Incredible India on less that 500 rupees a day -$18.NZ

Accommodation: Price range
1. Free( road/ street side, rickshaw seat or wooden bed /table attached to street stall)
2. Budget ;80-200 rupees , shared bathroom or wash under water pumps on streets or in a nearby river ( not the Ganges if you want to return home alive )

Breakfast .
Dosa- ( Yummy) 50 rupees

Tea / coffee- 20-60 rupees
Omelet , toast tea- 80-120 rupees Bottled mineral water – 1 lire 12-20 rupees
Free drinking water at specified places –NOT water pumps on road side ( strictly body or clothes washing only !)

Lunch:
Thali- fantastic food - 55-120 rupees

Egg or chicken roll -12-40 rupees! ( very tasty!)

Dinner ( if you are still hungry)
Thali again or Dosa, Biryani or any veg curry, with roti or naan- 40-100 rupees

Transport
1. Walk- risky to your health
2. Bicycle rickshaw- 10-60 rupees up to about 3 kms

3. Auto rickshaw – 6-5 rupees / km + tip in Delhi, e.g 25 kms /3-4 hours =200 rupees ( includes tips and wait time).

Cheaper rates in smaller places.
4. The train experience( bet you cant wait! ) –S3 class , 300 rupees for up to 600 kms.

Entertainment
Nil alcohol to be found.
Dancing in the streets during festivals .
Listening to the chanting and drums
People watching and the listening to the colourful stories you hear whilst interacting with the locals .
Surviving day to day and seeing the positive in your experiences
Kite flying
Cricket everywhere- down small alleyways and local the parks.
Gambling ( not recommended can be addictive )

Laundry
Wear clothes for 2-3 days and then wash by road side from the water pumps or in bucket in hotel/hostel room.



Communicating with home:
5 rupees / international text - doesn’t always get through 1 rupee for local calls and texts. 20-30 rupees/ hour for Internet if you have pages of documentation and a passport, or a relative in India to can verify you exist and are not a terrorist.( later is to purchase a SIM card for mobile or Data stick for mobile Internet )

Agra Fort

This is one of the finest Mughal forts in India on the banks of the Yamuna river. It was originally begun by Emperor Akbar in 1565 and further additions were made by his grandson Shah Jahan. The red sandstone fort was originally a military structure , draw bridge with a crocodile infested moat , and double walls over 20 metres in height and 2.5 kms in circumference.

It is a maze of buildings inside and a city within a city including underground sections and a mosque . Later Shah turned it into a Palace and eventually it became his prison ! Many of the original buildings have been destroyed over the years, and artefacts stolen or destroyed –eg the famous Peacock Throne.

At one time the British also used the fort as a garrison.

It is a very impressive site .

A Monument to Love! The Taj Mahal

A monument to one woman for her acts of service to her husband :The Taj Mahal

The Taj was built by Shah Jahan as a memorial for his second wife , Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14^th child in 1631. It is reported that the death left the emperor so heartbroken that his hair turned grey over night.( kids do that to you too! )

Construction began in the same year and over 20,000 people from India and central Asia worked on the main building for 8 years but the whole complex was not completed until 1653. There are exquisite marble screens and marble inlay work ( pietra dura) made with semi precious stones into the building surrounding the two tombs- Shah and Mumtaz. Basically this is one of the most expensive ostentatious mausoleums in the world .

As families go this family had slightly more strife than most, and the Shah was over thrown by his son and imprisoned in Agra Fort not long after it was finished. From here the Shah could only gaze at the Taj from through a window until his death in 1666. ( thats kids for you, give them the shirt of your back and they want more!)

The Taj is one of the 7 manmade wonders of the world and was designated a World Heritage Site in 1983. It has recently undergone huge restoration due to the exterior being damaged by the pollution from vehicles . Now only non polluting vehicles are allowed within a few hundred metres .

I find that last piece of information interesting as you cant even get a few hundred metres of the Taj in a vehicle anyway although some Auto Rickshaws are now CNG and bicycle Rickshaws are non polluters ( except for the drivers), so I gather that they are referring to .

Any woman who gives birth to 14 children deserves a monument as far as I am concerned !

Agra-WOW in more ways than one !

After another gruelling train ride , this time we had some variation as we travelled during the day for 10 hours. Not alot of pleasant scenery but some good company of two young Swedish boys in there 20’s doing the “Rough guide to India”.

Mark and I were very apprehensive about the accommodation we had booked given what we had experienced to date in India and the reviews we had read on Trip Advisor! On arrival there was the usual running the gauntlet with the touts, beggars and locals to find an auto rickshaw and beat down the price ( no pre paid rickshaw taxi booths here where you advise the counter staff of your destination and they tell you the fare and supply you with a voucher to give the driver- wonderful system to reduce the stress, bullshit and avoid encounters with rip off drivers! ) .

When he pulled up outside the Howard Park Plaza Hotel it resembled a ‘real hotel’..yahoo, may have struck it lucky, probably a self- rated a 4 Star by Indian standards. We weren’t disappointed when we walked into the lobby/ reception in our disgustingly dirty clothes, soiled shoes , dusty faces and Mac Packs! A the bed with clean white sheets, a soft pillow and a mattress (OMG!) , AC, swimming pool, gym, and there's more ....buffet breakfast included !

