Pondicherry - French Connection?

My dear English speaking readers, since this post is about Pondicherry, the former French India colony, I am going to write this post in French (Google translate should help to have a feel of what I am talking about).  My French speaking readers, enjoy this one, this will be the only one in my mother tongue…

Je vous ai laisses la dernière fois alors que j’arrivais a Pondicherry, fleuron de l’empire colonial français en Inde (ou bastion, sachant que le reste du pays était occupé par les anglais, les portugais, les néerlandais, les danois, …). Apparemment, la France ne ‘est jamais vraiment intéressée a l’Inde, préférant piller les ressources naturelles de l’Afrique et de l’Asie du Sud-Est.

Donc, je suis arrivé à Pondicherry (Pondy pour les intimes) sous la pluie et cela a été a peu près l’histoire de mon séjour pendant les deux premiers jours que j’ai passes sur place. Le Tamil Nadu est en effet en pleine période de mousson (bravo Matthias pour le timing…) et j’ai pu voir ce que c’était : en gros, il pleut de manière extrêmement abondante pendant 12 heures d’affilée, a tel point que je n’ai pas pu sortir de mon hôtel – avec environ 30 cm d’eau dans les rues, ca ne rend pas les promenades très agréables malgré mon K-way et mon pantalon imperméable (les deux meilleurs achats que j’aie fait avant de partir…). Du coup, il est vrai que je me suis emmerde royalement pendant deux jours, profitant de courtes accalmies pour aller manger ou consulter mes emails. Heureusement, le temps du troisième jour s’est avéré bien meilleur, et j’ai pu profiter des lieux.

Pondy, c’est tout d’abord deux villes en une : la partie française, a l’Est et au bord de la mer, et la partie indienne, a l’Ouest, séparées par un canal (ou plutôt un égout ouvert… et qui déborde lorsqu’il pleut trop !). La partie française a effectivement garde des aspects très… français : noms de rues, panneaux, nombreux restaurants a noms et menus francisants, institut, consulat et lycée français, boutiques et touristes français Bobo/ 68ars sur le retour et une architecture coloniale que l’on retrouve dans les DOM TOM.  Le front de mer est borde d’une promenade assez sympa, bien que très bétonnées, et surtout sans plage.  En effet, s’il y a bien une mince bande de sable marron, elle est séparée de la mer par des récifs, ce qui rend la baignade très dangereuse (d’un autre cote, il ne manquerait plus que des colonies de français se faisant rôtir sur la plage…). Vous l’aurez compris, Pondy est un peu trop française pour moi, du moins pour tout ce que je n’aime pas de la France… et en plus, tout est extrêmement cher !

La partie indienne n’a, elle, rien de particulier : une ville indienne comme une autre : sale, polluée, bruyante, bref, rien de bien intéressant. Bon, je l’admets, le temps plus qu’exécrable a surement flouté mon jugement. J’ai quand même vu quelques choses assez intéressantes. D’abord, les églises : Tamil Nadu a effet une forte population catholique. Les missionnaires français ont bien fait leur boulot et ont même réussi à faire construire des églises énormes et pour le moins colorées… Je ne sais pas s’ils étaient un peu mégalomanes, s’ils voulaient être surs de faire passer le message de la beauté de la chrétienté, ou s’ils ont simplement réalisé qu’en faisant les choses « a l’indienne », ils auraient plus de succès, mais le résultat est assez drôle, avec des églises peintes de toutes les couleurs et décorées des mêmes lumières que nous mettons dans les rues pour Noel !

