Heide and Mark : November 14, 2004

The bus ride from Kajaharo to Varanasi was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Not only because it was intermniably slow, though it was, taking as it did from long before dawn until about 9 p.m. that night; but it was also physically painful. We should, apparently, have been on a deluxe, express bus, but if we were I honestly lament the state of the bus service. It was desperate. Desperately slow, desperately inadequate on the toilet or tea break front and desperately uncomfortable. We were sat on a bench, that some warped joker had described as a seat for 17 hours. Not so bad I hear you yell, but wait! This was no ordinary "seat". Oh no. This was in fact a particularly nasty torture implement that had been conjured up in a moment of visionary genius by the most evil, fiendish, nefarious son of Beelzbub ever to have dreamt up ways to inflict misery. At each and every bump in the road, and they are truly legion, the seat would rocket forward at an amazing velocity, given the actual speed of the bus, so that you would colide, knee first with the iron clad "seat" in front. After a few hours our patellas had swollen to the size of bloated grapefruit and were coloured a hideous mauve as the bruising spread like a virulent plague up and down our legs.This could I suppose be bad enough to colour our view of the travel day but it was simply the prelude for the real pain that our jouirney was to inflict. In short the journey was a pain in the ass. Literally. The bench we were atop had thousands of sharp daggers buried within their structure. At irregular, though frighteningly frequent intervals these would shoot upwards and inflict great harm. I kid you not when I say that King Edward II of England, who until our journey, was widely regarded as having had the worst recorded backside misadventure in history (legend goes that he was bumped off by having a red hot poker shoved up his anus) would have had pity upon our plight. His screams were apparently heard by villagers many miles away but his discomfort, unlike ours, did not last for 17 hours!

When eventually we reached Varanasi repleat with painful parts: sore backsides, busted knees, swollen bladders and empty tums we staggered (clearly walking was ot an option in our conditions) toour hotel. Nothing a good night of sleep wouldn't put right. Apparently. We'd never find out if slumber would cure all our ills as it was the first night of the popluar Hindu feast of Diwali. It seems that the priamry, non spiritual aspect, of this feast is to explode gigantic home made bombs. Dangerous and very, very noisy. Sleep was something for others.

During our stay in what is considered a highly important place in the Hindu world we watched the world go by on and around the River Ganges. The Ganges is one of the holy rivers of the local religion and is the life blood of the town. For miles the crowded banks are thronged with worshippers, bathers (though given the brutally polluted state of the water this bathing may in fact be a form of suicide through corrosion) and funeral parties. We are told that it is highly auspicious to die while in Varansi as the cycle of life can broken if you die, are cremated and have your ashes sprinkled in the river. We're unsure if those who were dunking themseves in the "water" and were consequently chemically disolved, so skipped the cremation aspect won their freedom for life's cycle.

It's certainly a very interesting town and gives a glimpse of a way of life throughly different from our own. There have been westerners coming here for one reason or another for many, many years. It seemed that most occidentals around town arrived here in about 1962, dropped out and forgot to check back in. It's the first place in India where we've witnessed aging hippies in any great number. I find them quite fascinating, albeit a wee bit sad. Sure, it's entirely their perogative to come here and stay here for how ever long they like, but you do have to wonder why? It's not as if the town is upto much and I for one didn't feel much in the way of mysticism or spirituality around and about. Similarly there are hundreds of visitors who have adopted the local garb. Seems a bit desperate to me, but then perhaps I'm just a cynic who lacks the cultural sensitivity of the other visitors. Ahh well, all part of lifes rich tappestry I suppose.

On the plus side we quite like fireworks (even those that contain a few pounds of semtex) our hotel room is good, the food isn't bad and miracle of, miracles, we've managed to book a series of three train tickets, in just two aftrenoons so that we may continue our travels around India!