Hurghada (April 27-30)

We arrived in Hurghada after a 6 hour bus ride from Luxor.....with a few interesting events along the way - once to boost another bus and another to check on the driver of a truck overturned on the side of the road. We were the only foreigners on the bus so we were promptly offered drives to hotels upon arrival - we took one guy up on his offer and landed a clean, bright room with a balcony facing the ocean for a good price, so we figured it was a no-brainer .... oh yeah, John thinks the bed is very comfie too! :)

Hurghada seems to be in a state of flux. There are older hotels needing TLC, and many new resorts with numerous brick shells waiting to be finished. While there are tourists here, it does not seem to warrnant the number of hotels and restaurants that exist and are in process. Maybe its the global economy bringing some things to a halt and others to a slower pace? It is hard to get a feel for this town because it seems to have grown so quickly due to tourism and with not much organization - we kinda feel in a state of limbo of sorts. That's not to diss the beautiful ocean views.

The orginal plan (as there almost always is a modification eventually) was to stay two nights and catch the fast catamaran ferry to Sinai. Well, the wind doth bloweth here just about all the time (kinda like Newfoundland). The Newfie readers will remember how we experimented with the fast cat for the Port aux Basques to North Sydney crossing and it didn't work because of the wind and waves...it seems they haven't figured that out here yet ;) So, after the ferry cancellation, we decided we would extend our visas to allow us a little breathing room before leaving Egypt.

Okay, for proof that it was indeed windy - Lori is wearing a fleece and John a windbreaker! But isn't that water gorgeous!

We had already enjoyed a day of snorkelling - boy oh boy was the wind blowing but we did manage to enjoy 3 different sites without shivering too much. There was a school of about 6 dolfins swimming by the boat unfortunately we were not snorkelling there - but oh so very nice to see them.

With visa extensions in hand, we decided we should check out the diving on this side of the Red Sea so we booked a day of boat diving. This proved to be a very good idea. The wind wasn't howling therefore allowing you to appreciate the warmth of the sun. Diving from a boat into blue-turquoise water is amazing! The water visibility was great - about 20 meteres - and the coral was plentiful. There does not seem to be as great a number of fish as in the Gulf of Aqaba but they are there! We watched two 2 meter long moray eels have a little fuss over who was boss - they were huge - impressive! Of course, it was a treat to watch a turtle gently swim its way through the expanse of salt water above us - beautiful! There were other fish of various shapes, sizes and colors - its hard not to feel as though you are in an aquarium with them. To take your time and slowly swim... alongside the reef, looking up toward the surface, taking in the many coral formations and watching the fish: eat, chase after one another, fight for territory, sleep on the coral, hide in the coral...is incredible...like nothing else. If you enjoy swimming in the water, this is the bees knees!

We are looking forward to returning to the Sinai peninsula, but we will have to see if the ferry cancels tomorrow....if so, a 10 hour bus journey may have to be considered - yikes!

Luxor (April 22-26)

We wanted to take the 800km south to Luxor on the day train so we could watch Egypt going by but it turns out that foreigners are 'barred' from using this train for 'security' reasons. So we had to wait an extra day for the overnight sleeper train (which costs 10x as much). This overnight train was of a whole different class and quality from what we had gotten used to in India!



So, by 10am the next morning we arrived in Luxor to usual herd of people clamouring to get us to the best value hotel in town. It takes a real effort to push through them and look indpendently as these guys always get a 20-40% commission for taking you to a hotel which of course is added to the price you pay. After a bit of a long story we ended up at the Horus hotel with a nice view over the Luxor temple towards the Nile. Here's a view from our room (with the smoke courtesy of burning garbage on the side of ther river). We did visit this temple at night and here's a snapshot of what part of it looks like from the inside.







