2 Deiters and a Dream: March 2014

Hey all, sorry for the delay in posting, we were on Safari in Botswana and therefore were sans WIFI. But fear not, here's another heaping helpin of Deiter adventures.

After yet another night train we arrived in Agra, which is a city, and contradiction that almost perfectly reflects India as a whole. On the one hand its home to great history and tradition, in the form of the stunning Taj Mahal, as well as several other sites (temples and such) that would bring visitors even if that great building wasn’t there. On the other hand you have relentless touts drawn to the most famous of Indian tourist attractions and a level of trash and litter that destroys all previously known standards of disgustingness, at some points it literally chokes the tiny canals that lead to the river. Throw in street dogs or monkeys that roam in vaguely menacing packs (not together…that would be awesome) then try and balance that against white cranes walking through the extraordinarily manicured gardens on the grounds of the Taj. You just can’t make sense of it…or we couldn’t, and like the rest of India, you just have to accept it for what it is and go with the flow. Our stay was short and revolved around a visit to the Taj which was amazing. Constructed in 1653 as a mausoleum to a fallen queen, it stands as a romantic monument to love and an architectural masterpiece. It’s amazing to circle the building and see how they lined up every column and tower and angle so that it has a geometric match on the opposite side…and all without the benefit of the whiz bang computers that modern engineers use today (I’m lookin at you Betty Reinheimer). Also of note are the beautiful grounds complete with fountains and flowers in bloom and completely free of any trash or other nonsense that we’ve found at EVERY other site we’ve visited in India cause “yeah just toss that junk over there, who cares that this is a 1500 year old national treasure.” We walked around and snapped like a thousand pic’s (we will only subject you to several hundred) and made our way to the door when the Indian tourists became more interested in snapping pic’s of my beautiful wife rather than some dusty old building (this peculiar behavior had lost any novelty or charm long ago). I would be reminded of my distaste for this activity when a man in our train compartment on the way out of town took out his cell phone and snapped a few pics of TASH and me (I base the caps on the angle of his camera). I was not comforted by the explanation that the pics “were for his son, who is in high school.” But again this is India, and right after popping his phone back in his pocket he offered us some of his dinner and then made sure that the staff brought us the blankets and sheets that we were supposed to have in our bunks (you never know who you’re supposed to be mad at over here….its infuriating). Next stop was Varanasi, the holiest city in India. It is situated on the mighty Gan-Ga which you probably didn’t know is the source of all life on earth (that’s the Ganges to you folks at home). Lucky for us we we’re arriving just in time for “Shiva night” which commemorates Lord Shiva’s wedding and draws tens of thousands of pilgrims to the river to bathe and chant and make offerings and smoke weed (yeah, apparently Lord Shiva liked to party). The timing of our arrival made this crazy place like ten thousand times crazier, but as we’ve discussed we’re Deiter’s so let’s just ride this thing till the wheels fall off. Basically the city hugs a bend in the river and is a warren of winding alleys packed with shops of all sorts, temples, and cows….lots and lots of cows. Yeah, I know, there are cows all over India you say, but the issue with Varanasi is that there are much more of them packed into a much smaller space. So rather than having 5 cows pooping on 10 feet of road you have 10 cows pooping on 5 feet of road. The results are predictable. We experienced this fact first hand as we walked (fully loaded with bags) to our hotel and I stepped full on into a “cow pie” in my flip flops as I negotiated the crowd. At this point a too cool for school American chick complete with “I’m trying too hard” dread locks looked at me and tash and said dismissively “Uh It’s Just cow sh#t.” Tash’s head almost exploded. I know we’ve been gone for a while and missed a bunch of stuff (“polar vortex” and all), but when did essentially being barefoot in cow poop become no big deal? Did Myley Cyrus wear an Oscar gown made of Cow poop? Did LeBron Drop 60 on the Knicks thanks to his cow poop head band? Is this what all the cool kids have been up too? (You guys gotta keep us up to date on this stuff). Anyway the day got worse from here and had us schlepping our bags from the hotel we originally booked (which was a total disaster) to several others over several hours until Tash burst into tears and an innkeeper gave us a place to stay based on “her humanitarian condition”…seriously he said that. But whatever, the room was great and we could finally get down to business at hand, watching the life and death at the edge of the Ganges. When you’re in Varanasi you spend your days walking the river’s edge where a series of “ghats” (just steps that lead down to the water) host tasks from the mundane, say bathing, doing laundry or washing your buffalo…too the profound where you carry you’re relative, wrapped in white shroud to be burned at the river’s edge on a funeral fire and then pushed into the Ganges to achieve eternal life. It’s a place that shocks the senses. A place where you admire the certainty (faith is not a strong enough word) of the Hindu’s in their beliefs as they perform their rituals, while trying to reconcile in your mind the fact that these people should not be lining up to bathe in and drink the water that holds their dead brethren. It is a scene that defies description. Funeral pyres burn 5 and 6 at a time in several spots, 24 hours a day, every day no matter what. People will spend lavishly on wood from a certain holy place to honor a relative, while those with no money with rely on the kindness of strangers to furnish their fire and send them into the afterlife. The men who run the fires will readily chop with bamboo poles at what are clearly human parts to ensure that they burn completely but won’t chase away the goats who gather to eat the flower garlands that cover the bodies awaiting their turn on the fire. No one bats an eye when someone marches right up to grandpa’s fire and uses it to dry their laundry, also no one cry’s, or dresses up. It’s just like as long as we get you burned and into the Ganges, it’s no big deal…just like stepping in cow poop. But not everybody gets burned. People who are bitten by snakes for example have been selected by Lord Shiva (who is protected by sakes) and don’t need to be burned, ditto for lepers, and certain holy men. We also learned the hard way that they don’t burn children under a certain age when the unmistakable small blue bloated body of a child floated past the boat we had rented on the river. Unreal. We met back up with our Mad Russian friend Igor and spent some time together snapping pic’s on an evening boat cruise on the river. We also made time to take in the elaborate Ganges river ceremony where every night holy men line up on raised platforms to preform synchronized movements complete with incense and fire. Here again, they do this every night, rain or shine, no matter what, forever. Varanasi was a perfect way to end our trip to India. It was amazing, and shocking, and infuriating, and beautiful all packed into one little bite. Like India as a whole, this place will stand out in our minds forever. I will close the book on our trip to the subcontinent at this point as all that remains is an uneventful trip to Delhi and a flight to Africa where very soon we would be chased by a pack of lions….more on that later.