Le troisieme jour, le temps m’a permis de louer un scooter pour aller explorer les alentours. J’ai donc pu me rendre sur une jolie plage proche, à cote d’un village de pécheurs, et ou les pécheurs en question réparaient leurs filets près de leurs barques peintes de toutes les couleurs : plutôt sympa. J’ai aussi pu aller visiter une communauté spirituelle fondée dans les années 60 appelée Auroville. Cette communauté s’appuie sur les préceptes d’un penseur (gourou ?) indien appelé Sri Aurobindo, et d’une française qui a pris sa suite après sa mort : la Mère (elle-même décédée dans les années 70). 1800 personnes vivent à l’année à Auroville et participent à des projets censés aider la communauté. En gros, c’est un peu une secte (mais ils disent bien qu’ils n’ont pas de religion) qui essaie de faire de l’argent en s’appuyant sur un artisanat new age et veut véhiculer un message de paix et d’amour. Le clou du spectacle est quand même le monument qu’ils appellent le Matrimandir (sans doute en rapport avec la Mère…) : une énorme balle de golf dorée censée représenter le centre de l’univers et qui contient le plus gros crystal taillé du monde. L’endroit est censée très propice a la méditation, le seul problème est que pour y entrer, il faut faire partie de la communauté depuis 2 ans. Il leur a quand même fallu plus de 35 ans pour finir ce « splendide » monument. Une remarque : construire un temple en forme de boule a facette géante paraissait surement une bonne idée pour des mecs (architectes ?) charges au LSD dans les années 70, mais en 2011, un jeudi après-midi et à jeun, ca ne le fait vraiment pas… Enfin, si ca rend des gens heureux ! En tout cas, je m’attendais presque à voir le gourou Skipy sortir du Matrimandir et vendre des médailles protectrices pour €200… En tout cas, ca m’a bien fait rire !

Ceci conclut mon post en français. J’espère que ca vous a plu. Prochaine étape : poursuite de la visite du Tamil Nadu, avec les villes de Trichy, Tanjore et Madurai, abritant des temples, parait-il, incroyables.

A bientôt,

Matt

Et maintenant, les photos (si certaines sont sombres, c'est parce que c'etait le seul moment de la journee ou j'ai pu sortir...):

Les noms de rues du quartier francais: oui, ils ont voulu avoir la French Touch

Le rue de mon hotel

Le front de mer: remarquez la presence des acteurs d'Alerte a Malibu (a gauche, avec les shorts rouges...)

Une eglise toute rose...

La statue au milieu des lumieres de fete foraine est bien celle de la Vierge Marie...

Les egouts a ciel ouvert. Pas sur de qui a eu l'idee: les francais ou les indiens...

La plage avec les barques de pecheurs

Une autre barque

J'ai presque hesite a passer la nuit dans cette paillotte... mais pas sur que ca aurait ete au sec...

La balle de golf parait un peu grosse pour entrer dans le trou (drapeau devant...) - Le Matrimandir

Oui, a Auroville, ils ont meme ose appeler le parc "Jardin d'Eden" - craquage...

Kolkata, Chennai

Since I have not much to say about these two cities, I will start with some information about the food I have been eating so far (this is dedicated to Seb, who has been asking for this for a while).  First of all, I do not really make any difference between what Indians eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It all looks (and tastes) the same: yellow (and sometimes a bit of green). Most of the food is either pan-fried, dip fried or floating in some oily sauce. That said, food is not bad here. Initially, I was being very conservative with food, sticking to the veggie stuff as I was worried about the hygiene standards with regards to meat. In addition, the few meat dishes that I got in restaurants (mainly trying to get my usual chicken tikka or lamb biriyani curries) were not great: the meat was mainly the bad part of the chicken or “mutton” (actually it is goat…) and I would end up having more bones to suck than actual meat.

The basis of Indian food is called thali. It is a plate with various small dishes, giving a good sample of local cuisine: some steamed rice, usually some dal (a soup of lentils, more or less thick depending on where you are in India), usually some paneer (local cheese) with a spinach or tomato sauce, some potatoes masala (masala meaning a mix of spices and being used almost for anything), and some chapatti (sort of pita bread). Some regions, such as Bengal, serve slightly different types of thalis (with a bit of meat or fish), but this is mainly what you find in them. In Darjeeling, being close to Nepal and Tibet, they also serve beef (yes, cows are sacred animals everywhere else and Indians do not eat them) and make all sorts of dumplings and noodles close to what you would find in a Chinese restaurant. In Kolkata, I also had a massive prawn with spicy sauce: it was so massive that it could probably speak lobster (I owe this joke to Lonely Planet). All this is often eaten with your hands (at least in normal Indian food places). The main drink here is tea. In Darjeeling, they drink black tea (to keep the actual flavour of tea), but in the rest of India, it is masala chai (a tea directly brewed in milk and water, and drank with a lot (a lot!) of sugar). As for the deserts, I am simply not a big fan of Indian sweets: they usually are too sweet and not to my taste, so I will simply not describe what these are. The only sweet I actually like is lassi: a kind of curd mixed with ice and fruits (banana, lemon…). 

