Ghats & Taj

Last few days have been crazy, and it was a test of endurance making it from one side of India to the other in such a short time. After 36 hours in Varanasi, I took a 7 hour train ride to Lucknow, then another 6 hours to Agra, stayed there for 18 hours, and took a 14 hour train ride to some obscure train station, and then 4 hour bumpy bus ride up the mountain and now I’m finally in Dharmasala, the land of the Tibetans that I’ve been dreaming of coming.



Although India is an amazing place, i was starting to get a little fed up with all the begging, hassling and cheating by the Indians, and wanted to hang out with the Tibetans. I can’t generalize like this but it seems interesting to me how such a spiritual country can be so ruthless and deceiving towards the tourists. I’ve been lied to and ripped off so many times (one thing I still can’t get over is that a travel agency tried to get $100 for exchanging my $500 US traveler’s cheque and when I argued he only gave me back $50 and kept $50 for himself, which is a huge sum of money in India. As if the government charging foreigners several hundred rupees for the tourist spots that Indians get charged 10 rupees isn’t bad enough, Indians tried to rip me off with all their useless souvenirs. Even a cute four year old girl was being obnoxious as she bothered my solo time by the river in Varanasi and proceeded to be irritated when i refused to buy her little postcards. And then there are kids who wanted me to pay them hundred rupees to play a little game of cricket with them and so i tried to find haven in the Tibetan exile capital of Dharamsala. I already like the mountainous vibe here. It’s a little touristy but everyone’s fascinated by Tibet and me coming here adds to the touristy-ness so i can’t complain…



But that is not to say that i did not have a terrific time in Varanasi and Agra, and in fact i had amazing experiences in both places. I arrived in Varanasi at 3am (i was supposed arrive at midnight but as usual in India, my train was 3 hours late). The Lonely Planet said the sunrise is the best time to see the ghats (washing places along the river) so i just decided to stay up and not go to sleep. It was rather difficult finding a hotel at 3am, and it was nearly 4am when my bike-rickshaw arrived by the ghat-side. Then i found a hotel with a help of a flower-selling boy who seemed like a good guy but obviously wanted a little tip in the end. And then i headed off for the ghats at around 5:30am and hired a boat by myself. It was still dusky and I was still a little drowsy. So i was dozing off and had my guide not shouted and nudged to wake me up, i would have fallen into the filthy Ganges River and got skin cancer. (The Hinduism’s holiest river is also the deadliest as it is not even suitable for bathing (its toxic concentration is more than 1000 times higher than safe level even for bathing). Although i was barely awake, the ghats were still beautiful and there were so many Hindus washing themselves and their clothes at the river. The water seemed not only dirty, but cold but it did not stop dedicated Hindus from washing themselves as they believe that all their bad karma disappears if they wash themselves at the river. Then my boat passed by a burning fire and my guide told me there was a cremation going on there. The body usually burns for about three hours (i had thought it would be lot shorter than that but apparently our bodies are pretty durable against fire), and the body that was burning then seemed like it had burnt for at least two hours as not much was left. I don’t want to sound morbid but i had originally wanted to be cremated because i liked the idea of my molecules floating freely around the world but if i have to burn for more than 3 hours, i think i may actually just get buried.) Later, i would walk by another cremation ceremony close to my guest house, and the body had just started burning on that one. It was pretty intense to be so close to the burning bodies and thinking i was inhaling the molecules of that dead person as smoke covered me. The ghats really make you think hard about life. You may be the one burning there any moment, and i felt like i was seeing the sand clock (or what do you call that triangular thing with the sand falling) of my life tick, and although there may be a possibility of flipping the sand clock and starting again (reincarnation), the ghats really make you want to ‘carpe diem,’ as cheesy as it sounds. There were two bodies burning on the ghat, and it was also a little depressing to see that there was a little crowd around the man’s body but nobody around the woman’s body- I’d hate to be by myself when I leave.



Nevertheless, this was india, and i was soon pulled out of reflective mood by an Indian guy telling me foreigners cannot stand by the pyre and have to go up the building and can only see from the balcony. Although the building seemed like a hospice for the old people (or so the Indian person claimed), I was sick and tired of being hassled to donate that I just dropped 10 rupees and left the place, leaving behind the angry Indian guy who shouted ‘minimum 100 rupees.’



Beside ghats, I took some tabla lessons and it’s such a mesmerizing instrument. After hearing my teacher groove on the table, I discovered where Victor Wooten (one of my favorite bassists) got his funky rhythm- he had brought Tabla beat to bass- another example of successful fusion between the West and the East. I only had time for two lessons, but I think I’ll continue tabla lessons in college. I also tried a crazy 2-hour yoga session which began with ‘laughing yoga,’ which was doing a little chicken dance first and then cracking up as much as you can. Although I know it’s good to smile and laugh, I had hard time laughing consciously but I was saved by just looking at my teacher who was cracking up out of control. Just watching him was hilarious. Then we moved on to some crazy stretches and as I’m stiff as a rock, what I’m doing didn’t seem much like what my teacher was doing. But my teacher said I don’t have to push myself as ‘middle way’ and being natural (therefore not forced effort) are the best so I didn’t get too stressed about it. Then we did some breathing exercises which was also hard but ultimately two hours flew by and it was good to be doing yoga with such gorgeous ladies.



But I did have my blue moments in Varanasi as well. As I was having breakfast by myself, I was feeling pretty upset at the fact that I split up with the guys I met in Bodh Gaya but after calling my mom (this is almost always the best remedy for my blues- I guess I’m still a mama boy.. . J and remembering what I have learned in vipassana- that nothing is permanent- I was feeling a little better. Later on during breakfast I was joined by two Korean ladies and hung out a little with them so I was feeling ok by the end.



So I took the 4pm train from Varanasi to Lucknow, and after fortunately getting off my waitlist for the train heading to Agra that night, I arrived at Agra around 8am. After some serious breakfast and shower, I headed out for an exploration run and found a spot behind the Taj Mahal by the river where I could catch an awesome view of the Taj Mahal for free. It was hidden behind some forests and i was not the first one there, as a Canadian guy was lying there already. He was talking to an Indian man who was squatting and complaining about how the Canadian guy could travel wherever he wanted but he didn’t have any money to travel at all- which made me feel slightly guilty as well- then the Indian guy left and I sat with the Canadian guy for little over an hour and it was interesting to hear about his 5 years in Asia. Initially, he was taking a gap year also and what he thought to be one year had stretched to 5 years, and he told me he’s starting school in Spain this August. It was also interesting to hear that even without a college degree, he could make $20 US an hour in Shanghai ($10/hour in Kunming) teaching English, which was more than enough to live comfortably in China or India.

On my run back, while getting some street food, I also ran into a British guy who said he has lived in Vermont for a year because his whole family decided to switch their house with another family friend, which sounded crazy but I also realized is an incredibly cool thing to do. I hope I have good/ cool enough friends to switch houses with me when I get sick & tired of living in my house later on.



After running to the baby Taj and the Agra Fort, I took another shower to prepare for my date with the Taj Mahal. She was dressed in white marble so I decided to dress all black, and I even put on a nice collared t-shirt. She was totally worth dressing up for- although she was expensive (750 rupees for an hour)- Taj was the most beautiful building I had seen in my life, and she changed colors to pinkish yellow as the sun set against her. I also couldn’t help thinking ‘why didn’t you build this for your wife when she was alive?’ but maybe he built it for me. There is a theory that he was planning on building another black Taj on the other side of the river but I wonder if the Taj would be better by itself or with a twin. After getting a late night snack, I headed to the train station for my train to Dharamsala.