I think this sums it up perfectly (from Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah Macdonald):

gorgeous spashes of color and beauty flash among the filth, the flies and the forlorn…

What an adventure…

We had thought we’d be going a short distance in the taxi, then walking over a small bridge to where our driver’s car was. It was a really cold and really long tuk tuk truck drive and not such a small bridge:

That was a long walk for Christmas morning, especially with my huge backpack on.

pretty!

We eventually got to our car and our driver told us he was going to take us down to the river for a boat ride. None of us were really thrilled to hear that – we were exhausted and just wanted to go to our hotel. Luckily we listened to him, because our boat ride really made Christmas day.

After the boat ride, our driver was missing. He finally came running up, all dressed in purple no less, all “fresh and clean” from his dip in the Ganges. Mmmm.

Then we saw the goat – that’s a separate story.

Anyways! We got to our hotel and they didn’t have rooms for us. TOOK the reservation but didn’t HOLD the reservation and all that. So we had breakfast while we waited for them to sort themselves out, build more rooms, whatever. After about two hours a different driver (how suprising, purple guy didn’t come back) came in to see us and told us he was taking us to a different hotel. Off we went – aaand no rooms there either.

Our killer fatigue was making us very grumpy and very “HELLO! IT’S CHRISTMAS, we’ve been up since FOUR am, LONG WALK and all – could we get a BREAK HERE?”

Jeff was on the phone to Lucky and to “the Doctor” (the tour guy in Delhi) while Mo and I chatted to a lonely young chinese guy who’d been working in Varanasi for a month. He was very nice, but very talkative for our frames of mind. But so sweet – when he heard we had no rooms he said “No problem, you all sleep in my room!”

We also asked to look into ways of getting us the hell out of India. We were exhausted and were supposed to have another full day in Varanasi, then another overnight train ride to Calcutta, which would mean no sleep, just to wait around in Calcutta for the day to get on our late night flight to Bangkok – again no sleep. We were DONE.

The Doctor told Jeff he could get us a flight from Varanasi to Delhi and then to Bangkok after a seven hour layover, all for only $750 US. OK…no. I guess we’re staying.

Finally at about noon, they found rooms. I said to Jeff “If there’s no hot water, I’m jumping out the window” (the last hot shower I’d had was in Jaipur two days ago). Guess what? No hot water.

As I was deciding if I should laugh or cry, Jeff knocked on my door and said the second driver had found us a flight straight from Varanasi to Bangkok.

Let’s go.

Our driver and this flight were our Christmas presents from the universe. You cannot even fly to Calcutta from Varanasi, it is a tiny, tiny airport. Thai Airways had just recently started flights to Bangkoks, they were only on Mondays, it was leaving now, and it was cheap. We loved this driver!

We zoomed off to buy our tickets and rushed to the airport (felt very “Amazing Race”-ish).

We landed in Bangkok around 7:30. Bangkok looked clean and lovely and bright and sparkly after India and we were all very glad to be there.

After a Chang and sorting ourselves out at New Siam II we headed down to Khoa San and ended up at Burger King (mmmmm beef).

While we were eating I realized this was Christmas dinner. Awesome.

After dinner we all crashed. It was definitely the most interesting, amazing, frustrating, crazy and awesome Christmas day ever.

We were driving along the streets of Varanasi and I looked over and saw a goat on the side of the road. The goat’s eyes followed mine, his expression pretty much the goat equivalent of “ya huh, whuuuuuut up?” And oh right…this goat was wearing a BASEBALL HAT.

me: uh, I think I just saw a goat wearing a baseball hat.
jeff: ya I saw it too.

Oh my god I started laughing and could.not.stop.

I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed until tears were POURING down my face. My eyes weren’t just  watering, my t-shirt was actually getting wet. I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Our driver looked out of the corner of his eyes at me all “heh.heh? uhh?” I was pretty much incoherent at this point, so he looked back to Jeff who said “She saw a goat wearing a baseball hat.” The driver looked back to me like “…and? yes? big deal, what?”

Laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

I tried to control myself. But about five minutes later, I pictured the goat again and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. I tried to say “I wish I had a picture of that, because I would look at it every day and laugh my head off.”

Only it came out like “I w-w-w-wissssh AAAHA HA HA HA I h-h-h-h-had a AAAHA HA HA HA p-p-p-p-p-ic-t-t-t-t-ure of AAAHA HA HA HA th-th-th-that AAAHA HA HA HA” (you get the point).

Laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

I’m pretty sure by that point our driver thought I was totally insane and looked back at Jeff again. Jeff: “Still the goat…”

Laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

This pattern repeated itself for about half an hour until we got to our hotel. To be honest, I think our driver was glad to get rid of us (me).

Guess you had to be there.

: : : : :

Funny postscript to the goat story. Had this messenger chat with Nicole while I was on Lanta:

me: oh, I saw a goat wearing a baseball hat
nicole: a goat wearing a what?

Exactly! I laughed so hard at this I snorted in the internet cafe and everyone turned around and looked at me. Oh goat, you keep me laughing…

Varanasi is amazing. It is the city of Shiva – one of the holiest cities in India for Hindus. Every day, thousands bathe and pray at the ghats that line the Ganges. At dawn we went down to the Ganges and took a boat ride:

Dying here, for Hindus, means achieving freedom from the cycle of birth and death. The Harishchandra ghatis a burning ghat, where every day bodies are cremated, right on the shore of the Ganges.

It really is an interesting, amazing place and the boat ride was an incredible way to spend a Christmas morning I’ll never forget. More photos in the Varanasi photo set

We were excited to be heading out on the next leg or our journey – Rajasthan and the Taj were very beautiful, but we were glad to be out of the car and looking forward to the next stops, and getting closer to Lanta, of course.