Obviously, due to the large number of western tourists coming to India, most places have adapted and serve various types of western food: veggie pizzas, pastas, sandwiches and burgers. Breakfasts are also westernised and it is easy to find pancakes, toasts and omelettes. I also had a McDonald's back in Varanasi. Interestingly enough, whilst there were no beef bugers (surprising...), the McMaharaja burger tasted exactly like a BigMac... despite the fact that it was chicken! I suppose you don't go McD's for the taste of the meat... Finally, with regards to booze, most places do not have the licence to serve beer or liquor. However, as for everything in India, the rules are not really followed and most places do serve beer (the local Kingfisher, at 4% or 8%).

All in all, I manage to find some good food and I have not been sick so far, but would be ready to pay a lot of money for a good baguette with Camembert and red wine (or a good hamburger with bacon and cheese, or a steak with fries, or… hum).  I will probably be riced up by the end of this trip as well…

Done with the food, let’s talk about the latest places I have been to. I left Darjeeling and flew directly (well, after a 3-hour downhill ride in jeep to the airport…) to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta, but it seems India wanted to get rid of some of the English empire legacy by changing the names of the cities). Kolkata is what I expected Delhi to be. It is the former capital of the British Indian Empire and it certainly shows the remains of a former colonial city (old colonial buildings, wide avenues, large park…). As everything in India, it could be much better and more beautiful if they took care of their legacy, but as everything in India, people do not really seem to care… Anyway, some of the buildings would not be out of place in London or in the U.S. Finally, Kolkata has one of the most beautiful buildings in India: the Victoria Memorial (dedicated to queen Victoria of England, which is ironic!). This old colonial architecture contrasts with a lot of modern buildings everywhere throughout the city, and in particular the massive luxury shopping malls which would give Westfield a run for its money. Having been to one of these malls, it was funny to notice that the shop salespeople behaved the same way in a Levi’s or Samsonite store as they do in a street bazaar: they follow you everywhere in the shop and start pulling everything they have out to desperately try to sell you something!

 

My guest house was not in the backpackers’ area. I could not be asked to spend another night in one of those shit holes full of bedbugs so I opted for a place in a middle class Indian area. Not many tourists there, but still a lot of contrast with poor people and kids sleeping in the street next to the houses of (relatively) well-off ones.

After Kolkata, I decided to take another shortcut and fly to Chennai, in Tamil Nadu. Chennai is another of these former colonial places which have changed of name: it used to be called Madras. Nothing much else to say about that place. I stayed there less than 24 hours as it was not a very interesting place: only a typical big Indian city, except this time, there was not much sightseeing to be done. I took a bus heading South for what I thought would be Mamallapuram: in my book, when the sign on the bus says “Pondy via Mamallapuram”, it means that it goes to Pondy (Puducherry or formerly Pondicherry) but stops in Mamallapuram on the way. Well, in India, it just means that it goes through that place without stopping!And my next question is: who gives a shit, then?

Therefore, I ended up going straight to Pondy (which was on my list, fortunately enough!). I’ll see Mamallapuram another time… I will tell you about the French-Indian colonial empire capital’s splendours next time.

In the meantime, take care.

Matt

Some pictures:

 Yellow cabs? Is this NY? No, this is Kolkata

 Kolkata street view

Another example of the remains of the colonial architecture 

This building seemed to be totally abandoned, which is a shame...

The Victoria Memorial 

You cannot see it from here, but the statue of Queen Victoria is covered with bird shit... I suppose the Indians do not like cleaning this symbol of a monarchy they struggled against...