We relaxed into a few days of pure luxury! I didn’t want to leave and go outside but we did, after all we had come to see the Taj!

Varanasi- a more positive view

Varanasi is famous not only for the Ganges where the rituals of life and death are performed , but for a well recognised University, a Shiva Temple ( one of the nicest we have seen since travelling through India) and hand embroidered silk .

The University - a huge campus and very pleasant grounds to cycle through.


The Temple
Scriptures/ writings on the walls


Walking through crowded streets, dodging cows, rickshaws, people, rubbish and dung, tiring of heat we finally gave in and hired a bicycle rickshaw and driver for 4 hours to take us around the sights and as was expected we ended up a a silk factory and can away with 2 purchases. it was so stress free not having to deal with all the pressure from the other operators and touts. a turning point for us in our travels I feel.

The homes and 'factories we people sit and hand embroider on the hand woven Saree fabric

The evening Ceremony on the Ganges

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In the evening we did another river trip down to the Dasaswamedh ghat which is the liveliest and most colourful . A Hindu ceremony was being performed. There was a lot of chanting and 'singing ', incense, smoke and fire. Boats lining the banks of the ghat with camera flashes going off everywhere.

The Holy Ganges -Varanasi

Early morning boat ride


20th October . An overnight train from Kolkata-8.15 pm to Varanasi 9.45am.

The Lonely Planet states " Brace yourself!" and they are not wrong. This city was previously known as the "City of Life"- Kashi. This is one of the worlds oldest inhabited cities and one of the holiest places in India. Intimate rituals of life and death are performed here for all to observe.

It is colourful, chaotic and 'apologetically indiscreet'. Your olfactory system will be heightened to the the smell of rubbish, cows and buffalo, curry and excrement .

Hindu pilgrims come to the many ghats which line the river Ganges to bath themselves and the buffalo , cremate their loved ones, and discard their rubbish, some of which are carried out simultaneously.

On arrival I just stood and looked and thought why on earth did we come here! After a nights sleep we braved the city and yes it is true, it is amazing , unbelievable, disgusting, and very memorable for all of these reasons.

The Ganges

Fact: Water safe for bathing should have less than 500 faecal coliforms of bacteria per litre of water . The Ganges has 1.5 million! In some places the water is actually septic.
There are 32 points of raw sewerage flowing directly into the river
Not one of the 116 cities along the river stops sewerage from entering.

There is a campaign to clean up the Ganges by the development of sewerage treatment system and according to what I have read this could occur by 2014 if the government support this and don't do another 'U' turn on it .

We took an early morning river cruise ( 5.30) up the Ganges stopping at some of the Ghats where people were bathing, doing their teeth , washing clothes and sitting chatting whilst bathing.( photo) and fishing ( photo)


Above - Fishing and Washing clothes( not ours I hope!)

The rubbish

Cremation

Many of the ghats are also used for cremation of loved ones. The main burning ghat is Manikarnika . The deceased person is first wrapped in cloth and carried on a bamboo litter to the ghat and dipped in the river. After it is dry the body is placed on the special wood and burned on the ghat over night. In the morning the ashes are collected and cast in the river . The eldest son makes all the arrangements.

There is also a crematorium along on the river where more western cremations occur and the ashes are then cast into the river.

Mother Teresa's Mission

Searching through the Lonely Planet for the sights to see and things to do in Kolkata I came across Mother Teresa's mission, house and Tomb. It looked like it would be worth a visit since we were in the city where she lived from 1953-1997, carrying out her work and where she was eventually laid to rest. I didn't give it much thought as to what this might stir up or the discussions and debates Mark and I would have following this spur of the moment visit!

It was not easy to find and we had attempted to locate it on a previous day , unsuccessfully so , this time we asked a few locals and when we were heading in the right direction locals seemed to know our destination and happily pointed the way. Many of the areas we walked through were extremely poor and beggars even assisted us or attempted even to escort us .

Unfortunately we discovered on arrival that the house was closed for 2 hours over the lunch break but you could only visit her tomb and view the exhibition in the foyer . I discovered you could volunteer for a day - a little too late for me as we were leaving the next day, sadly so.

On the way back to our super deluxe room hotel room ( economy by NZ standards-1st justification! ) with flat screen TV and complimentary breakfast we navigated around trying to avoid the requests for food or money from mothers carrying babies and children begging, the battle of internal dialogue giving no answers and unease developing and increasing . To read about the unselfish life of such giving person and visit a place where such humanitarian work has been undertaken, how humble this makes you feel considering the opportunities we have in the self indulgent life we live.

Mark and I continued to discuss the situation later that night about why we visit such places and seek to be spectators of human suffering and then walk away to shelve it in our minds, rationalizing it in some way that may leave us with some peace ? When can you , and can you ever say , you have contributed something . Perhaps on a very very small scale it is the fee you pay to visit these places or a donation to the cause, to giving your time and volunteering on a short or long term basis.

