3000km to Goa

I've just gotten up after the sleeping through the night on the train from Kolkata (Calcutta) to Mumbai (Bombay). This journey takes me from the east to the west coast of India. I'm moving south as well, though not as dramatically.

From early yesterday afternoon until late tonight, I'm in a 2.5 m by 4m compartment with 7 other Indian passengers. We all sit together during the day and in the evening thin, sleeping platforms are brought down. I was supposed to be on the bottom berth, but happily switched with an quiet, older lady who fed me fried roti last night. On this leg of the my train trip, we'll cover 1968km together.

I've bought a ticket in 3AC (air-conditioned) the class above the cheapest, sleeper class. Although it's 3 times the cost of sleeper, it still costs under $40. I know that if Jackson was here we'd be back in the slightly more hectic, dirtier, sleeper class.

At every station, vendor's come through yelling 'Chai, chai, chai, chai' 'Pani, pani, pani, pani' 'Samosas...samosas' and many other words I don't recognize. Chai costs under 15 cents and water is around 35 cents. It's likely I'm the only foreigner on the train. I was scanning the hectic, pressed line when the train rolled in. I played the good ol'game of gringo spotting but it didn't yield any results.

A small cockroach is crawling on the wall beside me and most surfaces are pretty grimy. In the washroom, you can clearly look down to see the tracks rushing below.

I like travelling on the train. It has a consistency and enters a peaceful rhythm as it creeps from station to station. I'll get off to rest and stretch in many stations; then chase down the doorway with many others as it starts to pull away. I escaped the compartment at points so sit by the open train door. Farms, villagers and oxen whir past me and I'm happy with where I am in the world. I going completely across the country of India and I could barely imagine a way I could be more free.

Most of the my time in India so far is spent watching, talking and trying to simply live day to day. It seems that more time should be just like this: feeling my freedom and satisfaction that I am doing exactly what I set out to do. In reality, these moments are intermittent and fleeting. Happiness is an impermanent state like this and needs to be recognized and appreciated in the same way.

Meanwhile, the train rolls towards Mumbai, one of the most metropolitan and dynamic cities in India. It would be good to some travellers on the next train down to Goa. The best part about arriving will be trading train station food and crackers for prawns and fish curry.

Voy a la playa.

Calcutta - A Walk in the Parku

I have found it difficult to do very much in one day. It's best to make an excursion out of the hotel room a couple of times a day. Over 5 hours in the streets of Varanasi or Calcutta will leave you drained and tired. There is a constant energy and background activity in even back alleys that makes these Indian cities unique.

My plan for the day was to walk around to Moiden, Calcutta's version of Central park. It was a very large area providing ample space for cricket of various levels of organization and even a polo field. I walked around slowly for a while, moving towards the impressive but illogical Queen Victoria memorial (Queen Victoria never even visited India and it was completed 20 years posthumously).

Generally when I would stop, people would come sit or stand near me and eventually ask me where I came from. I sat under a tree and bought a chai from a roaming vendor with a pot and contained fire. He mixed milk powder and filtered the spices through a handkerchief. The chai was small, hot and satisfying. Two young men came and stood by me, staring and smiling. They were thin and dusty, particularly their shoeless feet. These Bengali brothers asked where I was from and after a few minutes one asked if he could sit beside me. I put down my book and said yes. We didn't understand each other well but had a slow conversation with minutes of silence breaking our respective questions.

The younger, 19 year old brother told me they were very poor. Working as housekeepers, they earned 15 rupees (35 cents) per day. They lived with their parents in a village (slum) not far from where we were sitting. He offered to take me to his house, which I declined. He told me he was not happy, mainly because he did not have enough to eat. He and his brother had never been to school and he discovered I had gone to school for Engineering. The moment that followed was quiet and weighted with our gross inequity brought to light. I tried to break it by stating the glaringly obvious fact that I was lucky.

He looked off across the field, after a minute he turned back to me and said that he was unlucky. He complained that his body wasn't working well for him and I thought I heard that he had hepatitis. I had no answer or wisdom to offer, I could only agree that I was lucky and he was not. He requested that we meet up again and wanted to give me his mobile. I didn't have a pen so he recited his number while I pretended to memorize it.

I got up to leave and gave him 100 rupees which he had not asked for. I told him to go with his brother and eat. As I walked away, I felt physically sick and thought I might vomit. The gaps of our lives were clearly shown to both of us. My wealth felt so repulsively excessive. I was planning to take out 10,000 rupees to cover my costs for the next 2 weeks. This money means nothing to me, because I have an excess of it.

I think that broken conversation humanized some aspect of poverty for me. It was one thing to know it exists, even another to see it but hearing the pain and frustration in this boys voice was an acute reality.

