Sunrise Over The Ganges

(PICTURE: Sunrise over the Ganges.)

We had actually booked our guest house because it said online that they had a free boat cruise at sunset every morning. Naturally this turned out not to be true. However, we agreed to pay the money and were told to be ready at 5AM the next morning. We were up at 5AM but nobody came to pick us up. Finally I managed to wake up the guest house owner who had booked the trip for us and he took us down to the ghats where we met the guys who supposedly were supposed to pick us up at 5AM. Anyway, we got down to the river just as the sun was peaking up over the horizon.



It was absolutely beautiful and amazing to see how much activity goes on around the river every morning.

Washing Clothes

(PICTURE: Getting some stains out.)

Huyen and I had our clothes washed in Varanasi. That was before we found out where most people wash their clothes:

(PICTURE: Men doing the laundry.)

Luckily we were told that our laundry was washed in a machine. However, the place air dried our clothes in the kitchen which meant they came back smelling like curry.

The Ganges

(PICTURE: A man praying in the Ganges.)

From Lonely Planet: The River Ganges provides millions of Indians with an important link to their spirituality. Every day about 60,000 people go down to the Varanasi ghats to take a holy dip along a 7km stretch of the river. Along this same area, 30 large sewers are continuously discharging into the river.

The Ganges River is so heavily polluted at Varanasi that the water is septic - no dissolved oxygen exists. The statistics get worse. Samples from the river show the water has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 100mL of water. In water that is safe for bathing this figure should be less than 500!

Huyen and I saw people drinking from the Ganges. DRINKING! I mean it's one thing to bathe in shit but to drink it. Ohhhhh man...

(PICTURE: A swim class. Notice the instructor has a tube for himself.)

(PICTURE: People taking a morning bath.)

(PICTURE: A happy bather.)

Cricket

Indians love their cricket. Seemingly every open space we saw around the country was occupied by kids playing cricket, also known as "the sport I know next to nothing about." Here's some pictures from Varanasi of kids playing next to a ghat:

(PICTURE: Huyen was the umpire.)


(PICTURE: Swing and a miss...like me in baseball.)

Masks

(PICTURE: Wearing masks on the street.)

One thing you immediately notice in India is that the air is not very clean. Huyen almost immediately wore her Vietnamese style nose and mouth mask to protect herself from the elements. I was a little more hesitant because I just feel a little weird walking around wearing a mask when nobody else has one on. Within twenty four hours of arriving, both of our eyes and throats felt very irritated. Within forty eight hours, I had started to develop a little bit of a cough. I then turned to the back of Lonely Planet and read, "Around 25% of travelers to India will develop a respiratory infection. This usually starts as a virus and is exacerbated by environment conditions...". Well, after reading that, I put aside my self consciousness and began to wear a mask almost all of the time when we were on the street.

One of the added side benefits of wearing a mask was that less people came up to us, trying to sell us stuff or scam us. Occasionally I would forget the mask and we could really see a difference on how many people would approach us. So, I guess a tip I would give to people is that if you pretend to have an infectious disease, you might enjoy your trip a little bit more.

Suggestion #2

(PICTURE: The Nandan Complex is near the South Gate of the Victoria Monument. FYI.)

As I mentioned yesterday, my friend Jessica's friend in Kolkata sent Huyen and I some suggestions. The second thing he suggested to us was to "check out a show at the Nandan Complex."

The Nandan Complex is a state-run cultural center that has music, theater and movies. It was hot as hell out so we thought checking out a Bengali movie would be a great way to spend a couple of hours. We got directions to the place and started to walk there. I'll save all the details but it took about three times as long as we were told and had such fun adventures as two naked three-year-old boys trying to climb up my leg to take my bottle of water.