This is it (each time I see one of these golden statues, I cannot help but think of MJ ;-))

The BIG Trek in the Himalaya

Before telling you the story of how I survived to one of the greatest adventures of mankind, I have an anecdote to tell. So far, I have dodged the French people I came across (except the girls, of course...) because: 1) I am not coming to India to be with a bunch a French people; 2) they tend to move in pack; 3) they tend to be impolite when foreign people are around and still speak French; 4) they are really loud (all this could also apply to the Israelis... this one is for UZ ;-)). Anyway, when you are a lone traveler, you sometimes have no choice (beggars can't be choosers...) and tend to jump on anyone that's around in bars and restaurants (which you would probably not do in Europe) if you don't want to end up being by yourself all the time. Last night I was in that bar in Darjeeling having a beer when I heard these two girls speak in French. I walk to their table and ask politely if they mind if I join them. They both gauge me with a bored look before telling me to fuck off, which never happened to me so far. Now, I can understand if they did not want to be annoyed by my conversation, but they could have been a bit nicer and I would have understood. Well, I suppose this their loss. I ended up spending the evening with a group of American women, one of whom was a roller derby player, which I found pretty cool! In any case, I am definitely continuing to enforce my "no French" policy until further notice...

Now, place to the action: I was picked up at 8.00am, along with two German girls (Kathryn and Steffi) and our guide (Robin), for a 1h30 jeep ride to Manay Bhanjang, I started the trek with 2 km of uphill walk which proved to be rather exhausting, and it is all sweaty that I arrived to the first tea shop of the day. The rest of the day was much easier, except that we were walking in the middle of the clouds, which resulted in either a thick mist making us unable to see more than 10 meters in front of us, or rain making the walk a bit more difficult and annoying. Fortunately enough, I had brought with me my music festival attire, my waterproof trousers and jacket (I knew they would prove useful at some point!), and I was not too wet when we arrived at the lodge we would spend the night in. Along the way, we met a Canadian couple (Sumit and Sarah) and their guide and they pretty much trekked with us for the four days. The lodges we stayed at every night were all comfortable and the food delicious (and most welcome...). The first evening, I heard of a locally brewed "beer" and could not help but ordering one. It was actually millet beer, a sort of 25% alcohol liquor made of fermented millet grains. Not very good but it had to be tested...

The second day was another misty day, with over 20 km of uphill walk, and I started wondering if I would ever see those mountains. We reached our lodge in the evening at the highest point of the trek, Sandakphu at 3,636 meters, where you start feeling the lack of oxygen and the cold. However, all those efforts were not in vain as we woke up early the next morning to see clear skies and sunrise over the Kanchenjunga an the Everest (which I did not realize was that close...). I must say it is amazing. Then the last two days were some downhill walk (actually a much harder effort than going uphill) with a sunny weather and some pretty scenic views. All in all, I really enjoyed that trek and will definitely go for another one (probably a harder one as well as this one was very easy... even though I was knackered by the end of it!). 

Tomorrow, I am flying to Kolkata, and will stay there for a couple of days before flying (I can't be asked to train and bus again for long journeys) South to Chennai, Tamil Nadu. This should be very different from what I have seen so far and above all, I am going to be next to the sea. 

Take care,

Matt

The usual pics:

 The Ingalls family lives in Himalaya now

The millet beer: I loved the glass and the bamboo straw... 

We crossed the Nepal border and even spent a night there

A stupa: they contain Buddhist relics and you are supposed to walk on their left. There were many along the road

 Mt. Kanchenjunga

Mt. Everest: this is the third one from the right. I promise, next time I get on top!

 The King of Himalaya (between his guide and Mt. Everest)

I was half expecting this bridge to break when I was halfway and to have to run to the other side like in Indiana Jones, but that did not happen...

There were waterfalls on the way down 

Me before my morning shower

Darjeeling

In my last days in Varanasi, I made two interesting encounters. First, I met this German guy who really wanted to go and bathe in the Ganges. He was the type of guy totally embracing the local culture, dressing with large pants and locally made colorful shirt, wearing the red pigment dot on the forehead and willing to go for any aspect of the Varanasi "experience". He thought that nothing bad could really happen by bathing in the river (well...). The next day, I saw him again and he was so happy because he had done it! He said he tried to swim and completely went under water, until he was hit by pieces of shit carried by the stream. He also said he could not eat for the rest of the day and took four showers to try to get rid of the smell. Other than that, he seemed fine. I am not sure  on what account I need to put that: courage? craziness? being German ;-)?, but I must say I bow to the guy as I would have never been able to do what he did.

