Intia on takanapain. Shh! Kuuletteko tekin tuon? Kuulostaa ihan enkelikuoron laululta...
Anyway, sama homma kuin ennenkin: [minun lisaykseni ovat hakasulkeissa].
"VARANASI 23.5.11 MON
Sleeping was okay. Saara was still sick enough to warrant a trip to the doctors and I too wasn't feeling 100%. We had showers due to the water being hot (!) which is probably the first time since a full month. At 9.30 I went to see if the doctors was open as I remembered it was the opening time. The actual opening time was 9 once I reached the place, but still, the doors were locked. About 2 minutes later someone came long, opened the door and said the doc will be there in 30 minutes.
So, we made sure Saara could handle the short walk, which she did, and soon after she was being consulted. Saara had a real hard time understanding his accent so I had to repeat some questions sometimes. His eventual diagnosis was an infection that is common among tourists and gave her 5 days worth of pills to kill it, then wait 2 days, then take a stool sample to a hospital . Could set our trekking plans back a fair bit but Saara feeling healthy again is much more important.
[This was the weirdest doctor I have ever seen. Or has seen me. He didn't take my temperature, blood pressure or anything. He tapped my hands and arms with his knuckles. I don't know what that had to do with my stomach issues. Also, he had a portrait of a Hindu goddess with a necklace made of human skulls and a skirt made of bloody human legs on his wall. This should've been a sign to go somewhere else. The doctor told me not to eat anything spicy or cooked in oil. That would cover the whole Indian cuisine then.]
The goodies.
We then decided it might be a good idea to finally walk downstream along the Ganges and the ghats. So we did. We ambled along with many cricket games going on, water buffaloes bathing and people sitting enjoying the afternoon. We stopped at the smaller burning ghats as a few fires were burning. We grimly looked at the fires knowing people were in there but there was no sign of it. That was until we moved on a bit and saw a foot sticking out of a fire plain as day. We couldn't help but look.
Soon after a local game along saying he works at the burning ghats [and that he is the son of the man who owns the ghats]. He explained the process, told us about the bodies that are not burned. He then switched his story about trying to get us into some silk making shop, probably to get commission. [Seta!] We agreed to meet him tomorrow at the ghats, which will be a long wait as we are out of here tonight. He left, we stayed a little longer, then another guy, the owner of the ghat (!). How lucky are we to meet the owner and the owner's son in the space of 10 minutes! Man they talk some shit around here! He asked the exact same questions to try to keep the conversation going, wanted to explain the process and then finally invited us to a silk factory. Deja vu came quickly.
Back to the guest house to kill time until the train. My not feeling well from the morning and most of the day really hit home after a very watery bowel movement. Hope it is not what Saara has and was just last night's food."
"VARANASI-NEPAL 24.5.11 TUES
So, I had the runs too! I took the last antibiotic and also took two stoppers to make sure I could get through the day of travel.
We had a little trouble finding our train to get on to Gorakhpur. The big sign in the entrance hall said that our train was expected at 23.00 on platform 2, so that is where we headed. When we got there, a train was sitting on the tracks going from Mumbai to Gorakhpur but it was only 22.10 and the train number was different. I was sure it was not our train but as it stayed longer on the stop getting even closer to our estimated departure time of 23.15 I started asking around. It left exactly 23.15 but I was still convinced it was not ours but Saara was not. [That's to put it kindly. I was nearly in tears as this was the only escape from India. If this was our train, and we missed it, that would mean we couldn't get out of India before Grant's visa expired. And I know how Indians love their red tape and commission money. I wanted nothing more than to get out and to get out fast.] Thankfully I was right this time and after an announcement over the speakers we knew our train would be an hour late.
When we did get on we were incredibly tired and just set up our beds as quickly as possible and went to sleep. As I have done on most train trips, I like to put the mobile (especially if we have an alarm on) and my wallet inside the sleeping bag that I use as a pillow, only problem was I could not find my wallet. I woke Saara and a frantic search took place, but nothing. My best guess was it has fallen out of my pocket at the train station when I laid down or something. [My guess is it got stolen. Varanasi train station is notorious for pickpockets. Any case, it had to happen on our LAST DAY in India. On the LAST DAY. India had it's revenge.] There is a chance I got pick pocketed but my shorts have velcro tabs with a flap (board shorts) so it seems that is would be difficult for me not to notice. Anyway, it was gone. Amazingly, there was not a single rupee in it! It would have to be the only time in India when I had absolutely no money in it!
