortive attempts, met up. Success. Deliberately meeting someone in Delhi is something of a miracle, it seems to me.

After enjoying some pleasant time out in the Delhi Train Station tourist office, we had our tickets out to Varanasi, holy city and one of the many through which the Ganga (Ganges to us English speakers; why must we change names to something unrecognisable? Why don't we just keep the damn things? Try asking for a train to Warsaw in Poland and see how far you get...) flows. Indian Sleeper class is not airconditioned. The Indian climate is hot. I didn't sleep well. I had another tout trying to sell us rooms, but in a much more annoying fashion. He would walk a short distance ahead of us, barging into the entrance of each hotel before we came to it, making a show of inviting us in so that clearly he would be due (in the eyes of the hotel staff) a comission; we were unable to go anywhere without him jumping in there ahead of us, effectively preventing us getting anywhere. Suffice it to say that I caught up with him after an extravagant show in one hotel and that the natural affects of sleep deprivation and excess heat allowed me to convince him that giving us more grief would not be in anyone's best interests.

Still, it worked out well. The very next place proved to be perfect, with rooms set around a beautiful, plant filled courtyard, a good kitchen, and great views out over the Ganga and the various ghats along it. A few pleasant days passed in Varanasi, although heat related exhaustion and sickness proved to be the dominating factor here, a situation that pretty much dogs us to this day.

After dragging ourselves away (yet another pleasantly air conditioned tourist office in the train station) and another overnight train trip (hot again, poor sleep, urk) we arrived in Agra, famous only for the Taj Mahal (granted, that's a pretty big only). It should be famous also for the tourist pricing applied; the Taj is 20 for Indians (who complain that it's too much) and 750 for foreigners (many of whom pay). I can't put myself in that latter category, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. While I put a pretty high value on myself, and most Indians are pretty small anyway, I'm reasonably certain I'm not worth 37.5 Indians; I'm sure as hell not going to pay 37.5 times the price they do.

Warning: ranting follows, jump forward past the next paragraph to continue with non-foreigner pricing related issues. We thank you for your time and apologise for any inconvenience.

Different people have different thoughts on the whole foreigner pricing thing; I could handle a small difference I suppose, but essentially I think it's wrong. Even where taxes are paid to help maintain something (and I'm pretty sure 99, of people here don't pay anything in taxes), I would argue that having something like this that draws tourists brings in much more money anyway and that should suffice. Although I am considering that, in the same way visa fees are normally reciprocal, NZ should implement some foreigner pricing also. Something like New Zealander: free, Foreigner: Free, Pakistani: $10 (Pakistan generally charges 20x the local price for foreigners), Indian: $50. To employ the same reasoning found whenever anyone tried to justify it to me, if they've got the money to come visit, they're rich anyway, so why not? Bah. That aside, people do tend to follow the government example. I'll be damned if I know why, I wouldn't follow our government's example and they're better than most. What I mean though, is where the government officially and blatantly charges more for foreigners, locals feel justified in doing the same. Many of us are in India, in part, because the place is cheap. They could be shooting themselves in the foot here... Certainly my experience of India was worsened as I could not see many of the sights and I would recommend anyone to visit Pakistan instead of India; less tourists come, less money is earned. So purely from enlightened self interest, I suspect that foreigner pricing is the wrong way to go.

Stepping down from the ranting soapbox, instead we took a different approach. One rickshaw ride to the other side of the river (after some confusion, renegotiation of prices and map reading) and we had a great view of the Taj Mahal, and were probably less than 100m away from the back side (which is, judging by photos, pretty much the same as the front side). Rather impressive, but next time maybe I could rent a boat and a grappling hook...

Agra to Delhi is pretty much a hop, skip and a jump. This time there was no aircon booking room, instead there was the pushing and shoving queue, followed by the ticket salesman who tried to shortchange me 100 rupees on a 160 rupee bill... Strangely enough, I picked up on that one. We found the train, with help from the staff, and avoiding the standard assortment of beggars (my hindi now stretches to cover handy terms such as "no", "go", <a stronger form of go> and <a much stronger form of go>) found a place on the train. Once it had arrived on the wrong platform and we'd relocated it, of course. Now, we had got "general" tickets, with no seat reservations. We thought that "general" actually just meant "without seat reservation", but in this we were incorrect. We just lumped ourselves down in an available gap, sitting on our bags. Soon enough we met a couple of nice young Indian lads who had just graduated from Engineering school and were off back to Delhi to begin work. And hordes, and hordes, and hordes of people who wanted to take their photos with us. Well, mainly hordes of young Indian men wanting to take their photo with Melia, but lots of girls and whatnot too. But they don't think "maybe that's enough". No. Instead, they come back with their mother/aunt/uncle/baby etc. and ask for more. And anyone walking past thinks "great idea" and turns up ten seconds later with another camera in tow. It's a manners thing. Too many people just don't have them. Sorry, more ranting. It's just like north Vietnam all over again ;)

Now we'd dragged ourselves back to Delhi for one reason, the acquisition of a Pakistani visa. Without this need, we'd have preferred to skip the place, but what can you do. Thankfully Chanakyapuri, the diplomatic suburb, is damn nice. If I ever go back there I'm shopping until I've found all the makings for a good picnic and heading back out there to sit under the trees for an afternoon. Still, we needed to hit up the US embassy for a letter of introduction (as the rest of the world calls it; they call it something else) and then come back the following two days to arrange the Pakistan visa. All in all it seemed painless enough to me; mainly 'cause Melia went out the next two days while I lay around near some form of cooling device!

After successful visa acquisition, we finally made plans to escape the killer heat of the plains; Rishikesh sounded appealing, as a base to head further up into the north and get a bit of hiking done. Another overnight train trip was planned and, despite temptation, aircon was again forgone for the fan based cooling of sleeper class. This time, however, we lucked out and the air was pleasantly cool. It should have been a good night's sleep, but I was starting to feel a more serious illness incoming. It struck full strength on actual arrival in Rishikesh (a one hour bus trip past Haridwar, where we left the train to continue its journey to Dehra Dun). A rickshaw drive left me barely able to walk and contain the various contents of my digestive system simultaneously. And so I spent the next few days largely lying on my bed (Rishikesh was blessedly cool-ish. There was much less humidity, so the shade was cool anyway!). Soon enough, Melia came down with much the same sort of thing, the standard "Delhi Belly", traveller's diahorrea thing. Unlike previous times, however, this one has hung around. Still, I am continually weak, bloated, hot, tired and other symptoms which I'm sure your your imagination can fill in for you.

Rishikesh itself, however, is quite pleasant. Ashrams, trees, the surging, roaring Ganga tumbling through the middle. Apparently it's cleaner here than in Varanasi, but I still wasn't tempted to swim. In my condition, a slight breeze and a puddle could possibly do me in ;)

We had hoped to head north to the Valley of the Flowers, which is (you'll never guess) a valley with a whole load of flowers. Especially in June and July, while we were there. Given the time constraints and our conditions though, this option was forgone and instead we decided to head to Manali, breaking the trip with a series of hill station stops. This turned out to be a first class plan and the most enjoyable of our time in India (well, mine anyway). I think it was more the-way-things-worked-out than a deliberate plan, as such, but that's the way things tend to operate on Liam's Overland Tours.

From Rishikesh, then, we pushed onwards to the east, ending the first night in the old station of Nahan. Not too heavily touristed, nor as cool as many other stations, Nahan was a change of pace from the somewhat frantic, pilgrim-packed Rishikesh (not that this disturbed me on my bed, lying under the fan). Perched on a high ridge, with great views into the valleys below, green forest and farmland as far as the eye could see, this sort of place is just what I need when I'm sick. Or any time really.

Although the Nahani pace was slow, our own constraints were closing (my visa had just a few more days of validity) and Nahan could only be an overnight stop for us. From here we took the unbelievably twisty ridgetop road towards Shimla, a far more famous hill station, sitting cosy and cool at 2200m, after some difficulties actually catching a bus. I wanted to ride on the roof of the bus and managed to convince Melia to come along (against her better judgement). The first bus conductor said fine, but the next was dead against it, ordering us down. Melia, glad for an out, was gone in a flash, while I sulkily took my stuff down. The trip itself showed how right Melia and the bus boy had been, however, one of the twistiest roads I've ever been on. I'm pretty sure I would have learned how to fly had I remained on the roof. That or suffered some possibly catastrophic injuries.

Eschere-sque though the road was, the views were great and the air pleasantly cool; so cool Melia ended up pulling out her jacket at the end of the trip (it could have been fever having its wicked way with her though). Shimla looked great in the dark as we arrived, a blanket of lights strewn over hills and valleys, hinting at a shape we would never quite manage to see completely; mist and fog were constant guests here, a cool blanket in which to walk.

The cool was so pleasant that we stayed an extra day, summoning the energy to climb up to a temple on the highest point above Shimla, dedicated to Hanuman, the monkey god. And the monkeys do run rife up there. Signs suggest (in the standard broken english) holding on to your goggles. We saw why later, when, during one of our all-too-common impromptu photo shoots, we saw a sly monkey actually run up the back of some girl and grab the sunglasses off her head. The monkey was thinking two steps ahead though, not just one; what would it do with the sunglasses after all? Soon enough, a small bag of food was offered as a bribe and the sunglasses were left on the ground. Clever monkeys. Clever food salesman...

