Tuesday 30 November 2010

Ganga Man

I’ve been working most evenings updating this blog with pictures & text or doing administrative house-keeping or doing some training homework and so I allowed myself Saturday to go on another trip. When I move up to Shimla and start my proper studying I know I’m going to get very little time so I’m making the most of what I can grab now. I decided to take a trip to the Ganges and see a few temples. Papiya – one of the Koenig administrators, a pretty but quite petite girl with a lovely smile and a polite attitude to match – organised a taxi for me, which would cost me 2100 rupees – about £30 for a car & driver for the day. As with the trip last Sunday, the taxi turns up an hour early so I split the difference and make him wait for half an hour. Kamal greets me as I walk towards the surprisingly plush Toyota – leather seats, air conditioning, only a few scratches and dents and a reassuringly good distance from my front seat to the front of the bonnet!


We’re heading towards Rishikesh which is the first town/city on the sacred river Ganges. To get there we need to drive South down through Dehradun (which is actually pronounced Dehradoon and often known as Doon for short) and I start to realise how large it is – it seems to run for miles and miles and miles of the same dusty, potholey (Polish roads are like a mirror in comparison) and tin shack shopfront lined roads as the way into Doon from the North part that I’m staying in. There are however some obviously wealthier areas with walled compound cosseted houses with red and yellow flowered bushes dripping over the walls, teasing the cows – although some of the compounds seem to have some resident cows of their own. These will be the lucky ones that don’t have to root through the rubbish piles and skips searching for tasty polythene-based snacks.

Rick was contrasting the cows we see here with those he saw whilst he was study/partying in Goa where often the cows would be decorated up. Painted and flowered, like real-life versions of those city cow sculptures that seem to be de-rigueur in many European cities. Here, whilst they’re avoided on the road that’s about where it stops.

Just to prove the point a large bull with a flopped over hump is sitting in the middle of the main road out of the city. So the traffic just winds past it and motorbikes use it as an opportunity to zip in front of cars & tuk tuks. A queue of traffic ahead signals something obviously more significant than a cow on the road but Kamal seems comfortable going to the other side of the road to overtake the queue and head for the closed level crossing. I’ve seen the YouTube clips, I know what’s coming, so I make sure I’m filming an in-car view.

We’re lined up on our side, three vehicles wide and a swarm of bikes. They’re lined up on their side, equally wide, equally eager. A couple of blokes with bicycles and a motorcyclist chance their arm, legs & torso nipping across the railway line and under the barrier. A packed train strobes past us and once it has passed the engines rev and the starting gates are opened. And as usual, it just works.


Eventually we leave the city and start passing through some of the countryside I’d observed from the train coming to Doon. Now on ground level looking at the “wheat” I can see that its sugar cane!
Driving into a forest area, as we pass a sign informing us the “Elephants Have Right of Way”, Kamal tells me that we are now driving through a national forest in which the biggest herds of Asian tuckers live. “Do they ever have accidents with the road traffic?” “Oh sometimes, but only at night. “ Hmm. Grey elephants, dark roads. Hmm. I don’t see any elephants but I do start to see lots of monkeys, wandering down the verges, rooting through the far lesser amount of rubbish along the forest road, scratching each other and generally messing about. You can see why they stay on the verges and don’t own the road like their larger bovine road mates. Splatted monkey roadkill decorates the dusty asphalt. I start to think about the different ‘quality’ of Indian roadkill versus your standard British roadkill. We get rabbits, pheasants – lots of pheasants in Herefordshire – and increasingly frequent badgers. Here you get monkeys, puppies and occasionally on railway lines (apparently ) elephants – a couple of months ago a herd was crossing a railway line one night as a goods train was chundering along.
Out of the other side of the forest, we return to the usual dusty peopled places for a short while until we once more enter another part of the forest. The first road was arrow straight, this one is a dreamy twisty uphill that makes me yearn to be on my Transalp - that low down torque pulling you effortlessly up and out of a tight 180 right hander. Kamal continues with the same driving style he has shown throughout the journey, overtaking on wide blind bends in fifth gear (at about 40mph) with a lackadaisical calm. This often leads my bottom to very nearly swallow my seat but I’m writing this in one piece so as you can guess, it just worked! Passing some dry river beds that obviously get to carry voluminous amounts of rainy season we get to Rishikesh. Kamal parks up and suggests I take one of the guides that is there as soon as I open the door. 200 rupees will secure me a guiding hand and running commentary.
Before heading out over the swaying suspension foot bridge I pick up a copper bracelet for 10 ruppees, but feeling it now, it’s probably copper plated steel. People, bikes, cows & monkeys compete for space on the bridge over the Ganges which when I look down has some very large fish in it, waiting under the bridge for the fish food nuts being hawked by youngsters who plead to sell you little bags of food so they can “eat chapatti”. Some Langurs are just hanging out at the other end of the bridge, watching some dogs growl and bark at them. Despite this being a destination for tourists, including many Westerners, I still draw odd looks at my interest in our cousins.






