I have just finished the train ride from hell. We arrive in Varanasi 2.5 hours after we were supposed to, bringing the total journey to just over 22 hours. That is a very long time to sit/lie on a 1” thick foam mattress while the temperature in the cabin slowly increases up to an uncomfortable level. The food is greasy, although I did eat one of the best hashbrowns I’ve ever had in my life—the secret is to add a bajillion types of spices. When you use the bathroom you can see the tracks rushing directly underneath the toilet (a little bit of an air-dry, I guess). Ninety percent of the passengers got off at 9am, leaving the train eerily quiet. The rocking and shaking is so bad this trip that I can barely write what I see going past my window. The whole experience blows.
Here’s what I can make-out from my notes at the end of the trip:
--50’ tall statue of Hanuman, the monkey god, is realllly creepy at night
--It’s getting brown again outside; more fields, fewer trees
--Hundreds of kilometers of subsistence farmers: ox-drawn carts and plows, small plots of crops in irregular triangles and quadrilaterals separated by small mounds of earth
--Women carry piles of hay bigger than themselves on their heads
--Grass and mud-brick huts with awnings held up by sticks
--Every twenty minutes or so we come to a “station”, a glorified strip of concrete where people jump (or if they’re lucky and the train actually stops) or step on and off the train
--Conductor stopping by to check on me every station and offering me some peanuts. Nice, but I’m a woman, not an infant
I’m getting slightly anxious about finding a hotel, as well. The tourist office that would have helped me make phone calls and arrange pick-ups closed an hour ago and the rickshaw drivers here are famous for trying to get you to go to a hotel they recommend (they earn up to a 75% commission from the establishment for the tourists they bring in, a fee added to your hotel bill). A nice man on the train tries to call the hotels on my list, but neither of my top two choices pick up. He’s convinced that I can just tell a rickshaw-wallah to take me to my hotel and they’ll treat me fairly. It’s all I can do not to laugh out loud and teach him a lesson about his homeland.
But maybe meeting this guy is going to turn out to be even more useful than I thought. As we exit the train, he deals with the rickshaw wallah for me and settles it in advance! He gets a guy to agree to take me for a good price; I think I just found my new tactic for getting decent rickshaw rides. Not that the driver goes out without trying to pull something…his “friends” start walking through the station with me, asking me all sorts of questions and guiding me through the crowd. When we get in the rickshaw there are two drivers, neither of whom were the person my guardian from the train spoke with. They immediately start talking about how difficult it is to get to the hotel I want and why don’t I pick another one and madam it’s dark out, you aren’t safe walking and the rickshaw can’t go in all the way to the hotel (which I already know is true and I’ll be fine) so it’s better if you choose something else…
But I stick to my guns and say Shanti Guest House or I get another ride. Both drivers basically flee the vehicle and my original friend comes back. He takes me as far as he can in the rickshaw then starts to lead me through the twisting, labyrinthine set of alleys that make up the old city neighborhood of Godawlia. In the dark, this trek is mysterious and outright scary. There were pitch-black stretches where the power was out, loose cobblestones would tilt up and try to trip you and men called out “Hello, ma-dam! Welcome to our area of Varanasi!” I can’t wait to explore the area in daylight. Finally, we came to the hazy neon glow of a sign saying “Shanti” and I tip my driver well—I wouldn’t have gotten here without him.
The man at the reception desk looks less than enthused to have another customer to deal with, but his mood may also have something to do with the loud explosion and smoke that came from an electrical box of some kind when I entered. I bend 90 degrees to climb the steep stairs so my pack doesn’t pull me over backwards and drop my gear in my room before checking out the rooftop restaurant. It’s romantic—looking out over the river, purple walls, rows of red lights, someone strumming Radiohead’s “Karma Police” on a guitar.
Okay, I’m back to wishing I were traveling with a friend, though. I’m trying to find a seat at a welcoming looking table (or, rather, a table with welcoming looking people at it). It seems like everyone here is with a group and there isn’t room for one more (except for that table of hippies that probably aren’t smoking regular tobacco and I am so not looking for that tonight). A lot of the people up here seem really tired. I’m guessing they’ve either just arrived or have just finished another long day of simply existing in India. Also, there’s an inordinately large number of cute guys on this roof…but I’m not looking for that tonight, either, so moving on.
I do appreciate that the booth nearby has a sign saying “Full Fledged Money Changer”, proving my hotel’s devotion to the financial business is greater than its half-hearted “mostly fledged” competitors.
I ended up sitting at a table by myself near the door and when two girls came in looking like they were in the same conundrum I said they were welcome to use my table. And that’s how I met Sally and Emma, two Brits on their way around Africa and India and moving on to Asia. Hopefully we’ll meet up for the free boat trip tomorrow evening and can spend a little time together. But I leave them to their dinner because I’m utterly exhausted, that is until I pick up the book Twilight again and read until about 12:30. But seriously, how many times can this chick get lost in Edward’s eyes?
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