We sat around the train station for several hours, which was a lovely place to spend Christmas Eve.

while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads…

There were thousands of pigeons in there. Thousands. The noise from them was just unbelievable and yes, one shat on me. Good luck, right?!

Our train was late, but we finally got on and were pleasantly surprised when we were told the ride was only about 8 hours, not the 13 we’d expected.

Just after midnight Jeff and I were between cars, where there were piles of garbage: chicken bones, corn cobs and general filth.

me: merry christmas!!!
jeff: told you I’d take you somewhere nice!

Back in our berth,which wasn’t too bad (we had a neighbour in the fourth bed who slept the entire time), we chatted for a while and then tried to get a bit of a nap in.

We were woken up when we were nearing the Varanasi station. We quickly packed up our things and stood in the aisle for what seemed like a very long time – I got a major wave of claustrophobia. I couldn’t turn around with my backpack on and all I could see was Mo’s big red backpack. No escape, no escape!! I had to eventually take off my pack and turn around so at least I could see some space around me. Such a ninny.

We got off the train at around 4:30 Christmas morning. Merry Christmas!

We were dropped off outside the gates to the Taj Mahal (you can’t see it from the street) and walked in for about a kilometre. We found there were two lines, one for men, one for women. The line for men was hundreds of people long and the women’s line? About four people. Mo and I went inside and waited, we didn’t want to walk around – we were afraid to catch a glimpse without Jeff. He made it in (bribed his way to the front of the line. How “Jeff” of him) and we headed in.

Really, what can you say about the Taj Mahal? It’s stunning.

We’ve all seen so many pictures, but they cannot do it justice. It seems to glow. It’s so amazingly huge, much bigger than I expected.

The crowds there are also huge. Obviously, the Taj Mahal is a major tourist attraction and there are plenty of people there, constantly. The biggest crowd could be found crowded around a bench they call the “Lady Diana” bench because of the famous picture taken there.

We sat for quite a while just soaking in the experience. It is definitely one of those places where all you can think is “wow…I’m here…”

After a while sitting there (and getting a history lesson from a guide), we headed up the stairs to the main part of the Taj. There is a great deal of detail work in the marble:

carved sections of flowers

I liked this section of inlay because it’s the only one I could see where the leaves were turquoise and not green

Inside is the cenotaph which is actually a false tomb. The real tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and his wife Shah Janan, are beneath the floor in a private chamber. There is a section of floor roped off above them, as the Muslim religion prohibits anyone from walking over the dead.

The false tomb is spectacular. The inlay work is amazing. Intricate flowers of every type: irises, lotus flowers, and many others cover a carved marble screen, which is also covered in semi-precious stones. Inside the screen are replicas of the caskets for Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Janan – also very beautiful (and tiny!)

I would have taken pictures but signage that told me photos were prohibited. It is extremely crowded inside the cenotaph – people pushing and shoving and flashes flashing (I stuck my hand in front of one guy’s camera – have some respect, dude) We all almost came to blows just trying to get out the door, where hundreds of others were trying to get in.

Out behind the Taj is an empty field, just beyond the river. Apparently Mumtaz Mahal had intended on building a second Taj Mahal there, this one in black, to house his own tomb. But he was imprisoned by his own son in the nearby Agra Fort and never even begun work on the black Taj Mahal.

As we were leaving, our view was much like this:

(Only there wasn’t quite as many people while we were leaving). Our guide told us if we walked backwards, the Taj would seem to grow inside the frame of the archway.

guide: look – do you see the Taj Mahal?
jeff and me: <at the same time> Where???

Such smartasses.

I didn’t take as many pictures as one might expect, you realize you cannot capture the feeling of being there, however, there are a few more photos in the Taj Mahal photo set

Definitely a major highlight of the trip.

What a hell hole. Or as Jeff put it “turns out Toronto isn’t the asshole of the earth”

At home, when you get to a four way intersection, it looks something like this (note the red and purple cars are stopped because it isn’t their damn turn).

And you can hear your stereo. Or your car running. Or your own thoughts. Whatever.

There, a four way intersection looks like this:

and sounds like this:

HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!! HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!! HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!! HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!! HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!! HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!! HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!! HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!! HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!! HONK HONK HONK !! HONK! HONK! HONK!!!

(Also, reeks).

So say you’re me and you’re kinda (very) claustrophobic. And one of your biggest pet peeves is excessive loud noises. And your biggest anxiety-causing issue is that you might have “tummy troubles” when you’re trapped. In a noisy place. And you get “tummy troubles” a lot. And even though you can’t hear, you feel your stomach make this noise:

YEEEERRRRRRROOOOOOORRRRRGGGGGGGGH

me: ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod

I start squirming, sweating and writhing in my seat. Then I start to cry. And you know what makes it better?

jeff: calm down

FUCKOFFFUCKOFFFUCKOFF.

Worst (and longest) car ride of my life.

We managed to “avoid disaster” by stopping at a place I am now trying to banish from my memory, so please don’t believe Jeff when he tries to tell you “Lara saw the Taj Mahal and shit her pants”.

It was really fun and silly. We didn’t really see any birds.

While we were getting our bikes, Jeff lifted mine off the rack and jammed the kickstand right over my foot and ripped the skin off my big toe…owie. Then when we were riding he cut Mo off, on purpose, and she made a spectacularly athletic move, jumping over her handle bars and amazingly “sticking” her landing. And then I nearly ran her over.

Then we saw Jeff yelling and repeatedly shoving a large animal. Turns out this thing had stepped on his toe:

Serves him right.

camel toe: