Skiing in Sölden

Alpine splendour.

One more ski trip then, before the end of the season, and also before a rather more substantial adventure.  This time it isn't just me, I am off with my brother and family to Sölden in the Austrian alps, I'm sure they'll have no objection to a tangential mention in the blog.  We reach the resort via a somewhat epic drive in the campervan, which I remain a little nervous of given past history, still in many ways it makes for a nice extension to the holidays, including a night in Belgium and another in Germany where I introduce my nephew Aaron to the delights of kebab pizza.  Then to the resort, where I escape the van to a hotel which is perfectly pleasant, if not ideally situated up a hill.

On the 'experience mile' in Sölden.

Sölden is rather nice I must say, situated in a pleasant valley, and of course with many bars and restaurants selling schnitzel and dumplings.  The skiing is pretty good, this late in the season the runs down to town are closed but there's still snow higher up, in particular a long series of lifts takes us to an actual glacier where the skiing is really quite good - the logistics here are tricky though, dropping the kids off for ski school at 10, then coming back to meet them for lunch, or after school at 3pm, makes it difficult to explore the far reaches of the piste map.  We manage one afternoon at least, past the first glacier to take a gondola up, then through a ski tunnel to find a sunny valley with another glacier and excellent skiing, also good for boarding, I am assured by Dan and Donna.

Chang.

There's a lot of interesting stuff here, although we've not arrived at the best time when it comes to events - a festival of some kind has just finished, and we're a week early for 'Hannibal' - some sort of theatrical extravaganza due to take place on the glacier, preparations involve a large elephant, and even larger ziggurat, carved from the snow.  Instead I amuse myself with various ski-pass activated experiences, some of these are cameras located at high points, but mainly there are little sections of winter sports where you swipe your pass and then do a timed run, complete with video recording, it is all very clever.  Nice to have a record of my attempts at slalom, carving and so forth - though the less said about my jumping, and indeed giant slalom, the better.  Fun is had skiing with the kids too, they can both get around pretty well, although the little one doesn't really have the stamina for a full day of skiing.  She certainly enjoys the 'adventure pool' we spend one evening in though, not sure it is something I'd do by myself, still I guess being shot around a kind of stainless steel whirlpool while being battered by German teenagers is not something you do every day.

Family Atkinson in front of the 'princess castle'.

I should mention the apres ski - well, it is Austria, there is beer and largely terrible music, also shots including some out of eggshells, well why not.  Food is generally good, I can't afford the large meat dishes that are big here, but there is good pizza, pasta, and the local specialities of soup and dumplings, often the latter in the former.  One evening I eat a massive meal containing two spinach dumplings, two deep fried cheese dumplings, and even some outsize ravioli - enough calories to last several days I suspect.  Having fun as we are the week of skiing fair rushes by, it's not the end of the holiday though as again we take a couple of days to travel back in the van, the first of which is particularly memorable as it is Sophie's seventh birthday - among other things we visit an even more impressive spa/waterpark, where there is another whirlpool, a water slide and even outdoor heated salt pools, jacuzzi and so forth, it is most cool.  We even have time to make a detour to the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, where we dodge Japanese tour groups, queue to get on a horse-drawn carriage up to the castle and then wander around the outside - tour tickets being all sold out.  It is most impressive, although the birthday girl is a little disappointed that it isn't pink...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Cambodia Part 3 : Battambang

Peace Naga.

Another long bus journey, this time to a terminal on the outskirts of Cambodia's second city (population around 150,000!), Battambang.  Immediately I sense a contrast to bustling Phnom Penh, here traffic seems much lighter, and the tuktuk drivers far less aggressive, this is all good, and makes for a pleasant walk to my hotel, which is itself rather nice - my room has actual furniture, and there is even a rooftop jacuzzi!  So, liking the place so far, it has a laid back feel to it, there seems to be more of a French influence surviving here than the rest of the country - where, beyond the availability of demi-baguettes and patisserie, you wouldn't really guess at the colonial history.  Here, there seem to be a lot of French tourists sipping wine in restaurants of an evening, and why not.  Seems to be a very artistic place too, lots of sculpture about, I pass wood carving workshops, there is a performing arts school here too, their circus shows being one of the city's attractions - a bit pricey for me I fear.  I do splash out on bicycle hire - three whole dollars per day, this gets me a machine with actual gears, and even disk brakes, well worth it.  For it is only a short ride out into the country, and there is much to see - though in fact, it is enjoyable enough just to be out riding around, the wind in my face more or less compensating for the scorching heat.  I find a convivial place to pause anyway, a few kilometres south of town is what purports to be Cambodia's only winery - well, they certainly have a lot of grapes growing, all under curved translucent shelters to protect them from the monsoon rains.  Not sure if any fermentation goes on here though - I partake of a little 'wine' tasting, and while I am no connoisseur, it's my impression that these beverages have been created with a mixture of grape juice, grain alcohol, and spices such as ginger.  Hmm.  Back to town where I visit various substantial statues, one of Vishnu, a large 'peace Naga' constructed by welding together various firearms handed in during a (fairly recent) amnesty, and most impressively the huge 'Battambang Man'.  Apparently the latter refers to the local legend of a man who found a magic stick, and used it to become king - as you do.

Temple art here is so entertaining.

I am sure you are wondering, are there temples here?  Well of course there are... again, bicycle is the best way to reach them, a notable example being Ek Phnom, a little way to the north, here there is a modern Buddhist temple, complete with massive Buddha statue, and nearby an 11th century Wat in the Angkorian style, as big as many I saw in Siem Reap, though clearly it has suffered over the centuries - there is hardly a single intact piece of carving to be seen.  I manage a longer journey, some twenty kilometres to the south, to visit Wat Banan, a rather better preserved Angkorian temple, this time built on top of a substantial hill - I am getting some exercise here for sure.  Also interesting is a nearby complex of huge caves, where I actually pay for a guide - well, it was either that or just push past him to get in.  Worth a dollar to have him point out stalagmites, veins of quartz in the rock, and even a colony of bats on the roof high above.  I ride on, heading west on what turns out to be a dirt track alongside a canal, well my $3 bike copes well enough, there is another temple this way, Prasat Snung - again, modern Buddhist next to the crumbling remains of ancient towers.  From here I can head back to Battambang along National Highway 57, taking in the most famous local temple, Phnom Sampov, on the way.  The route looked good when I planned things, but two problems arise, firstly I don't get far before the 'National Highway' turns into a surface of dirt and gravel - I guess they're rebuilding it?  Worse, it's starting to rain, just a few big fat drops at first, but before long I'm riding through a storm, into the face of a stiff headwind and a deluge of water, lightning bolts crashing into the surrounding hills and fields.  Not entirely pleasant, but the real problem is it is turning the already poor road surface into a sea of mud, increasingly hard to get any traction on... I push on, the rear tyre spinning in the mud, but after half an hour or so when I pass a shelter on the side of the road, packed with locals whose mopeds are parked outside, I have to stop for a bit.  They look at me curiously, I am the only cyclist here... well, the rain doesn't stop but maybe eases off a little, so after a rest I head back out, and thankfully after a kilometre or so the road returns to a tarmac surface.  I reach Wat Sampong, and though it is raining I still climb the many steps to reach the temple, more because it is there than anything else really.  The vaunted view from the top is of a landscape blurred by the torrential rain falling... still, I do get to see a life size diorama of Monkey, Tripitaka and all, so that is cool.

All aboard the bamboo train.

Food here is good, I mainly eat at a French owned place opposite my hotel, where there is also draft beer for $1 (or less during happy hour!) and a pool table, good to see my pool skills have not left me.  Am liking amok I must say... another local speciality around here is apparently spring rolls, well go on, I may have had these before somewhere, they're good though.  I find a handy local newspaper by the bar, in English, with details of various local attractions, one that catches my eye is the 'bamboo train', so I head off on my bike next day to check it out.  This turns out to involve a ten kilometre or so stretch of railway, surviving from the network built by the French back in the day - much of it now defunct, although reconstruction work is now underway, trains will be able to run all the way from Bangkok to Phnom Penh within a year or two.  But here there are trains, of a sort, still running - each consists of a wooden frame, resting without suspension on metal bogies, and topped by a bamboo platform.  The thing is driven along by what looks like a lawnmower engine, attached to the axle via a car fan belt... supposedly these were used by locals to move themselves and goods, back when the roads in this region were more or less unusable, but now it is the preserve of tourists, me and three others pay $5 each for a trip up and down the line.  Turns out to be something of a thrill ride, maximum speed is perhaps fifteen miles per hour, but the way the 'train' rattles along the warped rails, over rotting sleepers and bridges, with us passengers crouched inches above the track is, exciting to say the least.  Amusing to see what happens when two trains meet going in opposite directions - whichever one has fewer passengers has to offload them, and then the entire thing is dismantled and carried off the rails.  I take a turn carrying one end of the carriage, it's actually pretty heavy for all that it's made of bamboo.