Luxor is famous for being the ancient town of Thebes, which was the capital of Egypt during some periods of the reign of the pharoahs. What remains here are some temples (including the largest one of ancient Egypt) as well as the 'Valley of the Kings" where the pharoahs of the 3rd Kingdom (from 1500 to 1100 BC) carved out their tombs in the rocks of this hidden valley. Here we are going into one of the side channels leading to one of thetombs. This valley is where the famous King Tut's tomb is, the one which was discovered in 1920-something completely intact with all kinds of fabulous things which are now in the Cairo museum. All the other dozens or so of tombs had been robbed, some many times over so the pickings were quite slim by the time 19th and 20th century museum curators got on the scene. In fact, they claim some tombs were robbed within a few generations of their deaths and a lot of the 'art' of tomb building went into how to best conceal their contents. So what you do here is hire a car for the day that takes you around to these tombs and temples on the west bank of the Nile and over the day fork over about 100$ in entrance fees to get inside them. Specifically in the valley of Kings your entrance fee gets you into 3 of the 20 or so major tombs (except Tut's which is a special price of 20$ more). We should also mention that while we arrive in our puny little car, there are about 50 massive tour buses unloading hordes of package tourists so it's a bit of a zoo! Nevertheless, despite our whining, it is an amazing thing to be several stories down into the man-made caves hewn out of the rock and to see the usual Egyptian art we are all used to painted all over the inside and to think this has been here for about 3500 years. The art, and all the paraphenalia placed into the tombs are all about how to guide the deceased in their journey through the netherworld to find resurrection into eternal life. It was here that we first 'got it'... that it's not just about this megalomaniac men spending awesome amounts of wealth on their tombs...they really had a strong belief / spiritual sense that there was an afterlife and this was their best understanding of how it was to be attained. (too bad for all the rest of the poor smucks who didn't have the wealth to be able to follow the 'formula'!). That is also why they got into this mummification thing so that they would be preserved and so that the 'god's of the afterworld would be able to recognize and receive them. Here we have a view of some of the painting going on inside one of the tombs.







From here we were among the .01 % of the visitors who hiked 30 minutes over a hill down towards the next site which is Queen Hatsheput's temple. Of course you cannot make this walk without multiple locals coming alongside with the offer to 'guide' you (because otherwise you could lose your way with all kinds of bad consequences), for a fee of course. It's no use to try and resist it. Anyways, in this case, it seemed that the fellow was a genuinely nice guy needing to make some money. He hails from a small village over the hill who's inhabitants built their homes overtop of an area of tombs of rich nobles. Here the government is in the process of moving them off their homes and into a nearby new village that has been built. Supposedly this is to open the tombs up for archaeological work, however our guide claimed that (a) the new homes were not as good was what they were leaving, (b) there was nothing in these tombs anymore anyways, and (c) that a rumour was circulating that the government was selling the land to developers for 5 star hotels. Sigh...who knows what is the real story told from both sides. Here we are at the crest of this hill looking back down into the 'Valley of Kings'.







Well, by now it was about 11am and it was stinking hot (it hit 39 this day) and hiking back down the other side was no fun. What follows then is visits to the remains of a couple of fairly impressive temples, and then a visit to a few of the better tombs of the nobles. This was a great visit because these although smaller, were still about the size of a large room, and had the usual artwork and no one visiting them, so you had some real quiet time to appreciate them. Of course the staff checking your tickets also gives their limited English 'guided' explanation and expect a tip which usually meets expressions that indicate it's not enough!.



Well that winds up the day and by now you're pretty well cooked. It's a bit late in the season for visiting here because of the extreme temperatures so for you future Egyptologists out there keep that in mind. Evenings are spent walking about the town (about 200 thou people) and being constantly haranged to go on horse carriage rides as there must be thousands of them here.



The next day we were up at 6am to beat the heat visiting Karnak temple, the largest one of ancient Egypt. They are working hard at restoring/reassembling them from the rubble but what you can see today is quite impressive. This temple was added to by many pharoahs over the period 1500 BC to Alexander the Great (300 BC), each building a successive courtyard and temple (5 or so in total). The largest of these has a 'hippostyle' hall with a central corridor of 12 huge pillars (30m high) and then another set of 50 or so pillars 23m high on either side. The whole thing was then 'roofed' with huge stone blocks and covered the area equivalent to the largest cathedrals of Europe. All the pillars and some of the roof blocks are now up and it makes for an impressive experience wandering through there. Here we have a photo looking down the center of the 12 largest pillars.



The whole temple area is also sprinkled with very large pharoah statues and a few obelisks. (some of the other original obelisks that were there are now elsewhere...such as in Paris). These pharoahs were 1000 years ahead of their time in terms of the size of buildings they were constructing here. It's something to wander inside them and wonder what they must have looked like at the time and what went on in there and what was it like to be inside the head of an Egyptian living at that time....



