India
Travel Journal- Jaipur to Varanasi
Friday, January 26, 2018
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| Street Goat in Jaipur |
“When
all desires that surge in the heart are renounced, the mortal becomes immortal,
here in this very Life.” Katha Upanishad
Friday,
January 26, 2018
I
awoke at 4am and we left the hotel at 4:30am for the airport. Once we got through airport security, we
found out that the flight was delayed by an hour. Then two hours. Ira slept for a little while I read Fire and
Fury (I finished Hotel Bemelmens, which was a good read, but like some of
Bemelmens other works, it lacked an overarching theme and missed a strong punch
at the end- it was mostly interesting, well written vignettes). Fire and Fury on the other hand, is a
captivating, disturbing and shocking read.
It moves fast and continually lets you down. Trump is just so far out of his league…it
really breaks my heart and the potential for a major catastrophe occurring on
his watch is much higher than I had thought, which says something, as I have
been quite negative on his administration since the get-go.
After
a little while, Irina woke up and went to get a coffee and some food. She asked if I wanted anything and I told her
“not now, thanks”. She returned with a
coffee for herself and two pieces of toast with peanut butter spread on
top. One was for me she said.
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| Peanut Butter Toast |
She
ate hers and drank the coffee, while I continued reading about the ridiculous
infighting going on in our White House.
After a little while, she told me to eat and that I needed something in
my stomach, blah, blah, blah. I wasn’t
that hungry (it was still too early) and the peanut butter toast didn’t look
very appetizing, but I knew she was just looking out for me, which I
appreciated, so I grabbed the toast and ate it.
We
waited another hour, still no news on our flight. Ira was hungry again, so she went and got an
omelette with some chicken. As she was
eating it, I got up to check on our flight and found that they were finally
boarding.
On
the flight I looked over at her and false started a conversation.
“Hey,
you know,” she looked over at me.
“Actually, forget it.”
“What? What were you going to say?”
“Nothing. It’s not worth bringing it up.”
“You
cannot start something and just stop, tell me.”
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| Our beach in Kovalam |
“I
was just going to say that I miss our beach in Kovalam. The trip has been great, but the pollution is
getting to me. I don’t think we should
have put so many polluted cities back-to-back.
We should’ve broken it up with some nature or something in between.”
She
surprisingly agreed.
We
landed in Varanasi and it looked just as smogged out as the other cities and my
heart sank a little. I was hoping for it
to be more clean, as it is only 1.3 million people. We had a car waiting for us to take us to our
hotel, which was down on the Ganges River.
We were staying at a cheap place this time, $15 a night. We loaded up the car and started heading into
the city. It was a surprisingly long
drive that took 45 minutes. As we
approached the city center and riverfront, the streets got more and more narrow
and the traffic was more chaotic than usual.
I was feeling a little off, so I closed my eyes and fell into a light
sleep.
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| Walking to the hotel- our new rugs are in the yellow striped bag on that guy's head-) |
I
awoke to find that we got to the point where cars had to stop. The hotel had a few porters waiting for us
and they carried our baggage (and the carpets) and we followed them into the
narrow maze-like streets that typify Varanasi.
The streets are only about 6-8 feet wide and meander this way and that
as you make your way to the Ganges. I
was pleasantly surprised to find that the smog was more fog and the pollution
was nowhere near as heavy as our other stops on this tour.
Varanasi
is a sacred city and many Indians (and foreigners) come here to die. That is why they call it the City of the
Dead. It is the oldest living city on
the planet and it dates back to at least 3300 years ago, but ancient Buddhist
text mention the city as far back as 5000 years ago. It has been a bustling city for all this
time. It’s really an amazing and special
place and you feel this immediately upon entering its center. It’s hard to explain, but it just has a
really good energy.
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| Ganpati Guest House- a great place to stay in Varanasi You can see the rooftop restaurant in this photo |
We
got to the our hotel, the Ganpati Guest House, and found that they upgraded our
room for the first night so that we would have a river view on the top
floor. We went up and Ira hopped in the
shower while I laid down on the bed. I
wasn’t feeling so well and thought I would catch a short nap before we had to
meet our guide. I fell asleep
instantly. Irina woke me about a half
hour later and I told her I didn’t feel good, but figured it was just a lack of
sleep. I took a shower and by the time I
finished, our guide was already down in the lobby waiting for us. With the flight delay, it was now
12:30pm. I put on a brave face, got
dressed and went down.