Sheltering from the monsoon at Wat Sampov.

Well, that was Cambodia then... from here, it's just another long bus back to Thailand, where I have more planning to do - this world travel thing does not organise itself you know.  Have to say I was rather impressed by this country - it is certainly amazing how the place has been reconstructed since the horrors of last century - even after the Vietnamese invasion, there was an on-off civil war going on for years afterwards, with the last remnants of the Khmer Rouge not surrendering until 1999.  Nowadays the place seems to be thriving, there is new construction everywhere, and a general atmosphere of optimism - I can certainly see myself coming back at some point.  I might well pass through here on my way to Viet Nam at some point I suppose - need to check off the last bit of French Indochina as was, after all.  Was talking to one of my fellow passengers on the bamboo train, he reckoned a good cycling route was to go from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City,  Hmmm...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Cambodia Part 2 : Phnom Penh

Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument.

After the general awesomeness of Siem Reap, wherever I went next was always going to have a hard time living up to it, and to be honest, Phnom Penh, which I reach after another day long bus trip, doesn't make a great first impression.  My hotel is near a busy, and loud, construction site, and walking through the city is a hectic experience at best.  There is no traffic control here, and Cambodians share with Indians the great idea of having an unofficial extra lane next to the edge of the road, mainly for mopeds, going against the flow of traffic.  This all makes crossing the road a whole lot of fun.  Then there is the way that here in Phnom Penh, being outside is to be continually assailed from all sides by people trying to sell you things, mostly tuktuk drivers and motorcycle taxis, but I also get men trying to hawk fake rolex watches, kids offering string (one dollar), and the tuktuk guys offer other things, 'mariwanna', or indeed 'ladies'.  A sign inside my hotel room gravely informs me that sex with children is a crime.  Hmmm.

The Ton Le Sap / Mekong confluence is directly behind me.

Still it's not all bad, there are a couple of broad, paved avenues near my hotel, leading to the Independence Monument (every former colony has to have one), these are good to wander along, quiet during the day, at night they're crowded with locals, groups playing football or some kind of 'foot badminton', not to mention the very popular 'sandal boules', and there are also lots of monks sitting and chatting.  Plenty of temples here of course, all gaudily painted in gold and silver, one near the Royal Palace is lit up like a christmas tree at night too.  There's a nice riverside walk too, the Ton Le Sap river, much wider here than back in Siem Reap, meets the Mekong here, and you can stroll for a mile or so up from the confluence.  Nice to see the Mekong again, many miles downstream from where I last saw it in Vientiane - I am struck by the idea of boating down it all the way from Huay Xai to here, or even through Viet Nam to the South China Sea - think there may be issues with border police though.

Inside the Royal Palace complex.

Back to the Royal Palace for a look inside - again somewhat expensive at $10.50 for a ticket.  It does seem that everything here, with the exception of beer, is surprisingly pricey, I guess the weakness of the pound against the dollar does not help.  Turns out you don't get into the palace itself for your money, rather there are a couple of substantial walled gardens containing, oh yes, temples, plus a large number of stupas, which I gather contain the cremated remains of successive members of the royal family.  Cambodia seems to be, like Thailand, staunchly monarchist these days, there are pictures of the king everywhere - not too surprising given that their period without a royal head of state turned out... badly.  Well, it's interesting enough here, the huge collection of gold and silver Buddha statues inside one of the temples is impressive, and I'm struck by the mural that runs all around one of the walled gardens, depicting various mythological scenes - for instance, giant demon with a mouthful of sword wielding monkeys, next to a scene of a similar giant demon, again with the monkeys, but this time another giant, this one with many hands all holding swords, is cutting him to pieces.  Of an evening, I enjoy that cheap beer, and more local food - seems the spicy beef with rice thing I had in Poipet is 'Lok Lak', my favourite though is Khmer speciality 'Amok', a yellow curry with coconut and, I think, cabbage, is most tasty.

