Kathmandu sort of came and went really. It's not that difficult to imagine its hey day in the 60's and early 70's when the hippies used to hang out there as it doesn't look like much has changed. The shops are still selling loads of Indian and Nepalese art as well as an outlandish array of hippy smocks, loon pants and felt slippers shaped like mice in all sorts of psychadelic colours, but they've now branched out into fake branded hiking gear, walking poles and back copies of The Economist much to Rich's delight.
We walked around the city quite a bit and managed to see a fair amount. The closeness to Tibet was quite obvious in the number of Buddhist temples dotted around and the stupas being circumnambulated by the familiar maroon robed monks. One of the stupas was really quite impressive, set in the middle of a huge square it absolutely filled the space. The hundreds of colourful prayer flags that adorned it were vivid and bright and the gold top piece reflected the brilliant sunshine. After walking around it we decided to go to one of the many rooftop cafes for a slice of cake and a view of the Himalayas. We got the cake but no view as it was too smoggy. Instead I amused myself by listening to an old American lady having her Tibetan homework checked by her teacher. Of course, the American thought she'd done really well despite what the teacher was telling her.
We spent another day at a big Hindu temple, or rather we walked for over an hour to get to the temple only to find that non-Hindus are not allowed in. The guide book says that if you walk round the outside you can catch a glimpse of the back end of a huge golden bull. We didn't. What we did see though was a ticket office where you could pay to go in and see the rear of the temple. We paid and once we were in we found ourselves on a river bank where cremations were taking place. One of the young blokes who was touting himself as a guide told us we could take pictures but I chose not to. The grieving family at the corpses side had enough to contend with without tourists pointing their Canons and Kodaks at them. Instead, I walked along the bank to take a picture of a monkey eating one of the rice offerings but managed to get a lung full of smoke from one of the funeral pyres. It really made me gag as you can imagine so we fled to higher ground. There were plenty of other monkies there, picking at various items and climbing all over the temples. Some of them shimmied along the power lines and onto the lamp posts to have a play with the broken light bulbs but soon got bored. One of the things that I found very strange were the Saddhus. A Saddhu is someone that has given up all worldly possessions and dedicated their life to one of worship. It's a bit like being a monk except these ones are half naked and often covered head to toe in white ash for some reason. Anyway, the thing that I found weird was that although they reject all earthly possessions in the hope of reaching a higher religous state, they still charge you to take a photo of them. How does that work then?!
Between the numerous power cuts in Kathmandu we needed to book our flight to India. There are loads of little travel agents dotted around so we traipsed from one to another trying to find one at a fair price. We went into one agency run by two completely hopeless young girls who were just setting up their business. After they made lots of phone calls, searched endlessly through their one lever-arch file and tapped a lot on their computer keyboards we got the price after about 30 minutes. We gave up on those two and ended up booking it through a grubby little joint with faded posters on the walls and where they ran their computers on a generator. Photocopying our passports was the straw that broke the generators back because as soon as he pressed the copy button all the lights dimmed and the computers rebooted themselves. Despite all this, we managed to get a couple of business class tickets as that's all that were left.
The airport at Kathmandu is basic. It looks like it was designed by someone in the 50s more used to designing office canteens. Still, once through passport control we were eager to use our invitation to the hospitality area that we were given on check-in because of our business class tickets. Free drinks and snacks were beckoning us. We eagerly approached the executive lounge, invitation in hand, wondering what delights awaited us. "Excuse me sir." shouted the uniformed attendant, "Can I help you?" she continued. We explained we had the invitation and asked her where we needed to go. She pointed to a badly lit booth with a dry burger, an empty looking cheese sandwich, some pizza slices and a few little pasties. Our expectations were cruelly cut down to size when we found out that we were only entitled to one of the miserable looking pasties and a small carton of juice or a coffee, i.e the cheapest items they had to offer. This defintely wasn't British Airways!
The departure lounge was a joke. Complete chaos. They'd obviously invested in huge plasma display screens to show departure times, flight numbers, gates, etc. but forgot to employ anybody competent enough to operate them. Much of the information was either wrong or just missing so it was pure luck that we got on the right flight. The plane was nice and the extra room in business class was a welcome relief. Air India obviously has a policy of keeping on mature staff though. One of our attendants could barely stand up straight and the other had what looked like the body of Bernard Breslaw squeezed into a very tired looking sari. I won't forget that midriff in a hurry. They were both very gracious though, much more so than some of the younger ones who daren't do a thing to help you lest they bust a perfectly manicured fingernail.
Eventually we made it to Kolkata (or Calcutta as it used to be called). We caught a taxi to Hotel Crystal and all seemed well. Once in the dismal room though we decided we weren't staying there and Rich went off to find another while I stalled the rogues checking us in.
We were soon checked into the VIP International which initially seemed so much better. However, the scaffolding outside should have been a clue as to how noisy it would be. We ended up having three different rooms within the space of three nights due to the noise. The first night we moved because the room was so close to the bar that we could hear glasses chinking and the music kept us awake all night, the second night we had to put up with building work going on til 1am and on the third night it was so bad we asked to be moved again but the new room was near a bunch of Indian guys that were playing a radio til the small hours. We couldn't wait to leave. The worst thing about the whole experience was that all of the staff we spoke to on reception to sort the problems out couldn't give a damn. There was no apology, in fact the best we got was a key slung at us for another supposedly quieter room and a request for our patience during this period of renovation. Bloody cheek.
I really wanted to like Kolkata but there's not a lot to do there. The most interesting things were buildings or monuments left over from the days of the Raj such as the museum building, Victoria Memorial or Park Street Cemetary. However, these great places have lost their gloss through years of under investment and non-maintenance. In the Victoria Monument, for example, huge damp patches and pigeon crap covers the walls. In the museum it's hard to see many of the exhibits in any great detail as they are covered in a thick layer of black dust and look like they've been slung into the display cases. You're lucky if there is even a lightbulb working in order to illuminate anything through the grime. The cemetary has some interesting monuments but the grounds are badly kept and the rusty advertising hoardings detract from the sanctity of the place. Such a shame.
It's also really hard to find anything in the city as there don't appear to be any street signs so a map is pretty useless. Dodging the traffic coming from all directions is a skill you need to develop for survival so it's no surprise the people don't walk very far in the city, hence the thousands of big yellow taxis, tuk-tuks and auto-rickshaws. We took one of the taxis to the train station the day we left and, as usual, he did the trick of telling us the meter didn't work and carefully arranged his scarf over it to prevent us seeing the real price. However, at the station after trying to get 200 rupees out of us I yanked his scarf from the meter to reveal the real fare of 37 rupees. He must have thought we were born yesterday so we settled on a price of 100 after a big row that drew a small crowd. Greedy sod.
The train journey was slightly better than I thought it would be, though not a patch on the trains in Russia, China or Japan. Horrid vinyl covered seat/bed things and itchy blankets in carriages filled with noisy locals and cockroaches crawling the walls. Delightful. The carriage attendant was a right little Hitler figure who clearly loved his job when it involved chucking people out who didn't have the right ticket.
We're in Varanasi now and it's Christmas Eve. I'm going to wait until after Christmas to write any more and maybe I'll be in a more positive mood as I'm conscious that I've done nothing but moan about India so far. I'm not hating it here, in fact it's a really interesting place, but the idea of not being home for Christmas is making me homesick for the first time since travelling. At least there are only two weeks to go before coming home for a bit now we've booked our flights. Pampering ourselves for a couple of days and getting steaming drunk in a nice hotel may help relieve this. We'll see.
We walked around the city quite a bit and managed to see a fair amount. The closeness to Tibet was quite obvious in the number of Buddhist temples dotted around and the stupas being circumnambulated by the familiar maroon robed monks. One of the stupas was really quite impressive, set in the middle of a huge square it absolutely filled the space. The hundreds of colourful prayer flags that adorned it were vivid and bright and the gold top piece reflected the brilliant sunshine. After walking around it we decided to go to one of the many rooftop cafes for a slice of cake and a view of the Himalayas. We got the cake but no view as it was too smoggy. Instead I amused myself by listening to an old American lady having her Tibetan homework checked by her teacher. Of course, the American thought she'd done really well despite what the teacher was telling her.
We spent another day at a big Hindu temple, or rather we walked for over an hour to get to the temple only to find that non-Hindus are not allowed in. The guide book says that if you walk round the outside you can catch a glimpse of the back end of a huge golden bull. We didn't. What we did see though was a ticket office where you could pay to go in and see the rear of the temple. We paid and once we were in we found ourselves on a river bank where cremations were taking place. One of the young blokes who was touting himself as a guide told us we could take pictures but I chose not to. The grieving family at the corpses side had enough to contend with without tourists pointing their Canons and Kodaks at them. Instead, I walked along the bank to take a picture of a monkey eating one of the rice offerings but managed to get a lung full of smoke from one of the funeral pyres. It really made me gag as you can imagine so we fled to higher ground. There were plenty of other monkies there, picking at various items and climbing all over the temples. Some of them shimmied along the power lines and onto the lamp posts to have a play with the broken light bulbs but soon got bored. One of the things that I found very strange were the Saddhus. A Saddhu is someone that has given up all worldly possessions and dedicated their life to one of worship. It's a bit like being a monk except these ones are half naked and often covered head to toe in white ash for some reason. Anyway, the thing that I found weird was that although they reject all earthly possessions in the hope of reaching a higher religous state, they still charge you to take a photo of them. How does that work then?!
Between the numerous power cuts in Kathmandu we needed to book our flight to India. There are loads of little travel agents dotted around so we traipsed from one to another trying to find one at a fair price. We went into one agency run by two completely hopeless young girls who were just setting up their business. After they made lots of phone calls, searched endlessly through their one lever-arch file and tapped a lot on their computer keyboards we got the price after about 30 minutes. We gave up on those two and ended up booking it through a grubby little joint with faded posters on the walls and where they ran their computers on a generator. Photocopying our passports was the straw that broke the generators back because as soon as he pressed the copy button all the lights dimmed and the computers rebooted themselves. Despite all this, we managed to get a couple of business class tickets as that's all that were left.
The airport at Kathmandu is basic. It looks like it was designed by someone in the 50s more used to designing office canteens. Still, once through passport control we were eager to use our invitation to the hospitality area that we were given on check-in because of our business class tickets. Free drinks and snacks were beckoning us. We eagerly approached the executive lounge, invitation in hand, wondering what delights awaited us. "Excuse me sir." shouted the uniformed attendant, "Can I help you?" she continued. We explained we had the invitation and asked her where we needed to go. She pointed to a badly lit booth with a dry burger, an empty looking cheese sandwich, some pizza slices and a few little pasties. Our expectations were cruelly cut down to size when we found out that we were only entitled to one of the miserable looking pasties and a small carton of juice or a coffee, i.e the cheapest items they had to offer. This defintely wasn't British Airways!
The departure lounge was a joke. Complete chaos. They'd obviously invested in huge plasma display screens to show departure times, flight numbers, gates, etc. but forgot to employ anybody competent enough to operate them. Much of the information was either wrong or just missing so it was pure luck that we got on the right flight. The plane was nice and the extra room in business class was a welcome relief. Air India obviously has a policy of keeping on mature staff though. One of our attendants could barely stand up straight and the other had what looked like the body of Bernard Breslaw squeezed into a very tired looking sari. I won't forget that midriff in a hurry. They were both very gracious though, much more so than some of the younger ones who daren't do a thing to help you lest they bust a perfectly manicured fingernail.
Eventually we made it to Kolkata (or Calcutta as it used to be called). We caught a taxi to Hotel Crystal and all seemed well. Once in the dismal room though we decided we weren't staying there and Rich went off to find another while I stalled the rogues checking us in.
We were soon checked into the VIP International which initially seemed so much better. However, the scaffolding outside should have been a clue as to how noisy it would be. We ended up having three different rooms within the space of three nights due to the noise. The first night we moved because the room was so close to the bar that we could hear glasses chinking and the music kept us awake all night, the second night we had to put up with building work going on til 1am and on the third night it was so bad we asked to be moved again but the new room was near a bunch of Indian guys that were playing a radio til the small hours. We couldn't wait to leave. The worst thing about the whole experience was that all of the staff we spoke to on reception to sort the problems out couldn't give a damn. There was no apology, in fact the best we got was a key slung at us for another supposedly quieter room and a request for our patience during this period of renovation. Bloody cheek.
I really wanted to like Kolkata but there's not a lot to do there. The most interesting things were buildings or monuments left over from the days of the Raj such as the museum building, Victoria Memorial or Park Street Cemetary. However, these great places have lost their gloss through years of under investment and non-maintenance. In the Victoria Monument, for example, huge damp patches and pigeon crap covers the walls. In the museum it's hard to see many of the exhibits in any great detail as they are covered in a thick layer of black dust and look like they've been slung into the display cases. You're lucky if there is even a lightbulb working in order to illuminate anything through the grime. The cemetary has some interesting monuments but the grounds are badly kept and the rusty advertising hoardings detract from the sanctity of the place. Such a shame.
It's also really hard to find anything in the city as there don't appear to be any street signs so a map is pretty useless. Dodging the traffic coming from all directions is a skill you need to develop for survival so it's no surprise the people don't walk very far in the city, hence the thousands of big yellow taxis, tuk-tuks and auto-rickshaws. We took one of the taxis to the train station the day we left and, as usual, he did the trick of telling us the meter didn't work and carefully arranged his scarf over it to prevent us seeing the real price. However, at the station after trying to get 200 rupees out of us I yanked his scarf from the meter to reveal the real fare of 37 rupees. He must have thought we were born yesterday so we settled on a price of 100 after a big row that drew a small crowd. Greedy sod.
The train journey was slightly better than I thought it would be, though not a patch on the trains in Russia, China or Japan. Horrid vinyl covered seat/bed things and itchy blankets in carriages filled with noisy locals and cockroaches crawling the walls. Delightful. The carriage attendant was a right little Hitler figure who clearly loved his job when it involved chucking people out who didn't have the right ticket.
We're in Varanasi now and it's Christmas Eve. I'm going to wait until after Christmas to write any more and maybe I'll be in a more positive mood as I'm conscious that I've done nothing but moan about India so far. I'm not hating it here, in fact it's a really interesting place, but the idea of not being home for Christmas is making me homesick for the first time since travelling. At least there are only two weeks to go before coming home for a bit now we've booked our flights. Pampering ourselves for a couple of days and getting steaming drunk in a nice hotel may help relieve this. We'll see.
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