We swapped Saara's Finnish sim card into the mobile and I tried to call mum so she could cancel my card. We couldn't get through so we ended up calling Bear [Hi, Bear!!!] who would then call my mum. We also worked out the right number to call Mum and I left a message. Bear then called back later to say he had called Mum too. Should all be good. We still have Saara's card and that money should still cover our trip [thanks to countless hours at Norssi and Siwa]. The train ride was okay, and not even the worry of losing my wallet could stop me from sleeping due to how tired I was.
We arrived in Gorakhpur an hour or so late and made our way to the bus station for our last bit of India. We found a bus with a few other tourists. The ride was cramped but we made it to the border. We had to walk about 1km to the border and we had read there were scams going on about stamping passports and things, so when some ununiformed guy (who spoke like he was high) tried to get us into some place talking about passport stamping, we just flew by to the border. [We were out!]
We found the place where we had to fill in forms for a Nepal visa. It was pretty straight forward and we got to change our Indian rupees for Nepalese ones. They did tell us though that we needed to go back into India and get our 'out stamp' and it was the place that the guy tried to get us into. Whoops. We apologised to him and explained about what we had read and that India has made us unable to trust anyone, hence why we were in a rush to get out. The stamp came easy enough, then we got our visa and we were off!
Instantly our mood changed as we were somewhere new and we had left India behind.
Our next task was to find a bus to Pohkara [actually Pokhara]. This, we found out quickly, could be quite difficult as there was a drivers' strike on. We teamed up with an American/Polish girl (Anja) we then found an overnightbus to Pohkara (although we would have liked to go to Tansen first, but no busses) then we went for chai and momos (Nepalese dumplings) and then got to our bus.
Lonely Planet had warned us about 3 things things concerning bus travel:
1: Bus travel is dangerous, keep it to a minimum.
2. Don't travel at night as it makes it more dangerous and
3. Don't put your luggage on the roof unless you are with it (on the roof mind you!)
Well, we did all three. So, we were off to the mountains, hopefully."
"POHKARA, NEPAL 25.5.11. WED
We jumped on the very full bus and started off on what was a 270 km trip that took 10 hours for some reason. I know there are mountains here, but the would have to be some super windy roads to only average 27 km/h. We set off at a cracking pace and soon noticed more nature, cleaner air and much less noise, especially from the bus horn. It was just getting dark but we did see the silhouette of some large mountains off the distance that we reached once it was dark. [It was truly beautiful. I couldn't get enough of the fresh air. It filled everything in me.]
We had our first bus scare early on as the bus driver clearly wanted to keep momentum up for an up coming climb and was driving quite fast through very sharp corners. At one particular blind corner he moved into the right hand lane to give himself more road to work with only to have a truck coming the other way. He violently swung the bus left, then threw it back to the right to make sure we didn't fly off into the darkness and the valley. It was scary enough to make a few locals say some words, but an American tourist summed up the situation perfectly yelling "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, ASSHOLE". As far as I could tell, he got off at the next stop. [I was considering it also. I was scared, big time. I'm not a very patient person by any standards but I felt surprisingly calm in the knowledge that if I were to die, it wouldn't be in India. And not from diarrhea.]
Public transport in Nepal
Now as far as stops this bus was unbelievable. We would drive for 45-60 minutes (sometimes shorter) and then stop for anywhere between 30-60 minutes. We soon worked out why it took 10 hours. We stopped at junctions where other buses had stopped and the drivers seemed to be getting together discussing stuff we assumed was about the strike. We also figured we were waiting for more passengers as our bus had become somewhat empty by now. [We did finally arrive in Pokhara which I loved from the first moment I saw the lake. Never mind the mountains.]"
Those are clouds. Not pollution.
What's that colour? Green!
I would swim in this.
[And this is where Grant's diary ends. We forgot to bring the new one with us, so this shall be in my own words. And in my own words: I love Nepal. Now, unfortunately, I am still sick so we have not been able to leave for the trek. I did go to a hospital in Nepal, gave a stool sample, saw a doctor and was re-diagnosed. I have amoebic dysentery and no, it will not kill me. In fact, the doctor said I am strong enough to head for the Annapurna as soon as I want to. We thought it wise to wait a few more days and see how my new goodies would work. More importantly, I am allowed to eat whatever I bloody want, and what I want is a bloody steak.
The new goodies
We are going to leave for the trek tomorrow morning and as I don't expect to have internet connection along the way, you will not be able to hear from me for a month. Enjoy. But I shall return with many more words.]
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