Schoolrooms converted into a cell block.

The memory I will take away from Phnom Penh though, is rather a grim one, after spending a rather harrowing few hours at the former S21 prison, converted from a high school by the Khmer Rouge back in the seventies.  I find myself unable to skip any part of the audio guide, stories from some of the handful of prisoners who survived out of the 20,000 who passed through here, details of what happened in each room I pass through, testimony from former guards and even the camp commandant.  It is utterly horrifying, somehow more so in that this was going on in my own lifetime, with perhaps the most poignant thing being the sheer absurdity of Pol Pot's regime.  They abandoned modern, urban civilisation, driving people out of cities to communal farms, believing this would somehow create a communist utopia - of course the result was mass famine, some two million people died in all.  Intellectuals were rounded up and brought to prisons like this, hundreds of them around the country - although the Khmer Rouge leaders were themselves university educated, having picked up revolutionary communist ideas in Paris.  Here in the prison you can see the evidence of the regime's disdain for any kind of skill or education, the shoddy brickwork used to convert classrooms into cells, even the torture equipment converted from heavy wooden furniture... and of course, in the stories of the Kafkaesque madness that went on here, people tortured for weeks before an acceptable confession was extracted, said confession generally being entirely fictitious, at which point they were taken directly to the infamous killing fields.  I find myself looking with a new appreciation at the 'Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument' near my hotel - I guess these people have reason to thank the Vietnamese, who invaded in 1979, driving the Khmer Rouge from power.

Memorial to the victims.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Cambodia Part 1 : Siem Reap

Apsaras.

I've taken a little break in Thailand to recover from the India thing, recharge my batteries, and of course plan further adventures - I have something coming up soon that is taking rather a lot of planning, stay tuned for updates on that one.  Now though, time for a little bit more of southeast Asia, I was quite taken with Laos a couple of years ago, what will Cambodia be like then?  Easy enough to get to, a 48 Baht train journey from Hua Lamphong station to Aranyaprathet, then a 20 Baht shared tuktuk takes me to the border, straight through Thai passport control, walk across the friendship bridge (donated by Great Britain!) and I'm in Cambodia.  The border town on this side is Poipet, which has a dubious reputation as a den of scammers who will apparently try to sell me a visa or bus ticket at inflated prices.  There is also a substantial zone right on the border filled with casinos - gambling is illegal in both Thailand and Cambodia, but the authorities turn a blind eye here and so it's somewhere for wealthy Thais to come and indulge their vice.  I don't actually have any trouble with touts, in fact I nearly walk straight into Poipet without going through immigration, which seems oddly easy to do, but I manage to spot the office on the other side of the busy road, and after a bit of queueing to show my prepurchased 'evisa', I'm in.  By this time it's dark, and I'm not terribly encouraged to note that Poipet has no working streetlights, making a walk along the busy main road to find an ATM a little less enjoyable than it might be, particularly when I have to cross the road - I am already missing those little footbridges they have in Thailand.  It takes a while, but I eventually get some dollars - somewhat surprisingly, the main currency here, there is the local Riel as well, but it is only used for small change, the rate being 4,000 to the dollar!  On to my hotel, which again is a little odd - a large, but bare and windowless room.  I do at least manage to find a bar cum restaurant, where the beer is very cheap, and while the menu is entirely in Khmer, there are pictures, so I can point to something which turns out to be beef with rice, good enough for me.

Angkor Wat in all its glory.

After a little struggle to check out of my hotel, which initially seems to be devoid of staff, I head off to find a bus to Siem Reap - I think I get lucky there, a sleeper bus is making its way back I assume, and I pay seven dollars to be the only passenger, bargain.  This takes most of the day, so just time to check into another hotel - rather nicer this one, if not ideally situated a mile or so out of town.  A little walk then to find, yes a bar and restaurant, here I can get a beer for a whole seventy five cents.  I am pleased to see that Siem Reap has working streetlights, wonder what else there is to see around here?  Oh yes - the Angkor temple complexes of course.  A mind bogglingly vast area filled with temples of various ages, and in various states of repair, some four hundred square kilometres of them apparently, I invest in a somewhat pricey (sixty two dollars!) three day pass but even with that I'm not going to be able to see everything, will do my best though.  Borrowing a bicycle from my hotel, I spend many hours pedalling about, parking up at various spots to then wander around one complex of buildings or another, beginning with the most famous and best preserved, Angkor Wat itself.  Situated at the centre of a square plot of land, around a mile on a side and surrounded by a broad moat, this is on a scale comparable to anything I saw in India, a huge intricately carved pyramid surrounded by galleries, all built of age blackened stone.  Interesting to compare this to India in fact, as these temples were built to venerate gods which we'd nowadays call Hindu, in the case of Angkor Wat for example, Vishnu.  The story of gods and demons churning the waters by pulling on a giant snake crops up here as well - the moat around the temple representing the water, and the Wat itself the rock around which the snake was wound.  Snake or Naga statues are everywhere too, though most of the carvings are of 'Apsaras', which I see variously translated as 'heavenly nymphs' and 'celestial dancers', they take the form of attractive young ladies wearing few clothes...