We wound up our time here by 11am thanks to the heat and hung out in the hotel A/C till evening. By then a wind had come up (as it had been but flat calm the last few days) so we headed over the 100m to the river front and hired a felucca sailing boat for a sunset cruise on the Nile. These boats can be hired for several day trips to sail down the river and sleep overnight at anchor. They stop at several places along the way where there are other temple ruins along the riverbank. This could have been nice (especially as an alternative to the several hundred huge 5* , 200 or some room cruisers which are also plying this section of the river. The Nile is moving pretty hard here...perhaps at 3-4 knots and there is a lot of water flowing down which is irrigating the few kms of fields on either side of the river (before the desert resumes) and so feeds the 80 million people of Egypt (which is growing at the rate of 1m new people every 9 months!).



Well, there are many other temple ruins to see within 200kms of here, especially going south to Aswan, but it was just too hot to contemplate that and besides we were having ancient ruins fatigue setting in anyways, so early the next morning we were on a bus for the 6 hour ride eastward back to the Red Sea.

Cairo and Pyramids (Apr 18-21)

Finally after 2 weeks by the sea and exploring the Sinai peninsula we felt enough energy in our bones to step back into the hustle bustle world and with the reports we'd had from people about Cairo (22 million people and horrific adventures for pedestrians) we figured we should make sure we were ready first.


So a 9 hr bus ride later we were there and it was interesting to note our reactions. What a 'clean' modern city!....at least compared to our most freshest memories of cities (ie. India!). We're in a hotel downtown which is some 1940's eight story building that is running down and neglected, yet beautiful in its own way with hardwood floors, 12 ft ceilings, balcony, wall paper peeling off the walls, leaking plumbing etc. But hey, compared to a lot of the places in India...it was luxury.



'Downtown' here is big wide clean streets without trash, cows, and their you know what, skyscrapers...lots of shops and shopping etc...it practically feels like a we're in the 'western world' again. Here's a couple of photos, one from our hotel room balcony, another of us chomping down some delicicious shwarmas on the steet.

And about the traffic...heck it's veritably sane compared to India. It's true that here the traffic lights are irrelevant ( on flash cycle all the time), but there are police on every corner who seem to substitute for the lights and pedestrians simply cross whenever and wherever they want whenever the slightest gap in cars presents itself. Here at least it is only cars and they're all moving about the same speed which is in fact not too fast whereas in India it was every kind of vehicle imaginable, gas, human, animal powered all moving at different speeds and packed in with inches between them all and no police on any corners!.



One problem here though is that its a crappy place for being an independent (non-package tour) tourist. Lots' of people approaching you, almost always in the guise of being friendly and always with a hitch. We are becoming harder and more jaded all the time, kind of cranky everytime someone approaches you because you feel like such a target and no matter what you do you are fighting all the time from being exploited, right down to buying a bottle of water in the corner store. There is a real price, and then the special tourist price for everything. Its probably a sign that our travelling through these parts of the world should come to an end soon. For almost everything you buy or go to, you have to discuss, listen to their lies and arguments why you have to buy this now and at their price, and then finally walk away before the price comes even close to the real 'Egyptian price' and it is just getting to be too much work. The alternative is just to pay double for everything...something that you would do if you were here for 2 weeks but when you are travelling for 6 months you just can't afford to do that.

Also the system is rigged here in Egypt to extract the maximum amount of money from tourists and admission fees to most things are astronomical. To visit the 3 main pyramid sites around town cost us 160$ for transportation and admission fees and the English speaking guide we paid for had a lot of trouble with English and knew a lot less than what was written in the Lonely Planet book.

OK....sorry for dumping all that on you...what about the sights? Cairo is like so many old cities in this part of the world. Really 2 cities, an old one and a new one side by side. The new one is laid out in the last 100 yrs or so with wide streets in a grid wide sidewalks and Cairo in particular semi-European like architecture. It's kind of nice actually as described above. Then there is the old medieval city with tiny streets, bazaars, shops, mosques, old buildings etc. We've spent some time walking about each of them. In the old town we stopped in a mosque from the 900's and watched a group of men up front who were being instructed in how to recite the Koran. Here's just a snapshot of how many mosques there are in this city.





