Panna

The next day, after a late rise and much faffing, we were set to go to the Panna Tiger Reserve! Sounds exciting doesn't it? A quick check on the web revealed that a tiger sighting here was pretty unlikely, unlike some of the bigger tiger reserves. It was 330pm with dusk approaching by the time we got there, but we all got piled into our seven seater car with our driver, and the "guide" who we had to hire from the park.

It turned out to be pretty disappointing, 20 minutes in and the first sign of life: a monkey. You may know from earlier postings that they are quite common in some urban locations as well. We did see quite a few of the rather large Sambar deer eventually though. Our "guide"'s main contribution was to say "Sambar" a few times and point at the deer we'd already seen. It was quite nice to see the countryside properly and there was a scenic river through the park, but we were beginning to come to the conclusion that there were no Tigers around at all. We stopped at a viewpoint (see photo) where someone else's guide told us that they'd seen tigers the last few mornings. As we continued through the park, the lack of safety precautions seemed to point to a lack of tigers: in the big tiger parks I hear guides always have a gun or tranquiliser in case tigers attack. We were allowed to go in in out own car here and we saw three guides scoot past us on a moped. The guide also managed to switch the radio on full blast with his knee when we were stalking some deer! No tigers here, best stick to Gwalior zoo, next to the pigeons.

Early the next morning I had to set off back to Allahabad on my own, and had to get the infamous bus along "the worst road in India". In fact the bus was fine despite having around fifty people on a 30 seater for long stretches. It took just over four hours for what took 2 and a half in the car the other way. The added advantage of the bus is that you get to see bollywood hits blasted out on a dvd player. Beginning with a women chained up on a boat finding it necessary to do much writhing in her ripped outfit in the rain, it degenerated after that. It seems quite a few Indian leading men have the look of a young Swiss Tony about them, I wouldn't buy a used car from them. One of the next leading men was wearing a green dungarees and bright yellow polo neck combo. Wow.

On arrival in Satna I had 4 hours till my train was supposed to leave. I had a waiting list ticket and wasn't guaranteed a seat, though people had assured me I would get one. I had lunch and then walked to the station as I had the time. There I was told the charts were not made up so it wasn't known if I'd get a seat yet, come back later. I went to an Internet cafe and came back an hour before the train was due and the charts were still not ready. Eventually I was told I was not on the chart but I could speak to the conductor when the train got in to see about getting a ticket. Of course the train was an hour late and when it arrived the conductor was quite unhelpful but checked and said there was no space and I couldn't travel, but he didn't have much English.

I hadn't been able to book a seat on any trains that day so I decided to go back to the bus station as someone had told me I could get a bus if my ticket didn't come up. I got an autorickshaw there only to be told that there were no buses and to go to the station! Back to the station it was. Here I asked at the Ticket Counter who told me to go to the enquiry counter who told me to go to the chief ticket inspector. He was quite helpful and told be to get my old ticket refunded and use the money to get an unreserved ticket which I could then upgrade by asking the conductors on later trains: the 1155 would definitely have space as a last resort. He signed a form for me to have countersigned by the deputy station commander to take to the ticket desk for a new ticket and a refund. however, the ticket desk sent me to the reservation desk for the refund, then back to the ticket desk for a new ticket which I took back to the Chief ticket inspector. He gave me the numbers of some trains I could try for an spare seat, the next 1.5 hours later. Being alone at this point it was different experience to usual and I ended up talking to quite a few people: A group of Indian teenagers at the station (they first managed to stop me going into the ladies toilets) - they also liked my beard and thought my overgrown greying haircut was expensively styled and tinted to look like a bollywood star. There was also a nice older Indian man on the platform, and a group of Spanish tourists (one with a boyfriend from Glasgow). The next possible train came (over an hour late of course) and there was actually plenty of available sleeper spaces! I had the top bunk and managed to sleep a bit on before getting back to Allahabad after 1am. The institute bus finishes at 11pm so I had to get a taxi for the 15kms to Jhunsi which is very isolate. After my primitive attempts at haggling I ended paying 500Rs (5 pounds!) for a taxi which seemed a lot but was well worth it to get home quickly to bed! I ended up getting to bed around 230am after having to direct the taxi down the right street. A very long day but an experience. I won't take peoples advice on waiting list tickets again!

Khajuraho

The plan was to go for three nights over new year to visit the temples at Khajuraho, famous for their erotic carvings! What was originally going to be Sarah and me had burgeoned to include Daniel, Emma, Paige and Dr Chatterjee, all from the orphanage where Sarah works. The four others would be coming with a car from Gwalior, and meet Sarah and me there. As Sarah decided late in the day to come via Allahabad we couldn't get a ticket on the right day so we planned to travel a day earlier and stay in Satna, where we had to change from train to bus, or continue on for an extra night in Khajuraho if we could make the connection. In the end our train was four hours late in departing so we were stuck in Satna for the night, a town who's lonely planet entry consists solely of how to get from the train station to the bus station.