The Elephant Terrace.

It does make me wonder if the various huge fortresses I visited in India were built on the flattened ruins of temple complexes like this, I would not be surprised.  Well at least this is all still here, albeit much of it relatively ruined.  A little to the north of Angkor Wat is Angkor Thom, again a square moat, this one more like three miles on the side, and within a bewildering array of temples from different eras.  At the centre, the Bayon temple, again a pyramidal structure, this time surmounted by innumerable stone towers, carved with huge, inscrutably smiling faces, then a walk through the surrounding woods reveals more and more megalithic structures, the Bachuon temple, where stones from the collapsed top of the pyramid were reused in later centuries to create a huge reclining Buddha along one of the walls - which has since, in turn also collapsed.  There's a continual impression that, grand though the remaining temples here are, they were once much more so - every where you look there are piles of cut stone, sections of massive statues sunk into the ground, great piles of masonry where another temple must have stood.  Often attempts at repair or conservation are apparent, but it does tend to look rather like a lego set that has been broken and inexpertly put back together, the carvings on one block not matching up to the next, sometimes a ramshackle assembly of stone that can only be an approximation to the original structure.  But still, a lot survives, I walk past the elephant terrace, with carvings of pachyderms as you'd expect, but also huge gods and demons supporting the walkway.  There's also a 'leper king terrace', the walls covered with an array of carved nymphs and snakes, and still the temples continue, getting older and more ruinous as I head away from the centre, until I reach Prah Palilay, a smallish edifice in comparison to the more famous ones, but fascinating in the way it has been overtaken by the jungle, trees growing out of the stone to create a scene that reminds me of the Ents attacking Isengard in the Lord of the Rings.

I probably could have jumped it.

Is there any other stuff here then?  Sure, it's not really a big town, but there is a market where tourists with annoying facial hair come to buy harem pants... nearby is Pub Street, which does indeed have many pubs, some selling beer for a mere fifty cents.  I'm not quite that poor, I head upstairs in one bar where it's a whole one dollar twenty five (more or less, they can't seem to make up their minds), the reason being that here we get an Apsara show.  Well, I am kind of doing the tourist thing here... it is perfectly wholesome anyway, the heavenly nymphs here seem rather more conservatively dressed than the ones carved on the temples, and there are also some traditional dances not involving Apsaras, such as the charming peacock dance.  Other things - one day I ride south on another ancient bicycle, along the Ton Le Sap river which broadens out into a substantial dock where Chinese tour groups are piling onto boats.  Not me though, I park the bike up and keep walking along the river on what rapidly becomes a dirt track, between the river and some kind of inlet, with many houseboats and many dubious smells.  I get past a guy who says something about my needing a ticket, he has a chap in uniform sat next to him, not sure if this is a scam or just advice to go back and get on a boat.  Next up, the path is broken by a few metres of water, allowing long tail boats from the inlet to access the river... local kids jump over it, but I pay a thousand Riels for them to drag a metal footbridge across for me.  A mile or two further and I reach Ton Le Sap the lake, largest in southeast Asia apparently.  Something to see, although very hot work walking to it, I am almost tempted to swim, but still remember the smells from the houseboat area.  There is also a substantial floating village a little way out on the lake, Vietnamese refugees I believe, that will be where the tour groups are going, there to have people try to sell them scarves I expect.  Oh, and back at the Angkor complex, there are more temples too, would you believe?  I visit Preah Khan, again set within a huge square moat, this must once have been almost as grand as Angkor Wat, now it's a picturesque ruin, patches of well preserved carvings here and there, but mostly tumbled piles of eroded stone, and huge trees growing over the walls, the gnarled, grey roots seeming to form part of the design.  Northeast from here, I reach the East Baray, a huge artificial lake, built as a reservoir and now a strange sight, trees poking up here and there, and of course it has its own temple, Neak Pean, reached via a lengthy boardwalk it turns out to be a sort of water temple, a walled enclosure containing a square pond, with a carved tower at the centre.  Things start to blur a bit, I remember Mebon for its splendid elephant statues, and Ta Prohm, another ruin in the midst of being consumed by the jungle, I gather it was used as the set for one of the Indiana Jones films.  And that is about it, my time here at an end, barring another evening of cheap beer and food.  Have to say this place was pretty awesome, I would come back, but for now there is more of Cambodia to see, off to the capital Phnom Penh tomorrow.