We were also chatted up by a young guy and invited to take some free literature on Islam. He was youngish, an engineer, loved this mosque and really genuine, mentioned how important it was for people to know about eachother as it is lack of knowledge that engenders fear and trouble. There was something quite moving about him. Since then we've been reading some of the booklets about the Islamic view of Jesus and women and why it is so much better and more correct than the Christian view. Not enough space here to go into it, but lots of misrepresentation and taking things out of context going on in those booklets....so much for promoting understanding!.

Day 3 was spent with the tour of the pyramids ranging from 10 to 35 kms south of town. At the furthest site in the AM we were the only ones there and had the opportunity to go inside the pyramid alone down (way down, the equivalent of perhaps 6 flights of stairs) into the burial chamber with 140m of stones on top of you. Of course all empty in there now but an eerie feeling thinking about some pharoah having been in there with all his 'stuff' for 4500 yrs. These pyramids are the oldest man made stone structures standing on earth and are older than the next oldest ones by a very long time and they are very large! One picture below is looking back up the shaft from the bottom of the burial chamber and the other is looking up into the A-frame of the 12 m ceiling inside the burial chamber.





The last stop of the day was the Giza pyramids the largest pair at 140m (what's that some 45 stories high?). They are definitely really crumbling on the outside, since their smooth hard limestone casings were pillaged in medieval times to make mosques and palaces so the exposed sandstone blocks are starting to wear. Some of the lesser pyramids are mounds of sand/gravel now. So we took the requisite camel ride, got the photo, endured the hassles of people trying to sell us a million things and then just sat and marvelled at what possessed these people to build these things 4500 yrs ago.




Today we booked out train ticket for overnight of Apr 22 in a sleeping cabin to Luxor 800kms south on the Nile which has an equally impressive set of temples and tombs...perhaps more so because down there they are all made of granite and so aren't susceptible to erosion as the limestone and sandstone is here.

So during the day tomorrow we intend to go visit the Coptic area of town, the Copts being those who converted to Christianity in the first few centuries AD and who now represent perhaps less than 10 percent of Egyptians.

Sinai Desert, Mountain & Red Sea (Apr 3-17)

Okay, it has taken us a while to update - strangely enough the reason is not because we have been too busy changing locale - we actually spent 2 weeks in Dahab! It seems the lifestyle, climate and scenery agreed with us.

First, we are happy to report that we have successfully (and yes Mom, safely) completed our Open Water Diver certification....which means we are free to dive which we did. We did our first official, non-course, fun dive at a site named "The Islands" - it was great! It is called the islands due to the layout of the underwater coral islands just offshore. The entry was through a small, shallow tunnel - very cool! The fish (school of yellow tail baracuda, a pair of lion fish to name a few) and coral in ful bloom did not disappoint - to see fish swimming above you is neat. It is so nice to swim and not have to worry about coming up for air (at least not for 55 minutes ;D). Beautiful......


One day - just to experience the dryness of Sinai, we booked a trip into the desert to visit some canyons (Double Canyon and White Canyon). The Double has incredibly smooth walls, some of which are very close together - it was fun to inch through them. The White was incredibly white and ended a short distance from an oasis - which was a welcome sight after the trekking by foot in the sun.











































Dahab is not only a great place to scuba dive but the snorkeling is excellent too! So back to the water for a day of snorkeling. We tried three different places - amazing - there was one area where you could easily float about a meter above the coral viewing the pink, purple, green, yellow, and orange coral while schools of silver fish and blue fusiliers pass by as if suspended in midair (the water is so amazingly clear). So many fish: blue spotted ray, purple jellyfish....

Okay, a visit to the Sinai peninsula would not be complete without a climb to the summit of Mount Sinai which would be the grande finale of our visit. Before our ascent, we visited the famous St. Katrine's monastery. We were only permitted to view the exterior of the small chapel and walk around the surrounding grounds just inside the wall and what is believed to be the burning bush where God spoke to Moses concerning His plan for him to lead the Isrealites out of Egypt 3000 years ago.



For our climb, we chose a start time of 12:30 in the afternoon with a descent just after sunset. In our group was a retired German couple who had been traveling for 14 months and a mother, sister and daughter team of 6 on vacation from France. The climb up was not too bad at all, until you near the summit when it becomes much steeper then you can really feel your heart, lungs and legs working hard!! We knew it would be worth it.