We wandered around near the station for a while, after swatting away the initial swarm of touts, but there was not much sign of any hotels or restaurants. So we got an auto-rickshaw to a hotel we'd heard the name of, which turned out to have room, and be a bit cheap and cheerful (bedding would have been nice). The next day we were offered a very cheap rate for a car to Khujaraho by a driver from there who was returning after having dropped tourists off in Satna. We took him up as the bus journey was reputedly the worst one in India. Thus we arrived in Khajuraho around lunchtime on Sunday, where Sarah had to renegotiate out booking and rate due to the lax Indian approach to what a booking means.

We went for lunch in an Italian restaurant which had real pizza with (gasp) real cheese! We ended up back there many time over the next few days. Sarah and I headed to a local art and craft museum before the others arrived, saving the temples for a large group visit. When they did arrive we headed out for Chai and there was much talk of Orphanage politics. A putative ban on such talk in the following few days was not enforced!

On New Years Eve we went to see the main temple site in the morning. These were pretty amazing. They were built by the chandelas around 1000 years ago and feature many carving of dancing women as well as some more "non-veg" (as the Indians say) carvings. There is no proper explanation about why the carvings are there, especially the one of a man sodomising a horse! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, I may add more in a gallery later. In the afternoon Sarah, Danial and I walked out to see some of the more outlying temples: Jain temples this time, but with similar carvings.

Before dinner some of us went to see the sound and light show at the temples. Not that great really but something different to see. The highlight was the supposed voice of the British officer rediscovering the temples, good god man!

After dinner in the Pizza place again we wondered what to do for "the bells". The fancier hotels out of town would have bars, and one supposedly had a disco, going by the rock'n'roll name "Downing Street". In the end we went to a nearby hotel for a few drinks, where it was interesting to see the expressions that crossed Sarah's face after she tried downing some dodgy Indian Rum. We could see that the party was more jumping across the road at... the pizza place again, where they had a sound system and people were dancing. We headed over there again with less that an hour to the new year. The dancing had stalled a little and Sarah made a valiant effort to get things going again, with moves David Brent would be proud of. Dr Daniel was then enticed up by some Indian men, and then I was dragged up to by an Indian man who kept hugging me (did I mention that many men told we that a had a nice goatee (or French cut as they sometimes called it) over those few days - no where else we have been has had this fascination with beards). Eventually everyone had been up for a dance. You can see Dr C and Dr D in the photo. We didn't last that long after midnight, and any plans to make it to the British New Year as well were abandoned.

Allahabad

Sarah came to visit for a week over Christmas which meant we had a chance to explore Allahabad. Unfortunately there's not much here. Immediately after she arrived we went to see some Moghul tombs which are very near the train station. There are three in a row and they are quite impressive and I'm sure they see very few tourists. It was early in the morning and there were just a few locals hanging around, some doing some yoga. One of them is for the brother of the builder of the Taj Mahal. He failed in a coup attempt, and if he'd succeeded there'd be no Taj Mahal.

The next day we walked along and across the Ganges from the institute to the Sangam (where the Ganges meets the Yamuna). We were able to walk across because soon will be the most auspicious time to bathe in the Ganges and people will be coming from all over: they are setting up electricity and lighting for huge tent villages on the dried out flats by the river, as well as a pontoon bridge. At the Sangam itself you can see there are lots of stalls hawking various things, and lots of boats to take people out to the point where the waters of the two rivers meet. We didn't take a boat trip, or a bath in the waters.

A few days later was Christmas and Sarah was getting a bit bored by this time. We went to the posh 4 star hotel for dinner and a few beers with Andreas (5 year fellow here). The hotel, and many of the other more expensive restaurants around town did have their Christmas decorations up, but they did rely a bit heavily on balloons. A had Tandoori fish and a creation which was a bit like a posh Scotch egg curry. We went to the hotel bar afterwards and sampled the (terrible) Indian whisky (manageable with coke!). A drunken Indian offered to give the three of us a ride home on his motorbike (the paper today had a picture of 2 parents and 4 children on a small scooter in town).

The rest of the week there was not much to do but go out for dinner a few times. I resisted the temptation to go to the seminars that were scheduled on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. On Saturday we set of together for Khajuraho.