Photos to go with this post can be found here and here.

India Part 8 : Kolkata

Indira Gandhi monument.

One last train in India, again a night train, scheduled to leave Gaya at 9:30 in the evening so plenty of time to walk there and get some dinner.  Except of course, when I get to the station to check on the train, it is running a good two hours late, joy.  Wouldn't be a problem in a civilised country but here?  I find a restaurant, buy some dinner and also a two litre bottle of lemonade which I spend some time drinking, much to the confusion of the waiter.  Seriously what do people do of an evening here?  Well, the railway station at least has something close to a cafe, I drink quite a few coffees as the train gets later and later, finally turning up at 1:30am, yay.  At least I can get some sleep before reaching Kolkata the following day.  Honestly I'm not expecting a lot here, don't know much about the place other than it being the location of the famous 'black hole', so I am prepared for even more rubbish, urine and worse things than usual.  Something of a shock then to find the city is as close as I've found to civilisation in India, there are actual pavements to walk on, I see no cows, and few rickshaws - rather, there are the 40s Morris styled yellow taxis everywhere, and even a tram network.  Even more shockingly, on the way to my hotel I pass a supermarket, the first one I have seen in this country.

The Victoria Memorial Hall.

There are bars here too, and I confess I put the sightseeing on hold for a bit to relax, have a number of beers - and then recover the next day.  Seems that as in Delhi, bars here come with a substantial troupe of entertainers, but here the pretty girls don't just sit by the side of the band, but actually get up and gyrate - fully clothed I hasten to add.  Each has a cloth bag in front of her, and in the busier bars, the customers (all male of course) take turns to hand banknotes to the waiters, who then put them in one or other girl's bag.  One waiter comes up to me and shows me a bunch of 100 Rupee notes, he doesn't really have any English but I think he wants to sell me them?  Ten of them for, er, 100 Rupees?  I guess they are what, forgeries, or maybe old currency from before the demonetisation thing they just did here, though to be honest they look identical to what I have in my wallet.  All a bit too weird for me to be honest which makes the situation a little uncomfortable, but there are other bars to choose from, some of them a bit quieter.

There was a very long queue of sparkly horse drawn carriages.

And yes, there is sightseeing to do here of course.  I walk through a few parks, noticeable that the nicer bits of them all seem to be fenced off from the public, but there's a lot of open green space too, I do spot a few cows, also horses - seems you can come here and rent one for a little gallop about.  There's a lot of British legacy here too, from the many years this was the colonial capital, plenty of churches including a cathedral (St. Pauls believe it or not), and most impressively the Victoria Memorial Hall.  This is a huge structure, set amongst ornamental gardens and ponds, its design is clearly inspired by the Taj Mahal, and while not as gracious in aspect it does manage to be considerably bigger.  Inside, staircases lead up to a gallery suspended around the inside of the dome, the space decorated with a series of scenes from the life of the Queen Empress, while on the ground floor there is a museum, framed, yellowing documents in Bengali contrasting oddly with statues of people such as Clive and Curzon.

St. Pauls.