There was a short stop just before the top called Elijah's basin - this is elieved to be the place where God passed by in a whisper as Elijah covered his face!

The summit was quite chilly you know...it being an altitude of 2300 meters and all. Thankfully, the local Bedouin people are very enterprising and blankets can be rented for about $2 CDN. Lori says thank you very much - although it was hard to part with just before descent :D The blanket coupled with hot chocolate and our snacks was perfect and much appreciated.

The rugged mountains and the startling blue sky are inspiring and to watch the sun set to go and bring its warmth to another part of the world (wasn't doing much for us at the time anyway... bbrrrr) is something to see. I am sure many have breathed in this view and others like it - its an awesome feeling.

Trying to graspe that God met with Moses here about 3000 years ago is mind boggling - its kinda hard to sit there with that view and not think of God at any rate.

Arrival in Dahab, Egypt (April 3)

So we finally finished our time in India and looking back, what a time it was. Our India visa ran out on Apr 3 and so we searched around for what flights we could get out of Delhi that day and came up with the idea of flying to Sharm-el-Sheikh on the Sinai peninsula of Egypt (with a stopover in Amman Jordan). We just didn't feel up to dealing with the craziness of Cairo (immediately after India) and thought the Sinai with its location on the Red Sea might be just the ticket (pardon the pun).


The exit from Sharm-el-Sheikh's airport to get a taxi to the bus station should have been a simple, normal process and relatively uneventful - NOPE! We had various taxi drivers move us in and out of 3 or 4 different taxis, load our bags, agree on price only to apparently cause a commotion resulting in other taxi drivers yelling and arguing in Arabic only to start over again. It was insane! We just wanted to go to the bus station and grab a bus to Dahab...simple, NOPE! They of course wnated to drive us all the way to Dahab - about 1 hour by car.

To make a long story short, we took a taxi to Dahab (north of Sharm). Because a drive that should take 1 hour only took 40 minutes, Lori was thankful that the highway is divided, four lane, newly paved...it felt a little more like flying than driving! So we arrived safely in the small town of Dahab which is like a mini paradise on the Red Sea (The Gulf of Aqaba to be exact). What a contrast from India and a great place to recuperate. Modern bathroom, balcony overlooking the sea, gorgeous clear water,


....no dirt or trash or cows or cowsh**, no zillions of honking horns...its a world away from India yet only 8 hrs by plane. We can feel the stress slowly ebbing from our bones. Looking back on all the experiences in India you wouldn't want to trade them for the world, and yet how much more of that you could have continued to take and still appreciate well you're not so sure - its different for everyone. We heard that you either love or hate India - we found you loved and hated it depending on where you were and what you were experiencing.

Dahab can't be much more than 10 or 20 thousand people with lots of small hotels/resorts along the waterfront, and a nice pedestrian area. It's really well done and very relaxing. The locals you talk to are mostly people who have fled Cairo and want to live this kind of life here.




Since arriving we have done a day of snorkelling and have now also completed the first day of the PADI scuba diving course (yeah, Lori did decide to join in). The clarity of the water is out of this world and the coral is very dense and varied. Nothing spectacular in the way of fish....yet but we hope for more. The water is cold tho...21 and so full 7mm wet suit is a necessity. We're just too early in the year. Diving is done simply by walking in from the shore...pretty darn easy.

This is the desert so it's kind of strange walking from a shoreline that is arid with no greenery as far as the eye can see and then stepping into this brilliantly coloured world full of life just below the water's surface.

There are many other things to do here besides in the water...such as heading inland to Mt Sinai which is only an hour or so away as well as exploring desert-like canyons on day-hikes or overnight camel safari rides led by local Bedouin people. So perhaps we will be here for awhile. It is great to have the time and a place in which to say that. We don't have any photos yet to show you the thousand meter or so high hills - jagged, brown and desert-like, making such a contrast with the deep blue sea, the best we have right now is the one below with a new resort in Dahab being constructed in the foreground.

Delhi (April 1-3)

Well, we arrived in Delhi mid-day and stored our bags at the train station so we could hoof it to the nearby Jama Masjid - India's largest mosque.... we ended up taking a cycle rickshaw - primarily due to intensity of the heat and sun.