As I walked across the field in a haze, a cricket player shuffled over with a big smile to shake hands. I continued past a baby crying, sprawled on a blanket in the sun. An old man with a large white beard was beside the baby and he smiled and waved at me. It comforted me as I walked out of the park, back unto the busy streets of Calcutta.

This evening I was walking with a British lad I'm sharing a hotel room. I told him I don't think I could view India as anything but a developing country. A well dressed Indian man overheard me and joked that India was stronger than China. We kept the banter going and I asked him to recommend a Bengali restaurant for us. He insisted on coming with us and ordering the food. He works for UNICEF and with street children around Kolkata. We had good conversation, mostly about the Indian elite and cricket. We wanted to hear each others impressions about the $1.3 billion dollar (that's right, $1.3 billion USD) home that's been built in Mumbai. Mumbai is well known for it's sprawling slums, as depicted in Slumdog Millionaire He answered many questions for me and wanted to know our impressions of the city as we walked around. After chatting and walking for several hours, we sent him home to his wife who had been calling.

All in all, I've been out around Kolkata for 7 hours today. After what I've written about here and the omitting several other stories from the day, you can start to understand why it is more than enough time. Great, great city, people and travel.

Varanasi and the Bomb

It wasn't long after we abandoned our rickshaw and walked into the old city that we noticed ambulances and police cars rushing by us. Police were loosely trying to block access down the main street and a young boy tried to stop me with a stick as I walked through.

We had just finished 25 continuous hours of bus travel which brought us from Kathmandu to the bustling city of Varanasi. Coming to the riverbanks of the Ganga river in Varanasi feels like being thrown in the deep end of India. In the alleys of the old city there are bull cows, sadus or holy men, hindu pilgrims and armed police. Escaping the old alleys often means ending up at a ghat, where deceased Hindus are burned on a funeral pyre. Following this their body is to a rock and put into the Ganges river, upon which the city is based.

At the Dasaswamedh ghat, there is an nightly ceremony on the steps by the river. This is where a small bomb was put in a waste bin the night which I and two Israelis arrived. I was told that in the seconds before the bomb exploded, it caused a disturbance with the stereo system. This cyclic noise was broadcast and then the small device went off, killing a small child and injuring some 30 others including 6 foreigners. I've talked to some locals who were at the event and shaken up. More often people did not seem to pay the event any mind and would continue to try and sell me hash or silk. The bombing was on the 4-year anniversary of a explosion which killed 16 people in 2006.

We continued until an area where even the ambulances could not move any farther. There was enough noise and apprehensive crowd that I knew we had arrived close to the epicentre of some large event. We ducked back into the alleys and began looking for a guesthouse to stay for the night. When we stopped in one restaurant, the staff were watching the news. It was broadcast live from 100m away from us. I thought originally that 40 people had died and that it would be international news. I've since had to search on BBC News to find coverage of what had occurred.

BBC After Coverage of Varanasi Bomb

The ghat and evening ceremonies have been shut down for a few days. Besides that, Varanasi seems to be functioning at capacity. Funeral processions lead steadily through the alleys, carrying a covered relative down to the fires. Pilgrims and mourners with shaved heads move in packs. In the heavily contaminated river, people perform puja, bathe and wash clothes. We hired a boatman to row us along the banks. Varanasi is an incredible contrast of everyday life and beautiful temples against the sights like deceased babies, sadus and cows, which are put right into the flow of the river.

I find it to easy to use the word 'crazy' to describe what I see around. Simply statements like 'This place is insane.' It's not insane but some of it is very difficult to understand. A long description of the funeral pyre tradition was given to me by a Dalit or untouchable caste worker. It's helped a great deal to understand the rules and religious rational.  
Info on Hindu Cremation Practices 
You can see and feel Hindiusm everywhere around you here. Varanasi is a pilgirmage city.

I like it here and will stay for a few more days before heading off. I'll should wait for the first day I can truly navigate the alleys or am tempted to take a dip in the river, then it will be time to go.

Bungee Jumping and Bhote Kosi

Tress was slowly convincing the group to bungee jump over a 160m gorge and I was pushing for them to go rafting afterwards. I won't write much about the bungee jump because while it was high up, I think a bungee jump goes exactly as you expect it to.

There were some very nervous people, some fearless Israeli girls and some people who would not jump at all and demand their money back.. The suspension bridge was around 50 stories over the gorge and it made some potential people nervous just to walk over the bridge. After minutes clinging to the platform or staff, some people would not jump off.

I remember feeling impatient more than anything as I waited for 10 to people jump ahead of me. I waited and was very ready as I stepped unto the platform. I didn't really imagine what would come once I jumped. It was the feeling of falling headfirst, untethered and unrestricted. The sides of the gorge around me blurred as I quickly fell towards the bottom. My free-fall on this jump was 3-3.5 seconds but it felt much faster to me. It stays as a vivid 1 second video clip in my mind. I understand it more now, the allure of that freedom in the air. However, the real fun and adrenaline was still to come.