This is my last city in India, and in all honesty I'll be glad to get away.  There is certainly an awful lot to see here, but the sad truth is that in order to get to a lot of it, you have to spend time in the stinking toilets they call cities in this country.  Well, I can imagine that a trip through more rural parts of the country might be better, and I've heard things aren't so bad in the South, and indeed in Goa which by all accounts has an identity all of its own.  Overall though I would be rather hesitant to recommend this place as a holiday destination, and I'm not sure I'll be in a great hurry to return.  I find myself wondering what combination of history, culture, economics and so forth has led to the state the country finds itself in.  At a guess, it's partly an unfortunate side effect of the attitude these people have to animals - in many ways, it's admirable the way so many of them refuse to harm other creatures, and even feel an obligation to feed them, but there's no getting away from the fact the result is that there is, to put it bluntly, shit everywhere.  So maybe when that is the case, it doesn't seem worth the effort to tidy your own rubbish away?  I don't know... the other thing I notice is how few women, particularly of child bearing age, you see here.  Various reasons for that I guess, but thinking about the mess many men make of their homes without a woman keep them in line, I can sort of see this country as a filthy bachelor flat writ large.  I guess I should be grateful I've managed not to catch anything while I'm here...

India Part 7 : Bodhgaya

The Mahabodhi temple.

I'm actually hoping my train from Varanasi will run late, not an unreasonable expectation here, but no, it is pretty much on time, arriving at Gaya Junction around 6:30am.  Not feeling terribly rested, I walk through the rubbish strewn streets of Gaya and out into more or less open country, my destination being Bodhgaya, something like eight miles away.  Not a terribly long walk for all that I'm a little sleepy, only problem turns out to be my stomach is feeling a little rough, the food here does have consequences sometimes.  I grit my teeth and get almost the whole way, but succumb to the offer of a motorcycle ride for the last couple of miles - in this case, it is just a guy being friendly, so hard to tell them apart from the ones who want to sell you something.

Bodhgaya then.  My tour of India's spiritual highlights continues, after the Hindu sacred river, now we have the Buddhist holy of holies, this is where, according to the scripture, the Buddha meditated under a fig tree and obtained enlightenment - so, the birthplace of the religion pretty much.  Seems to be kind of the Buddhist equivalent of Jerusalem, there are monks and pilgrims here from all over the world, and it seems every country with a substantial Buddhist community has built a temple, monastery, or both here, each in their unique architectural style.  Makes for a lot of sightseeing, and also a hell of a lot of tourists, some of them just sightseeing, many seem to be relatives of monks paying a visit, and many more are on some kind of spiritual journey.  Indeed, there seem to be more than a few westerners who have pretty much gone native, more than once I stop for a coffee and listen to an American voice prattling on about 'prana' or whatever.  At least here I can stop for a coffee, the number of tourists mean that small though this place is it has a more international air than much of India, there are cafes, and even a 7-11, the first I have seen in the country.  Restaurants cater for many tastes, I enjoy Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese food over the course of my stay, though I don't get to have a beer with any of it - seems that not just this town, but the entire state of Bihar is an alcohol free zone, ah well I can cope.

One of the many other temples - in this case, Cambodian.

Centrepiece of town is the Mahabodhi temple, located on the site of the legendary fig tree, or Bodhi tree as it is known.  It towers over the area, surrounded by gardens, the nearest parts filled with chanting monks in robes of various colours.  Interesting to see that this whole institution, the nearby satellite temples and monasteries, have grown up over the last hundred years or so - before that, the Mahabodhi was a ruin, following centuries of neglect by Muslim and then Hindu authorities.  The temple was restored by the British, and then more recently a Buddhist council was given control of the area, turning into the place of pilgrimage it is now.  The massive stone base of the temple is slowly being covered by gold leaf by the hordes of pilgrims, and there is still a Bodhi tree here - again, planted in Victorian times, and claimed to be a descendant of the original.

In the Buddha cave.

To be honest though, for me the best part of Bodhgaya is that it is small enough that I can in pretty short order simply walk out of it into the countryside.  The town lies on the banks of what, on the map, is one of two river forks, each of them at least a hundred metres wide.  I walk across one on a road bridge, but don't see much water, rather a broad expanse of sand, and the other fork is the same, I simply walk across, finding an inch deep trickle to wade through near the centre.  In the distance I can see a small ridge, poking up from the otherwise flat landscape - a lot of India seems to be flat, as best as I can tell.  Heading towards it, I don't exactly get away from people, regularly passing through small villages of rough shacks, each with one substantial building - schools, all of them.  There are a lot of children here - the ones in the villages call out 'hello' to me, if I meet some on the road however they tend to follow along saying 'money, money'.  Good luck kids.  Up into the hills, and I find a small cave where, allegedly, the Buddha spent six years before the whole tree enlightenment thing.  Again there are a lot of tourists, and attracted by them, the path up the hill here has beggars at every turn.  There is at least a good view from the top... back to the river for some brief snatches of peace, and taking a slightly different route I find an impressive banyan tree, big enough that there is space to stand within the trunk.  A much closer experience to that of the Buddha, all those centuries ago than the temple in town I suspect, though I am not struck by any great enlightenment I'm afraid, other than that it would really be nice to get to some place where people hassle me a bit less.  Maybe at my next stop in Kolkata eh...