We
decided to grab a quick bite to eat while the guide would explain the main
sights to us and we would come up with a plan.
As we walked to the restaurant, I felt nauseous and my body was aching. Once there, I ordered a coke and a soup and
struggled in my mind with what I should do.
After a few minutes, I told Irina that I was sorry, but I didn’t feel
well and had to go back to the hotel, but she should go with the guide on her
own today and I would join tomorrow. I
knew from the guidebook that there was a Buddhist temple, Sarnath, about 15 km
out of the city that was highly recommended.
I suggested that they go there and that we could all do a walking tour
of the old city and the Ghats tomorrow, as that was what I was most interested
in. She felt bad for me, but
agreed. I said I would finish my coke
and have my soup and then leave.
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| Street food in Varansi |
By
the time food arrived, I took one look at the soup and knew I wouldn’t be able
to stomach it. I was about to tell them
that I was going to leave when Ira looked at me and said she also felt sick to
her stomach. I started to worry that
something more sinister may be occurring than just sleep deprivation and within
a minute, she went to the bathroom and vomited.
We told the guide we were going back to the hotel and cancelled for the
day. When we got back, she was sick
again…and then again. I was cold and
under the covers sweating. This was not
good. I told her that the damn peanut
butter toast must of food poisoned us….or it could be early stage Malaria, I
wasn’t sure. I’m a bit of a
hypochondriac, so I have been on pins and needles throughout the trip.
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| Street art in Varanasi |
I
probably should have mentioned this earlier, but before the trip, on Christmas
Eve at a family function, my cousin, who is a doctor, freaked out when I told
him I was leaving for India within a couple weeks and, after his methodical
questioning, answered that I hadn’t gotten any vaccines or precautionary
shots. His reaction was unsettling and
he strongly recommended I go to my doctor immediately. He gave me a list of vaccines to get and
antibiotics to bring. He was really
nervous about it all. Of course, I
immediately called Irina the next morning, who has been to India many times
over the last dozen years, to get her thoughts on what he told me. I asked her if I really needed to worry about
Hepatitis A and B, typhoid, Malaria, Japanese encephalitis, and the other
terrible sounding things he went over that I could catch (He specializes in
travel immunizations, as well as other things).
She laughed at me and said I only needed the shots if I wanted to remain
a fool of U.S. pharmaceutical corruption and that no one she knows over all the
years who visited India ever took any vaccines of any kind and none of them had
any issues or problems whatsoever. She
then went on a diatribe about how Americans are the most over drugged people in
the world and how, whenever she is in the states and we watch TV together,
every other commercial is for a prescription drug, which is unheard of in any
other country. She was making good sense
and while I am a big believer in vaccines for children against terrible
diseases like measles, small pox, bubonic plague, whopping cough, etc., this
felt like something different and she definitely had the anecdotal evidence on
her side. Hell, my son who is only five
years old has been here multiple times without any shots and he never caught
anything. I decided to ignore my
cousin’s advice. I would roll the dice
and go shot/vaccine free on this trip.
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| These are the streets you drive a motorcycle through |
Anyway,
she was vomiting regularly and wanted to go to the hospital. Getting out of the inner city was a ten
minute hike to the main roads where the rickshaws and cabs were perpetually
standing by, which she didn’t feel up for.
So, we called our guide Govind, who had mentioned he had a motorcycle
and told him what was happening. He said
he would be at the hotel in 15 minutes and would take her to a doctor by
bike. She left with him and I stayed in
bed and slept. I hadn’t vomited yet, but
my entire body was aching and I was cold and sweating at the same time. Irina returned an hour later and said the
doctor gave her something and she wasn’t vomiting any longer. She got into bed. We both slept for the next 17 hours.
Writer’s
note: For those not feeling the love of my India Travel Journal, do not
fret. This week’s blog is the second to
last installment on the subject. I was
going to push it all out and conclude it this week, but it was too long of a blog,
so I heeded the Genius’ advice to keep it short and broke the remainder of the
journal into two final installments.
Next week brings the conclusion of the travelogue and then we’re back to
other tales… thank you for your patience.
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| View of the Ganges from our deck |
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| A cool monkey on our deck at the Ganpati Guest House |
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| Wandering the back streets of Varanasi- |
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Click the link below to see how the journey ends:
https://libertinereflections.blogspot.com/2018/03/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-ja-x_3.html