Second interesting person I met was Surendar, an Indian guy from Tamil Nadu (South India), filming a documentary about Hindu holy places. On top of being a very cool guy with whom I spent a few evenings chatting and getting drunk, the mot interesting part of his story is that despite being Indian, people from Tamil Nadu do not really speak Hindi (their official language is Tamil and is completely different). As a result, in Northern India, he was being treated as a foreigner and even a tourist, being ripped off on any opportunity. I did not realize the extent of the cultural differences across India, but I suppose it makes sense on such a big country.

My exit out of Varanasi was as difficult as my way in had been: first, my train to Darjeeling was delayed by 15 hours, which meant that I had to spend another night in town. When I got back to the train station, the delay had changed to more than 20 hours. Therefore, I waited another seven hours in the train station before finally leaving. When I finally arrived in New Jailpaguri (the nearest major train station to Darjeeling), it was with a delay of 24 hours from what I had initially scheduled. My journey continued with another 3 hours jeep ride on mountain roads that need serious refurbishment and with tires that should have been changed years ago by the look of their surface... It is with happiness that I found a clean and well maintained guest house to spend the next few days. 

Darjeeling is referred to as the "Queen of the Hills". Well, geography experts might disagree, but in my book, when the "Hills" are over 2,100 m high, we call them mountains. The town is located at the foot of the Himalaya and when the sky is clear, you can see the Mt. Kanchenjunga (third highest mountain on Earth after the Everest and K2) overlooking the landscape. The place is nothing like what I have seen so far in India: it is much cleaner and quieter, there are no touts, very few beggars, no underfed mongrels fighting at every corner, no cows (and their shits laying everywhere) and no rickshaws honking every second and clogging the traffic. This is a nice parenthesis from the rest of the country (and a much needed one!). Darjeeling is famous for its tea, and you can see some tea fields all over the hills on the way up. The town is linked to the valley by a "toy train": an old steam-powered train that is still working, but takes eight hours to make the journey (instead of three ours by jeep). I only took it for a short ride to the next town, and could take some nice pictures of it in action. They also have a zoo with lots of the local animals (tigers, snow leopards, black leopards and Himalayan bears) and a mountaineering institute where they train people for the climb of the highest mountains of the nearby Himalaya. A very interesting exhibition shows there the history of the various attempts to climb the Everest. Lots of people here are from Nepalese descent (they are called the Gurkhas and militate strongly for some sort of independence) and there is also a large Tibetan refugee community living in the area. In addition, the dominating religion here is Buddhism, with lots of pagodas and gompas (temples) to visit.

The long travel with that unbearable AC (damn, I really hate this stuff and the man that invented it should be hung with his own bowels...), the lack of sleep and decent food and most of all, the altitude took their toll on me and I was a bit sick for the first few days I spent here. Nothing major though and I am now back on track for new adventures. I am leaving tomorrow on a four-day trek in the region, to try to see this Mt. Kanchenjunga a bit better, as the sky is overcast here and does not allow good views these days. Now, those of you who have known me for a while know that this is not something I would do normally. Well, there not much I would have normally done since the beginning of this trip... and don't worry, this is an easy one (I know I cannot erase years of not doing much exercise and spending too much time boozing in that little time!).

Take care,

Matt

 The Queen of the Hills

You can see the Kanchenjunga in between the clouds, in the middle of the picture... my camera is probably not made or that type of picture 

Those monkeys are everywhere... and they can be nasty: one tried to attack me in Varanasi 

Someone does not seem to trust his vehicle...or the roads!

I probably won't get any closer than this in the nature when I go and try to spot them... 220 kg of muscle, teeth and claws! 

A big pagoda 

Some young monks playing marbles in a monastery 

Old ladies turning the bells in the pagoda 

Another young monk, before going to class 

The Toy Train from the back, still working with the old machinery

The Toy Train in action

Varanasi

As Isaac (a Spanish guy I met in Pushkar) said, India is like Liverpool because “You’ll never walk alone”.  This is very true as there is always some Indian to come and talk to you whenever you walk in the streets, alleyways and other sights of Indian cities. They often try to sell you something or to make you part with some of your money in one way or another, but they also really like to come and talk to Westerners and us which country we are coming from, how many girlfriends (they all seem to have many European “girlfriends”…) we have and tell us the few words they know in our respective languages. This can be exhausting at times, but I suppose it is also part of what makes Indian people so friendly.

