Doug & Mom: 3/14/99
Varanasi, India
Sunday, 3/14/99
Sunrise on the Ganges.
Gail:
E-mail isn't readily available here in Varanasi, so I'm writing this to send via fax and then you can type it into e-mail to send everyone.
Actually, e-mail was just as readily available in Varanasi as any other place we visited -- we drove past several
businesses that advertised e-mail and internet connections, especially near the university.
Our driver, however, was for some reason unwilling to take us to any of these e-mail options. Doug would point out
a sign, and he would quickly say (without reading it?) "no, that is very far from here, we can't go there." Finally,
on the last day in Varanasi, Doug asked for some paper and we sat at a tea shop writing out this fax longhand. The
driver then brought us straight to a fax machine, where we sent a 5-page fax for about $10. When he said "see, fax is
very good, no?" Doug pointed out that sending a similar message from Kathmandu (via e-mail) had
cost about 50 cents and took a lot less time. Mom's theory was that Dada was accustomed to being the expert, and he
didn't want to take us to a place where he wouldn't be the expert.
Shortly after we last sent e-mail from Katmandu, I discovered that half my traveler's checks - the ones I had stashed in my backpack - were missing. Mom and I then realized that we had probably been ripped off by the staff of the hotel where we stayed in Cambodia. The details aren't worth getting into, but we lost her new binoculars as well as the traveler's checks. We filed a report at the Katmandu American Express office on Thursday, and they said to check back with them in 24 hours.
Friday morning, our last day in Nepal, we went to the Durbar Squares of Bhaktapur and Patan. We also went to the Tibetan refugee camp, where they weave carpets, and we watched all the steps from making and dyeing the thread through the finished carpets.
Then we returned to the American Express office, where they said there was no response on our claim yet. They told us to see the office in Varanasi (India) the next day.
We flew to Varanasi at 3:00 Friday afternoon, and were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in seats 1A and 1C. We also ran into our friend Judy (whom we met at Tiger Tops) on that flight. She was returning from a meeting in Bangkok to meet up with her traveling companion Maggie in Varanasi.
At the Varanasi airport, I got my first taste of the Indian approach to things. The lines for immigration were total chaos, and you had to push back through the crowd after getting your visa stamped. It was as if nobody had ever given an moment's thought to how to organize things, and baggage claim was even worse - a dense crowd of men fighting to reach the single conveyor, from which suitcases were pouring off the end into a pile that couldn't be seen from more than a few feet away because of the crowd. After a few minutes of politely trying to maneuver through the crowd and being pushed around by dark little men in moustaches, I figured out how to proceed. You have to be a rude self-centered SOB, and I was, pushing guys out of the way and then carrying our bags over my head back through the crowd to where Mom was waiting with our carry-on baggage. By the time we made it to the front curb, I was exhausted and annoyed, and we had been in India all of about 20 minutes.
Right: the lights of Varanasi's shoreline reflected in the Ganges, as seen
from the riverfront the night we arrived.
Maggie was waiting with Dada, a taxi driver who accompanied us throughout our stay in Varanasi. Dada has been very helpful. He works for Sita, a worldwide travel agency, and he has been with them since 1981. He has many funny sayings, such as "Varanasi is the city of learning and burning" and "I want you to be 125% satisfied." He knows the city very well, and has taken us to the main attractions plus many places where we were the only tourists in sight.
Saturday morning we rode a boat up and down the Ganges at dawn, and it was everything we expected. We watched the dhobi-wallahs cleaning clothes, people bathing and worshipping the rising sun, and of course the cremations along the shore. Two typical sights: three crows picking chunks of bloody flesh off a cow corpse floating down the river, and a smiling family crowded around the body of a woman laying on a stack of firewood. They pulled the veil from her face, the photographer snapped a shot, then they covered her back up and started the fire.
A body moving through the crowded streets of Varanasi, headed for the cremation ghats.
Later we went to the American Express office, and they claimed to know nothing of our claim and said we must file a report at the Varanasi police station regarding
the theft in Cambodia that we had already reported in Nepal. I was starting to get just a little bit angry, but Dada came to our rescue. He drove us to meet with
"an influential man who would like to help us."
(After parking the car ...)
We walked down dark narrow walkways to meet a man in a Muslim cap who invited us into his office. He sat cross-legged on the floor while Mom and I sat in padded chairs, surrounded by mountains of raw and finished silk, with servants bringing us tea, and he said, "Please explain for me your situation."
I explained everything, and within minutes I was on the phone with a man at the American Express office in Delhi who promptly handled everything and arranged for my replacement traveler's checks to meet us in Agra tomorrow.
Well, as John Lord probably knows from this description, we had met the "Sari King" of Varanasi. Before we left, he had also confirmed our train tickets, made us three custom silk shirts, and sold us some saris.
Actually, we didn't meet the Sari King, at least not the guy John had bought saris from in
Varanasi. Doug asked the man we met (taking measurements in the photo to the right) "do people
call you the Sari King?" and he said "yes, people call me many things."
Today we went to Sarnath, heard some great first-hand Dalai Lama stories, spent an hour at a house in a
small village (Airhe) where some people hadn't seen an American before, and toured some markets, but I'm out of time, so that's all for now.
- Doug & Mom
Our driver Dada (left) arranged for us to visit his friend T. N. Pandeay, who lives in the
village of Airhe. Pandeay's grandson is sitting with him on a string bed,
while we sat on chairs squeezed into the same small room; his son served us tea
and snacks, and that's his wife (I think)
walking in the two-acre field behind their house.
return to MAHUGH.COM
COPYRIGHT (c) 1999 BY DOUG MAHUGH. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