Once we finished our tour, a 60 year old cycle rickshaw driver lead us to a small place where we could enjoy an authentic Indian meal for lunch. It was excellent! We had amazing thalis - we think it was the best naan we've ever had - so much so that John went for a third piece!

We decided to avail of the elderly rickshaw's services - he was so friendly and helpful afterall. Well, he brought us through the streets of old Delhi pointing out the various bazaars (they are numerous - wedding, food, silver, etc.), then to a Jain temple, silver store - we then decided that we should make our way back to the train station to retrieve our bags and check into our pre-booked hotel. Here are a few photos of the back streets of "old" Delhi.



Well, he attempted to round up the time we used his services from 1.5 hours to 2 - when we decided to leave that as tip, he asked where his tip was!! Bye bye. During this whole time of walking around Old Delhi, John had this weird disoriented feeling that he was in another country...London England came to mind. Don't ask me why...it was already different from the India we'd been travelling through for the past couple of months...no cows or their waste products, the streets were relatively clean and free from trash...it just felt different.

Well, from there we took a taxi to our hotel which was in 'New" Delhi...started by the British in the early 1900s. This was different yet again...wide streets, leafy boulevards, cars suddenly vastly outnumbering all other vehicles on the road, car congestion etc. It was like we were now really in a different country...or could we say a country within a country. It was weird seeing so many cars again...for the first time in 2 months. Especially in the side streets as we approached the hotel, cars everywhere, parked cars...they are so ugly and take up so much room. It's hard to describe this feeling of seeing so many cars around when you've hardly seen any for 2 months.

Upon our checkin at the hotel - the disorientation...or re-orientation continuted... things most noticed in our room were: bright, white pillow cases, queen size bed, real bath tub with shower enclosure, hot water! We felt like we had emerged into a different world.

An added bonus was joining John's former work colleague, Mike (who was in town for business) for dinner on our first night. It was nice for John to see Mike again and catch up and for Lori to meet him. The added perks were dining in a great restaurant enjoying wine, beer, dessert as well as an exchange of souvenirs for pharmaceuticals delivered fresh from Canada and the latest copy of the Globe and Mail! Thank you again Mike!

One of the many services sold in Delhi is a car and driver guide. We thought we would use it to see the far away sights and be dropped off in the Connaught Place shopping area. We arranged for a 4 hour (40 km) driver/car through our hotel stating up-front what we wished to do. Off we went - first stop was the Qutb Minar - approximately 13 stories high built in the 1100s with many carvings - very impressive!


From there, we visited Humayon's Tomb (one of the Sultans who ruled Delhi in the 1500s) built before the Taj - very similar in design but not made entirely of the exquisite white marble.



When we next asked to be brought to the Lotus temple, our driver informed us it would be too far as we would exceed the 40km limit. We said okay then just bring us to the Connaught Place and we will make our own way back to the hotel from there.

So off we went in search of the fixed-price government craft emporium center where we understood you could garner a good understanding of quality and price of Indian textiles, jewellery, etc. When being asked by pedestrians and rickshaw drivers what we were looking for we discovered there are - not coincidentally - many stores with the same name - and a different person to steer you in that direction - even when stating the street address we wanted. We eventually purchased goods from the 3rd or 4th store (lost track) we were brought to however we are not convinced it was the store we were originally looking for. In the midst of this search was a young boy who kept following John and tugging at his pants begging for money and another guy wrapped his arm around John's leg while showing a nasty looking wound on his other arm. Connaught Place - needless to say, was difficult.

To top it all off, when we returned to our hotel, the manager tried to charge us for an 8 hour driver/car tour stating we used 56 kms instead of the 40 - even though we only used 3.5 hours. Neither of us were pleased or willing to accept it. We stood our ground, when logic didn't seem to be prevailing, John suggested the manager call the police. The manager called the owner and we all agreed that we would pay for the extra kms over 40, something that John suggested right at the beginning!. Lets just say, it took us time to recover as neither of us are acquainted to nor enjoy conversations of that sort but after a day of being ripped off, lied to, and taken advantage of you finally reach a limit and just aren't going to take it anymore!