A real life story from the Hindustan Times

An elderly couple in there late 70's and 80's, the father having a disability himself, have appealed to the Indian court to have their 24 year old son euthanized . He is in a vegetative state following a reaction to the polio vaccine and he requires 24 hour care. They have had to sell several acres of their land to pay the medical expenses and as they age themselves they are struggling physically care for him . There will also be no one to care for him when they die so they feel the most humane thing to do is to assist him to die.

Indian Humour

When reading the Hindustan Times a local newspaper Mark came across the 50 funniest jokes or one liners at they also called them in this article. Here are the Top 10 as voted by a team of researchers.

1. A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says. "ugh, that's the ugliest baby I've ever seen!"The woman walks to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. she says to the man next to her."That driver just insulted me!"The man says."You go up there and tell him off. Go on. I'll hold your monkey for you."

2. I went to the zoo the other day,there was only one dog in it, it was a shitzu.( Shit zoo -for Sama!)

3. Dyslexic man walks into a bra

4. A young blonde woman is distraught because she fears her husband is having an affair. so she go to a gun shop and buys a handgun( must be America-insert by Pauline ). The next day she comes home to find her husband in bed with a beautiful redhead. she grabs the gun and holds it to her own head. The husband jumps out of bed, begging and pleading with her not to shoot herself. Hysterically the blonde responds to her husband, "shut up..... you're next!"

5. I said to the gym instructor "Can you teach me to do the Splits?" he said ,"How flexible are you?"I said. "I cant make Tuesdays"

6. Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid , and the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off.

7. Two aerials meet on a roof-fall in love-get married. The ceremony was rubbish-but the reception was brilliant .

8. I'm on a whiskey diet. I've lost three days already

9. Doc (Dr) I cant stop singing the "Green Green Grass of Home ". He said ."That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome " 'Is it common I asked ?' 'Its not unusual ', he replied .

10. A man walks into a bar with a roll of tarmac under his arm and says"Pint please, and one for the road"

Recreation in the Kolkata Park

Grazing the goats on the field
Playing cricket- alot more skillfully than the current NZ team are!

Kite flying ; hand made kites . The aim of this gambling game being to bring another persons kite 'down' by cutting their lines with yours . The line is made of a type of fibre glass .

Contrasts- human suffering, western living and old British money

Sleeping under the shelter of an umbrella -A street stall and a home all in one - a very common sight on the streets of Kolkata.

An early morning shave.
A sad photo depicting the life of some.
There are also families huddled up at night maintaining the family unit . Young street children, overlapping limbs seeking a connection as well as warmth , sleeping on sacks on the ground . Sometimes you have to walk over their feet to pass by .

Washing in the main street, Obviously outside a street 'home' .


Mark eating a chocolate Sundae at the food court at Forum ,I ate Subway . The Forum is in the very same street as the previous photos, security at the entrance to stop the beggars from entering.

No excuses - we hadn't seen any luxury comfort or fast food in 6 weeks and it was pure indulgence !

What can you say that doesn't sound like a rationalization based on guilt or that wrongly minimises what you walk past to enter this symbol of western opulence . I don't have the answer.

Kolkata( Calcutta):The second largest city in India was previously the capital and was known and still is for its extremes. Many locals see this as one sided . It is considered the intellectual and cultural capital of India.

Woman dress in traditional Saree to celebrate the Durga Puja festival .


There are remnants everywhere of the British rule prior to Indian independence on the 15th of August 15th 1947- architecture, grand stately homes ( dilapidated , in need for some serious maintenance) and monuments such as the Victoria Memorial Hall conceived by Lord Curzon , the Viceroy of British India 1901. The total area is 64 acres including the garden. There are collections and galleries.

Horse drawn carriages English street names - Park Road and Mayfair. All the street names, even to the name of the city, Calcutta to Kolkata, are slowly being changed to reflect Indian culture . Maps can therefore be a nightmare to read!

Durga Puja

This is West Bengali’s most important yearly 5 day festival and we were right in the thick of it! Kolkata became a chaotic colourful place with the 10 armed Durga goddess idols and her entourage everywhere. These are displayed in very grand pandals as in Nepal but they are so much more decorative . Such amazing pieces of ‘art’ which in the last 30 years have become more elaborate and complex due increasing corporate sponsorship and a design competition . Some of the panadals have theme, political or topical messages.

People sleep during the day and visit the pandals at night where there are stage shows, speakers, dancing and music. Street food stalls increase and the traffic comes to a standstill as thousands of people walk the streets.
The people of Kolkata were friendly and sought to include us, providing explanations on the meaning of the festival and directions to see the pandals around the city . Some people even actually guided us and invited us to walk in the procession on the last day which we did . Lots of security and police everywhere .At no time did we feel unsafe or threatened in this crazy city of 14 million . No alcohol is sold over this time and from what we have seem very few people drink anyway and it is very difficult to even find a shop that sells a beer!

The festival comes to a climax at the end of 5 days the idols are thrown into the Hooghly river amid singing, chanting, dancing, water throwing and indescribable traffic congestion.
You can imagine what the river looked like the next day and the pollution! Only in India!