From Shimla we headed to Mandi, not a hill station unfortunately, but mid way between Shimla and Manali, more or less. Wandering the streets and seeing some of the ghats beside the rivers was a pleasant way to stretch the muscles after another ridgetop ride and eating amidst the faded glory of the Raj is worth paying a little extra for. They do make the best Lemon Soda I had in India, by the way.

From here we were off to the major western tourist drawcard of Manali. Actually we headed directly up to Vashisht, not far from Manali, which was meant to be slightly less touristed out, according to the book anyway. While hardly what one might call untouristed, or cheap, Vashisht was a good place to stay. Strangely populated almost entirely by Nepalese, there was a different feel to the place. Beautiful hot water flows into public baths in the center of town (just the thing for early morning, or relaxing in while the rain pours down). Strange music echos from the temples, huge long horns, drumming, magic. Good eating was also available, good western eating that is. With this sickness, even the thought of many foods (in particular, Indian) turned my stomach. This was somewhere we could have stayed much longer, so again we took an extra day here, knowing that we had to take it out of somewhere else.

We left Manali with just three days left on my visa, ready for a swift stopover in Dharmsala and McLeod Ganj, home of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. An interesting trip it was, as well. Informed that we would arrive around half past five, I'd convinced Melia that we should pay for the sleeper. Sleepers and the kind of roads they have up there don't make the best of companions, however, and when we were dropped off at three in the morning (What? Early? In India? No!), in a place almost deviod of life and clearly not a bus station I'd had something near five minutes sleep at most. After some confusion and argument, the bus driver confessed that this wasn't Dharmsala, but the bypass 19km away, and that a taxi would be required. Further displays of anger on my part (really, I think it's just the easiest way to get things done in India sometimes) brought forward the suggestion that he pay for the taxi, to which we assented.

So we ended up at the Dharmsala bus stand, waiting for the shared jeeps to start running. While the concrete floor was less than ideal, with a woolen rug I managed to get more sleep here than I had on the sleeper bus anyway. Eventually we dragged ourselves up, amidst the growing noise of buses and many curious stares and found ourselves a jeep up the last ten km to McLeod Ganj, which hangs on the hills even further up than Dharmsala.

It turned out that the Dali Lama was teaching that day, which seemed like something worth attending. While we wouldn't be able to get inside the compound, an English translation was to be broadcast simultaneously over FM radio, and receivers could be purchased around town. Furthermore, a review would be done later on in the afternoon, also in English. Unfortunately the appeal of this had to compete with the appeal of sleep. And sleep is a powerful beast, particularly for those whose sickness inflicts a general, perpetual fatigue on them. I thought I'd leave it to chance; I'm closing my eyes now, and if I wake up in time, so be it. If not... Well, I'll have had more sleep, won't I?

More sleep it was.

After a night of rest and tasty food at an Italian restaurant we were again on the road, descending back to the dreaded heat of the plains. Eight hours later, dusty, hot and exhausted by hours of sitting on Indian busses, we arrived in Amritsar. Some negotiation, a rickshaw ride and some loud argument saw us back to the Golden Temple of the Sikhs, where accomodation and food is available for pilgrims, and additional accomodation is held aside for us foreigners. It's strange the way these things work; on the one hand they apply tourist pricing everywhere, officially and un-, on the other you get reserved quotas for you on trains and sometimes special accommodation. On balance, I still think we're getting the worse side of the bargain. At least in Pakistan we get 25, off all train tickets. Although they wrap it up in so much bureaucracy that one normally can't be bothered to acquire the discount.

The Golden Temple is an impressive, if gaudy, sight. I'm sure it's only religious buildings that somehow get to pull off this sort of thing; anywhere else it would obviously be tasteless, but throughout the world, excessive displays of gold, gems and hideous lighting get the thumbs up because of religious significance. Madness. Anyhow, somehow it does contrive to look pretty damn good. A tour around the central pool, the standard photo shoots, an extremely long winded (if generously given) exaplanation of the temple and possibly all other things Sikh as well; a fine way to pass the evening.

So that, for me, was India. I would like to have had more time there, certainly we would have gone up north to Ladakh, Leh, Srinagar (although I just saw photos of rioters fighting with police in Srinagar), which I hear is beautiful. Were I there at the right time of year, perhaps I could be tempted down south to the tourist Mecca of Goa. And the towns of Rajasthan are meant to be well worth a look. What I saw was fine, but all in all, I prefer Pakistan. I just hope this country doesn't fall apart before we leave it.

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