My bus journey from Pushkar to Varanasi was what we can call epic. After being taken from one bus stand to the other and spending a couple of hours trying to find which bus was the one I had booked my seat in (this is always a challenge in India and you have to ask a dozen people who enigmatically bob their head sideways before you actually find where it is), me and my travel mates ended up in a bus towards Agra for what was meant to be a 12 hours overnight journey. This was before something unreal happened: two hours into the trip (at around midnight), as we were cruising through some small town, I heard a huge noise and the bus bumped for a few seconds before stopping completely. Everyone came off to see what had happened: the right hand side rear wheel had come off of its gear and the bus had collapsed on it… We were lucky this did not happen in a mountain road, or this would have been bad news for all the passengers. Then, rather than having another bus come and pick everyone up to finish the journey, the driver decided to repair the bus! A process that took five hours… When we were finally able to move again, we rode for another hour before stopping on a parking lot and changing buses to continue our journey, but making a long hook through Jaipur to reach Agra. We stopped in Agra for a couple of hours, enough time to have a quick shower and dinner, before heading to another bus stand and trying to pursue our journey to Varanasi. We climbed in one of the buses heading in the correct direction (one of the small, local buses, where you are packed up with too many people, where the temperature is over 40 degrees and where you don’t know where to put your legs), before realising five minutes after the bus had left the stand that it was the wrong bus and that we needed to stop and go back very quickly to the stand if we wanted to have a chance to catch the correct one… We ended up making it on time to a big AC bus, which made the 16 remaining hours to Varanasi a lot more comfortable.  This was not the end of the adventure though. It took us another couple of hours to find a place to stay as the rickshaw driver that drove us from the bus stand tried to take us to half a dozen guest houses where he could get commissions, before dropping us in the middle of the old city and letting find a place by ourselves. Altogether, this was a 48 hours journey when it should have taken us half that amount of time… but it was a priceless experience!

Varanasi (a.k.a. Benares) is one of these very intense big Indian cities, buzzing with traffic 24/7. The fact that we arrived at the end of a 9-day festival did not help making it quieter as many people came from all across India to celebrate. The city is also the holiest city in the Hindu world: it is built on the shore of the Ganges and many Hindu come here to bath and drink water in the holy river to wash their sins away. This is something that would seem impossible for the vast majority of Westerners since the Ganges is polluted to the extreme: it is meant to contain more thousands of times more faecal bacteria per unit than what is actually safe for a person to bathe in, not to mention drinking it… You can see dead animals (dogs, cows…) and corpses (I did not see any, but some people I met did) floating and the colour of the water is of that greenish brown that can be seen in the toilets after a bad case of diarrhea…

Varanasi is also the place where lots of Hindu people come to die and be cremated on concrete platforms called Ghats, next to the river. When you visit those burning Ghats, you can get a grasp of how Hindu people deal with death. Lots of old people are waiting there for death to come. When this happens, they are wrapped up in colourful fabrics and flowers and carried around the city’s alleyways on bamboo stretches, to finally be taken to the river for one last cleaning. Finally, they are put on massive wooden pyres to be cremated: a process that lasts more than 3 hours. We visited the Ghats, which are ran 24/7 and where between 150 and 200 bodies are burnt every day. We could see corpses in the middle of the pyres, which was both an impressive and emotional sight. 

On a lighter note, we went to see a Bollywood movie at a local cinema. It was one of the most enjoyable times I had in a cinema. The film was a B action movie named “Force”, full of clichés and stereotypes (drug cartels led from Afghanistan and supplying the Western tourists in Goa, main character being the local Sylvester Stallone and showing his biceps every five seconds…) and, of course, packed with action (probably one person dying or being beaten the crap out of every 2 minutes). Love scenes are also replaced by dance scenes. Even though we did not understand the dialogues (they are phasing in English words and sentences in order to expand to foreign countries in the future, but most of the film is in Hindi), it was very easy to understand what happened. The Indians that were there kept on answering their phone during the movie, putting it on speaker in order to be able to hear it and that did not seem to bother anyone. They also kept on cheering and screaming when a good scene happened (they particularly seemed to like the slow motion scene of the main character walking towards the bad guy for his last fight…). Finally, everyone left before the end of the film, as soon as the bad guy was killed, not waiting for the conclusion and the end credits. I had a great time and definitely want to see another one before I leave India. There is a big production called Ra-One that is coming up. I have been told it is science fiction movie with the biggest Indian movie star and it should be mental!