Eventually we got to the Nandan Complex and were surprised how crowded it was. People were everywhere including a hell of a lot of ARMED MILITARY GUYS. Huyen and I smiled at the security forces and walked into the center. One thing we immediately noticed was that everyone was wearing white and carrying flowers. Even stranger was that there were a ton of cameras (still and video) and very good looking people. The Hollywood in me immediately came out and I said confidently to Huyen, "They must be having a movie premiere."

So, Huyen and I walked through the well dressed, good looking people trying to find the box office. After stepping into the main hall we encountered something you usually don't see at a movie theater -- a DEAD BODY!

No, the person hadn't just been killed -- although that's always a possibility in India -- but rather was the the man-of-honor at his own funeral. Huyen and I were about a foot from the deceased, who was covered in flowers, and then started to notice that a lot of people were staring at us. I nearly said to probably some A-list Bollywood star, "Do you know I can buy movie tickets?" but managed to restrain myself. Instead I gave Huyen a lets-get-the-hell-out-of-here-head-jerk and we departed the premises.

Well, I have no idea who died and that's only because I don't speak Hindi. You see, the next morning I turned on the news and there was a story about the funeral. I watched the piece -- not understanding a word -- and kept expecting to see us wandering aimlessly in the background. In fact, one guy who was on TV, gave his interview about a foot from where we were standing.

So long story short, we didn't get to see a movie and sit in AC.

Indian Coffee House

(PICTURE: The Indian Coffee House.)

So how did I get my first case of the runs? Well, I'm not 100% sure but it was either from:

a) A cup of coffee at the legendary Indian Coffee House.
b) A meal from a local restaurant some guy suggested.
c) From a street side coconut I ate. Lets just say the guy cutting it open didn't look like he washed his hands since, well, ever.

Anyway, let me briefly talk about A. My friend Jessica (from Hanoi!) used to live in Kolkata and put me in touch with a friend of hers who was still there. Unfortunately her friend was out of town but he sent me an email with some suggestions. One of the suggestions was that we had to go to the coffee house. Well, after doing some sightseeing we started walking to the place. The streets were a little confusing so we asked some college-aged students who were standing on a corner. One of the guys, lets call him ASSHOLE #1, said to us: "Oh, the Indian Coffee House isn't near here. It's like forty minutes away. You need to take a bus." Well, thankfully I know how to read a map and knew ASSHOLE #1 was full of shit. A second clue was probably when he and his friends started to laugh as soon as we had walked about three feet away. I can only pray that one day ASSHOLE #1 will be traveling in the USA and ask for directions and get pointed down a very shady, dark alleyway where he'll meet some guy with a face tattoo named Spike. Anyway, I digress...

Soooo, ignoring our not so helpful advice, we proceeded in the general direction that I thought the coffee house was in (to be clear, we had a very faded map with only large streets on it. We even went to the tourist office the day before and they didn't have a good map for us). After walking for a few more minutes, I asked another person for directions and he started to give it to us in 99% Hindi. Thankfully a really nice guy, lets call him NICE GUY, came up and asked where we wanted to go. Actually, scratch that. NICE GUY's name was Ankit so lets call him by his name and give him the recognition he deserves. So, Ankit spoke nearly perfect English and said he'd walk with us half the way since he was going that way to school. Ankit told me that he used to work for HP as a customer service rep and got to talk to tons of Americans. Heck, I might have even talked to him before on the other end of an 800 number. Anyway, Ankit took us very close to the shop and then bid adieu. Let me just say, it's people like Ankit who make traveling so rewarding. Unfortunately for the first time ever, this trip had too many people like ASSHOLE #1 and not enough Ankits.

After parting with Ankit, we had to walk for just a few more minutes until we came to the coffee house. Here's the LP description of the place: "The mythic Indian Coffee House was once a meeting place of freedom fighters, bohemians and revolutionaries. Today its crusty high ceilings and grimy walls ring with deafening student conversation but despite the dishwater coffee, it’s perversely fascinating."

The coffee house was definitely a cool place to check out and indeed the coffee was crap...and might have given me the runs.