We caught a ride down to the Borderlands Resort, where we could camp within meters of the rushing Bhote Kosi. As I understood it, it would be an easy first day to train the rafting crews and then a intense, long second day on a section that had just opened up for rafting.

I talk about rafting because there was no plan for the kayakers, we were just like safety kayakers that didn't pay have to pay attention to the boat.

I was happy when we were gearing up the first day to see 2 other foreign kayakers, both from Great Britain. I admittedly started sizing them up as soon as we got on the water.

The older paddler, named John, was confident, competent and I would learn had lots of experience. He was at the end of a 2 week kayak trip including the Karli Candaki and Bhote Kosi river trips. The younger paddler was a surf kayaker. He could move the kayak and had a solid roll, but had limited practice with river reading.

The first day was nice and relaxing as we cruised down a section of the Bhote Kosi before the dam. The sun was shining and the water was cold. There were a couple of class 3+ rapids but nothing to write home about. I just felt happy and free to be out in a kayak again. The younger kayaker went over a couple times and the rafts just bumped down the rapid. I was joking a lot with the Nepali safety kayaker, he was 22, tall for Nepali rapids, ripped. He was always smiling that first day.

After 4 hours on the water, we took off and headed back to camp. I started talking with John about the next day. He had decided to raft instead of the kayak because of the technical and committing nature of the river. I think he was hesitant about me running the section. We were both sure the surf kayaker was going to be in trouble but he was set on it.

When we started the next day, it was 10m down from our tents. It was directly into consistent Class 3 rapids, which isn't bad but means you need to hit the ground running. I had some nerves but was feeling good and ready to go. I awkwardly got into my boat and was happy when my skirt was on and I was prepped. I peeled out and moved downstream as locals and rafters watched from shore. 

There were 2 Nepali safety kayakers, one for each raft. The older one was a great boater and had been working for 12 years. He ran both Class 5's that day, Frog in a Blender and The Wall. I stuck with the 22 year old safety boater, who I would end up rescuing later on.

The surf kayaker had a rough swim within 200m of the put in. He was out of the boat for about 75m of rapid before a raft picked him up. We started to cruise down the river and the rapids were fun and continuous Class 3. Lots of boulders and enough flow, but easy to find clean line down.

Not to much farther down, he had another rough swim down a steep section. The river opened up afterwards, he got out and his boat got pinned. The whole Nepali Ultimate Descents team got to work and I got out to take a quick video. That was the end of the kayaking day for that guy. He made it about 45 minutes of the easiest section of a 5 hour run.

The rest of the day was a most fun and full on kayaking run I've done so far. Just like riding a water roller coaster that doesn't stop. I had it dialled in so I felt confident, capable and aware the whole run.

Some memorable moments included a nasty rapid called, 'Fake left, go right'. Talking it over with the Nepali boater meant yelling the words left and right and gesturing with our hands until I decided to go. I turned left where it looked right to me and came over a cascade off nasty looking rocks I ended up getting spun around on. I bumped down, super scared for a minute but ended up just fine. I was just yelling and swearing as I paddled out of the rapid. The other boater just gave me a thumbs up and a smile, apparently I had taken the right line down.

He warned me about a rapid called 'Midnight Express' and we headed down ahead of the rafts. There was one big, bouncy class 4 and then another even bigger. We eddied out and I asked 'Which one was Midnight Express?', he said 'It's coming.' I just started laughing.

When we put in after the wall, I went over for the only time that day. I blew my first roll in the big water which was not a good feeling. When I came up, I saw the other kayaker was over, he rolled up at a bad spot and went over again. I ended up T-rescuing him and tossing him his paddle just before we headed down the next set of rapids.

We ran ahead of the rafts, so after some big sets I would look back and see John with a huge grin and thumbs up from the raft. He was kayaking vicariously through me. In the end, he says he was happy he didn't run it but wanted to come back. I hope he'll send some footage/photos from the raft that I can put up. Tress, Emily, Paul and Jaume were all fired up and ecstatic from the rafting. I've read Bhote Kosi is considered 1 of the 10 rafting trips in the world and I can imagine it's true.

Before I ever went trekking, I was offered a safety kayaking job with Ultimate Descents for an American school running the Bhote Kosi. In the end however, I'm happy how things worked out. Though I had to pay a good deal for gear rental and accommodation, I got to go down the river with my friends and with another kayaker who knew the river well. I've run into a few young Europeans safety kayaking, earning anywhere from $4-$20 per day, but that is a different story all together.