As I mentioned before, the past couple of days have been the end of nine days of celebration in Varanasi. This meant that every night, the streets of the city were lighted as much as we do for Christmas in Europe, and various places were transformed in shrines, where colourful statues were displayed and worshiped by Hindu people. This is also the pretext for big parties throughout the city, with Hindi techno music booming all over the place (it is a mix between fast beat techno music and traditional Indian music which is quite cool). We all went to a fun fair that was there and went into a few rides which, had they been in Europe, would have felt very boring (the type of stuff you do when you are under 10 years old and find mildly scary at that age…), but were actually quite thrilling here as the rides are all kind of rusty, there are no security rules and fell like they could break down any second, making thousands of casualties. Needless to say we had a great time! 

Finally, I had an initiation to Yoga. I must say that I always thought that Yoga was not for me and that I could never cope with it, but I actually loved it… or at least the sort of satisfaction I felt after doing it the first time for an hour. I just did it as my friends were going for it and was very sceptical about it, but realised I was more flexible than I thought I was (but I am still starting from a very low point). I suppose I felt good because of the hyperventilation stage that you get to as you breathe deeply for a long time, but I still enjoyed it and have been attending a morning class in the last three days. I might even try to continue doing it from time to time whilst I am here (until I get bored of it), as if there is a place in the world to do Yoga, it is probably India.

It is now time for me to move on. In about 24 hours, I am going to part ways with my travel mates of the last couple of weeks. We are all heading North for some Himalayan flavour, but in different places (Darjeeling for me, Nepal and the North West of India for the others). This country is so intense that in a short amount of time, you get to a level of friendship that you would not reach that fast in a normal context, and suddenly, you have to part ways and might never see one another ever again (a bit like when you are in summer camp when you are a kid, as my friend Polly said). I am sure I will meet other cool people though, and that makes it exciting.

Matt 

Few pictures, as usual:

Picture of the bus after it broke down (look at the rear wheel) 

View of the Ghats in Varanasi (it is forbidden to take pictures of the pyres) 

People bathing in the Ganges 

Sunrise on the Ganges

 

Street of Varanasi during the festival

Jaisalmer, Pushkar (Part. II)

I ended up in Jaisalmer, a city in the desert, with another big fort and my travel mates and I decided to stay in a guest house that has a swimming pool, which seemed quite nice in the first place, except that the pool was not up to Western standards in terms of cleanliness. Jaisalmer resulted nevertheless in being a good place and we ended up going to a two days came safari in the desert, including a night of sleep in the dunes. One of the organisers was such a good salesman that he managed to convince us to sign up for what would an “off the beaten tracks” experience. The desert resulted in being nothing like we imagined it (it seems like it’s a recurring theme in India…) as it was not a sandy desert like the Sahara, but more of a huge empty area, covered by hundreds of wind farms and with a lot trees and bushes. The two days still ended up being great as we were a good group of 10 people and the camel riders showed a very good time. Camel riding is a very painful activity though, as the way they move results in a constant imbalance of the rider…

The night in the Desert was just amazing. We stopped at one of the only sandy areas with few dunes, camped by a fire, and slept under the stars, with the clearest sky I have seen in my life. You could see the Milky Way and lots of shooting stars. I did not sleep much but this was a cool night.

Due to this exhausting experience, Dara, Polly and I needed some rest and decided to go to Pushkar (that chilled out town with a lake I had visited a couple of weeks ago). We rented some bikes and scooter to go and see the country side and I have to say that it is a different experience of India to be able to go around by yourself. I am now heading towards Varanasi, where I should meet again with an English guy named Mark that we’ve met in Jaisalmer.

To be continued…

 The Son of the Desert (in the middle...)

 Some funny dude in Jaisalmer

You gotta love camels... 

The Dunes (picture taken from the correct angle in order to leave the green part out of the frame...)