For us, it was hard not to (and unfortunate to) come away from Delhi without the impression of it being a den of thieves! We have to try to remember people like the small restaurant owner who didn't mark-up the stamped priced on the water and apple juice we ordered despite his tiny profit margin or the stranger on the street who asked where we were from and welcomed us to India and went on his way without a sales pitch.

India is difficult and wonderful for soooo many reasons. Next morning - 2 a.m. wake-up for our early morning flight to Egypt!

Varanasi (Mar 30-31)

Well, we did move up the waiting list for the train to Varanasi to 1st position, but that just ain't good enough to get on the train, so with the help of a nice guy at a travel agency we were able to sort out the implications of all that during the hour or so before the train was supposed to have left. Turns out that about an hour before the train leaves, they 'post' the passenger list for the train. Luckily they have evolved to the point that this can be consulted via the internet...which is what we did. It turns out though (unknown to us), that when you are on the waiting list like that and don't make it in, that you must on your own initiative explicitly then cancel your ticket else you lose all your money (very strange if you ask me). And because we bought our ticket directly at the train station, the only way such a ticket can be cancelled is by going to the station. The travel agent explained this to us, in the nick of time and dispatched his father to the train station on his motorcycle to get our money back...well 75% of it, because Indian Railways keeps the other 25% because we 'cancelled' the ticket at such a late time. Not very nice if you ask me. The travel agent then managed to get us on the train for the next day and so off we went to kill another day in Agra...which meant mostly sitting around and reading (a.k.a. hiding from the touts).

So the next day, we made our overnight train arriving around noon in Varanasi, they say the holiest city in India, where the dead and dying go and are cremated along the banks of the river. Doing so here supposedly gets you out of the loop of death/reincarnation and sends you directly to Nirvana.


Varanasi is 1.3 million people with an old core city along the Ganges river with narrower, more maze-like and cow filled streets than any others we experienced so far in India (if it could be imagined that such a thing was possible!). Our guesthouse was right alongside the river with great views of the happenings along the river bank from a rooftop restaurant. Our guesthouse is the orangy-brown building in the photo below.



The thing to do here is to get a boat ride along the river bank to watch the going's on and so we duly took one in the evening and another again early the next morning. There you watch lots of people either washing clothes, washing themselves, playing (if you're a kid), or performing religious acts of washing if you're of that persuasion...in water that is not exactly something you or we would be comfortable going in.



There is one particular place along the river which is called the burning ghat and they truly are performing cremations here, 250 per day around the clock they say. We witnessed several bodies wrapped like mummies, laid on pyres of wood and burning (pictures prohibited).

The river bank is a series of 'ghat's which look like steps down to the water from a pedestrian way just above them. All of this is completely submerged during the summer monsoon periods, but presently they are well exposed with plenty of people spending time on and around them, including clusters of kids every 100m playing cricket so you have to keep your eye out for balls coming your way!



Maybe we were there at not the most significant time of the year or something, but all in all, I didn't pick up the sense that this was some super sacred place overwhelmed with pilgrims in deep religious fervour. There was some of that there, but also lots of people just going about living, lots of tourists, and plenty of locals harassing and/or conning us endlessly to buy anything and everything (boat rides, lotus flower candles, massages, silk shopping, etc, etc). For instance John was conned into a 10 Rs massage and before you know it , it turned into the whole enchilada for a mere 350 Rs). Below you see a photo of an act they put on each evening for the tourists ... some form of Hindu worship with lots of bells clanging and instruments of the Indian variety playing music. It seems a bit on the touristic side, but nevertheless was interesting to watch as there were also no shortage of Indian visitors/tourists clapping along.



The next day we wandered into the maze-like back alleys looking to buy some stamps and were 'picked up' and toured around, which included a visit to silk looms (interesting to see how that is done) in the Muslim quarter and the obligatory sit down in the show room, from where we emerged with an armful of silks. Here's to hoping us naive consumers ended up with something of genuine value for the money we spent!. Below you see a photo of one of these looms along with the usual curious children checking us out.



Wandering these backstreets you see just how much freight is still moved around town by human power here in India. The sight below is extremely common perhaps because in a lot of situations these pedal-powered vehicles are all that can fit throught the streets and spaces that are available!


Well, we didn't have much time here as our visas to India were running out so we were on another overnight train the next day to arrive in Delhi with a few days to spare before our departure. Ah Delhi....now that is a place where you have to be on your guard.