Varanasi/Sarnath

Last weekend it was off to Varanasi, meeting Sarah and Daniel on the train after their overnight leg from Gwalior to Allahabad. Varanasi has a repution for hassle as well as the dirt and pollution in the Ganges. We were told to expect many touts outside the station, pretending to be from out hostel, who would try to scam us. We waited for out official hostel person to show up and were treated to an exceptionally drunk seeming man urinating in the middle of the station then keeling over hitting his head and rolling in it. This was right infront of the tourist office and surrounded by the tourist police, but they didn't seem to want to know. The man from our hostel eventually showed up and we got in to an autorickshaw and off up the meandering alleys, passed the armed soldiers and to out hostel (the soldiers are there because of a important temple next to a mosque, the mosque having been built on part of the old temple, and a sight of tensions. We then found that despite our booking ahead they hadn't kept the rooms we'd asked for. Obviously "booking" has a different meaning in India. Daniel ended up staying in a triple room on his own (cost 1 pound more than the single room would have) so all was sorted.

We went for lunch in a nearby rooftop restaurant. By now the urge to have non-Indian food when given the opportunity was strong with us all, though I did have some pakoras. The roof top was a great vantage-point and we could see the river and across many other rooftops,, featuring a selection of people and animals including many kite-flyers. The kite-flyers along with varyous whistling and shouting men of rooftops seemed to trying to stop flocks of birds from landing. Very odd.

It turned out the biggest risk on Varanasi was not touts, or disease, or bombings. It was angry (provoked) cows charging through the narrow alleys and along the waterfront! Poor old Daniel got a headbutt in the back. More to the point Sarah was pointing a camera at him at the time and didn't get a photo! We dodged the cow threat as we set off along the ghats to see the burning bodies. On the main burning ghat there were around 15 fires going and you could see the bodies, wrapped in cloth, placed on piles of wood and set alight. I didn't find it disturbing. The only unsettling thing was when you ended up breathing in the smoke. This didn't help my cough which seems to develop when I leave the campus and head into proper India.

We passed round the burning Ghat and continued along the waterfront for a bit, before getting in a boat to head back towards the centre. We ended up with a rather lacklustre rower, who seemed well aware he was being paid by time not distance. As boats with twenty passengers surged past our boat of three, we got a very leisurely different perspective on the ghats.

After disembarking Sarah decided on getting her palm read and horoscope from a random chap. He even threw in a face-reading as well, apparently. I must say Daniel and I were not impressed, but Sarah was happy to find out she'll have a successful cloth or furniture business in 2029. We had a look at some of the shops around town, walked a lot and had dinner in an Israeli-style place. I continued ordering as much garlic as humanl could for some reason.

The next day we took the 40 minute autorickshaw ride to Sarnath, where the Buddha supposedly preached his first sermon. There's a big stupa, an archaelogical museum (only 2p to get in) and various buddhist temples, one including an alleged descendent of the Boddhi tree the sermon was preached under (similar idea to the Newton apple trees in Trinity College really). There was also a deer park with crocodiles and pelicans in, naturally. We returned to Varanasi, had some lunch,went throught he security cordon to see the disputed golden temple mentioned above, some shopping was done and I just had time to sort out my stuff before getting my train home. The river and burning ghats were definitely different and worth the journey.

More photos here.

Gwalior

View Larger Map
The week after Diwali I set off to Gwalior to visit Sarah. It is an overnight train journey starting at 730pm, so I had to leave the campus before dinner time. I got to the station in plenty of time so decided to get some food. There was a clean and modern looking place in the station and I decided to have pizza (I needed cheeeeeeeeeeese!). This was a mistake. The resulting train journey was a bit of nightmare migh pains in my stomach, unable to sleep at all, couldn't lie on my bunk because of it, but not enough room to sit up either. Most of Saturday was a right off from being ill as well, not much fun for me or for Sarah who had been looking forward to showing me around the orphanage and introducing me to the kids and everyone.

The orphanage itself was a quite a modern building, much nicer that I imagined from Sarah's reports, but her negativity wasn't to do with the facilities. The children were lovely and demanding of attention. I must admit to not knowing what to do with a disabled child in a wheelchair who doesn't speak english, but they seemed to enjoy just having attention and being pushed around. Some demanded to be carried around everywhere. On Saturday I felt ropey so couldn't spend much time with them. In the evening I became excited to discover that the orphanage had satellite tv, what with the Scotland Italy game being that evening here (5.5 hrs ahead here). Unfortuneately there was only 10 channels of cricket and, irritatingly, the previous days Bulgaria England U21s match!

The next day I was getting better and we set off on a trip to the zoo with some of the children, cramming us, kids, carers and wheelchairs into the small minibus. The zoo itself wasn't bad, though I found the cage of pigeons a particularly uninspiring exhibit, especially as they continue to torment me wherever I go. There were tigers and cute monkeys though. After the trip Sarah, Daniel (another volunteer at the orphanage) and I stayed in town and went for lunch (pizza again, non-pathalogical this time) in a trendy coffee bar where the youths hang out (who dared eachother to speak to us, hmm). It was so trendy they even played a track by the terrible western band I mentioned in the last post! They did have good chocolate cake/brownies though.

In the afternoon we went to Gwalior fort, which is large sprawling and not so well kept, it did have some interesting Jain temples and carvings though, and was different in that it had some coloured tiles (I didn't take my camera and am relying on Sarah's photos so here's one from the net). It wouldn't be worth going out of your way to Gwalior for it. We had dinner near the station and I headed off home, with a much less arduous journey this time.

Diwali

On the 9th of November it was Diwali. This is just about the biggest celebration of the year and everyone on campus was invited to the celebrations, organised by the first year PhD students (always a mistake). In return for my 200 Rupees I was promised fireworks, food, music and perhaps stick dancing (nothing like pole dancing on a miniature scale).

After being told that things started at 630pm I turned up on time to find nothing remotely looking like being ready. I'd forgotten to adjust for Indian time keeping. People were beginning to set out hundreds of little candle/lamp things along the roadsides and ledges on buildings (see first photo, unfortunately they were too faint to photo well and my photos came out particularly badly that night).

After an hour or so things actually seemed nearly ready. Fellow westerners Ted and Andreas (see photo two, I even got them to smile) showed up and there was even a sighting of mysterious Russian girl. The institute staff and their families began to show up and tiffin (snack foods) and chai was served (in thimble like cups, I drank about 20 of them). By this time they'd decided to unleash the sound system. This was a trailer with huge speakers (which you can just about see in the background of the first photo) and a tape of about 5 tracks on loop in a mysterious "Hindi-Hop" genre, which was, quite frankly, pants, unlike the Indian music we'd heard in town at Durga Puja a few weeks before. It was also played at at extremely high volume making it hard to hear anyone speak even though it was outside.

Before the major munitions arrived small kids started playing with firecrackers. I was thinking this was a little dangerous (no sparklers without gloves on now children) but this was nothing compared with what was to come. Lets just say health and safety was not an issue and throughout the fireworks people eventually inched back to prevent themselves becoming collateral damage. But in the end no-one died, and there were some pretty impressive fireworks, though someone should have probably explained that a Catherine wheel is not intended just to be put on the ground in the centre of a crowd and lit.

After the fireworks was the main food event which was a bit disappointing! Just the usual mess standard food (the Tiffin had been quite nice). We did get ice cream after though! This was eaten on the lawn behind the mess, and they kindly moved the sound system round, pointed it as and turned it up to 120dB so conversation, thinking,etc were impossible. Really it was far louder than a gig/club.

Fortunately we had prepared plan B and had some beers stashed away. Of course we weren't allowed to consume them openly but we snuck off to the veranda of the guest house where we could just about see the people on the lawn below, and despite being at least 100 yards from them still had to shout to be heard above the music. At this point the music was getting worse, and to prove the point they played a one western song, a spectacularly bad choice that I'll give you a prize if you can guess!

Well we had our beers and a chat and that was about it, the music continued at earthshaking volume and we caught a glimpse of the fabled stick dance, which wasn't up to much but is a rare opportunity for male students to actually dance with girls! They seemed to be enjoying themselves but they made a Trinity college bop look like the royal ballet. It seemed strange that many of the faculty and families were just sitting round in a circle watching this but as I say, the music made conversation impossible. I headed off to bed at this point. Despite the huge billing it was more like a Guy Fawkes night party than anything bigger.

Sarah Visits/ Durga Puja

After I'd been in Allahabad for a few weeks Sarah came to visit from Gwalior. She had a lot to talk about after being trapped in a fire at the orphanage where she volunteers, and having to deal with the politics and sexism inherent in that organisation. On the Saturday evening Swarup, one of the students from the particle physics group, kindly offered to take us into town to see the durga puja celebrations. As you all know Durga is a Hindu Goddess and Durga Puja is a 9 days celebration in October. Temporary temples are built with shrines depicting a standard scene (see first photo). On the final day these are chucked in the river. Lots of lights also go up in town and music is played from speakers. I hope the second photo captures some of the activity that goes on in the town. We travelled around and views four of these temporary temples. I enjoyed the lights and music in the streets (unlike the Diwali music, see future post!). We then went for dinner to the connoisseur restaurant in town, where the waiters spent around an hour arguing with an irate woman (the rest of the time they watched the cricket). Sarah was desperate for non-Indian food. I shared some Indian food with Swarup, but as it was veg it wasn't that far away from what we get in the mess every day!