Underneath the Banyan tree...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

India Part 6 : Varanasi

Me, with various Ghats behind.

I struggle a bit to find my train out of Lucknow - maybe the evening in a bar didn't help, but also it turns out there are two stations right next to each other and mine is not easy to find - I guess no different to London's King's Cross and St. Pancras really.  Still, my train is waiting for me, and though it takes a very long time to reach its destination, it's a night train so I sleep for much of it, back in one of the higher classes too so relative luxury.  I am in fact quite rested on reaching Varanasi, the holy city by the Ganges - I don't suppose, by any chance, the holiness of the place encourages the people here to keep the place clean?  Well no, not really... I do find a road running between my hotel and the train station that seems not to have much in the way of housing, shops, or random people with stalls selling stuff on the street, this makes for fast moving traffic but fewer people so generally good.  The rest of the city streets are the usual rubbish strewn toilet though... on the plus side, the main attraction of this place, the Ganges itself, lies many metres below street level, and the several miles of it that border the city are accessed via a series of steps and terraces.  This makes for a substantial amount of terrain that is not accessible to wheeled vehicles, making it considerably more pleasant to walk along than the roads, I could get to quite like it here.

The tower to the left is part of the city's water intake system.  Shudder.

There are even cafes along the river, catering for the many tourists that are here, it's nice to be able to sit down and watch the riverside action in peace for a while.  I get some more peace and quiet, and an even better view of the riverside, by taking a boat up and down for an hour or so, just me and an old guy rowing.  I do offer to take a turn with the oars, but he of course does not speak English.  Well, means I can concentrate on the various 'Ghats' we pass - I believe this refers to the stairs leading down to the river, in each case there is a more or less ornate temple at the top as well.  At the waterside there are people washing all manner of things - themselves, clothes, buffalo - can't help but doubt whether things washed in the river come out much cleaner than they went in, that said I do see a small boy catch a fish with a stick and some string, so I guess it can't be all that polluted.  Really don't know if I'd want to eat that fish mind you given what must be washing into the river - including, as my oarsman says when we reach our turnaround point, 'dead people'.  Sure enough, there are number of fires going on the bank here, as various bodies are cremated, and I can see a huge pile of logs, and a couple of guys with a hose sluicing ashes into the water.  From later research I gather that these cremations go on here twenty four hours a day, and as well as the ashes being washed into the river, the bodies are ceremonially washed in it beforehand as well...

Looking downstream as my boat heads for home.

An interesting place this then.  Another thing I notice is that the many little shrines here - some of them built in place, others on little trolleys - have music coming from them.  And not tinkly temple music either, or even the Bollywood love songs they play in the bars here, but rather some kind of Indian electronic dance music, loud and bass heavy.  This really ramps up in the evening, when the mobile shrines are pushed around the street, music blaring, led lights flashing and a gang of people milling along.  Is this some sort of funerary rite I wonder?  Makes for a bit of ambience as I walk from my hotel to a bar and back anyway - only one I could find is a good mile from my hotel, towards the station, worth it though, not that I am a terrible alcoholic, but more that the rare bars are the only places I find where you can spend time off the streets in the evening, barring lurking in my hotel.  Cafes don't seem to really exist in this country, if you want a cup of tea apparently you buy it in the street, drink it there, and of course dump the container there too.  And while I'd be happy to eat a restaurant meal and then drink coffee or whatever, any place that doesn't serve beer seems to bring the bill before I've finished eating even, most odd.  Mind you, it often takes long enough to eat the food - they don't seem set up to serve just one person, ordering a curry plus rice generally means a meal big enough for two, still somehow I manage to get it down - and still no serious ill effects!

Speakers blaring out dance music.  And why not.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.