Now for some temples. Taking photographs is not allowed or appreciated so I just have some outside pictures, but the insides though interesting in their novelty to me (yes OK, I’ve been in some before when I visited Malaysia but that was 30 years ago!) are not particularly photogenic. I am wearing my trekking boots and have to take them off in order to enter each temple. At first I feel slightly cautious at leaving £150 boots out to fend for themselves but soon grow up. It’s a pain to keep undoing & doing them up though. Most of the temples have statues of blue-skinned gods., generally Krishna, Shiva, Rama, Hanuman – the monkey god, Ganesha – the elephant nosed god and their various wives. These different gods are basically the same, just in different guises/eras. Some of them have big brass bells that devotees knock the clangers off, so I have a go – but resist the urge to knock out a rhythm!















(I now need to very quickly write the remaining things I wanted to note. It’s Wednesday 2nd Dec and tomorrow night I’m off on a 6-day safari into the Jim Corbett national park and it’s already quite late.)
I wandered around a few Ashrams – kind of religious & spiritual sort of communes, that offer free accommodation & food for people needing some spiritual calm and took a boat back across the Ganges.
Back at the car, Kamal has been reading the newspaper and snoozing. I pay my guide and we continue on to Haridwar – I want to see the candle lighting floating down the Ganges that takes place every evening and morning. Kamal stopped on the way at a couple of really very interesting temples – again no photos. The first was a seven storey temple that was a kind of Hindu museum with friezes, paintings & statues of different themes on different levels – I feel a bit sheepish as Kamal explains who the particular painted famous figures were that fought against the British or were hanged by us! As we walked there we followed a primary school outing on their way to the same temple and due to have a picnic – school is a 6-day-a-week thing in India.

The second temple is actually more like an amusement park’s fun house. It’s a replica of a temple carved into a mountain in Kashmir and again with boots and socks removed we climb up steps and following a zig zagging back & forth trail through fake rock caves, crawl spaces and walkways. With scatterings of temples on the way. I pick up the first of my many Hindu spots (or Bindis) for the day and it’s great fun. Although since we were following a gaggle of obviously well childrened out ladies with more flesh on show than a middle aged man wants to see on more than middle aged women at times it becomes a bit cringe worthy!





Before moving on I take up the suggestion from a stall holder for a glass of fresh pineapple juice and 10 rupees results in a medium sized pineapple losing its crown and being mashed through a large manual press and into a glass. Every drop of juice flows into the glass and fills it exactly to the brim, leaving squeezed out pulp – the guy knows his pineapples.
We arrive in Haridwar, but there is till two hours before candle time so Kamal drives up to a cable-car that will take us up to some temples overlooking Haridwar and the Ganges. There’s quite a lot of monkeys here and as we walk under a tin-roofed walkway to more temples, it sounds like monkey rain as they run up and down the roof. I remove boots, get Bindied and donate. One monk gives me some puffed rice, most of which I save to leave out for the monkeys. Although we should have a good view, it is misty so no real views.










The ceremony at Haridwar, as I said, is held twice daily and consists of lighting a flower candle and setting it to float down the Ganges as blessings are said. On the walk from the parking to the send-off zone I buy a candle which is a basket made from leaves around a small stick frame and filled with petals that I just can’t stop smelling and a tiny little wick and wax. It’s gorgeous.




On the way in I get asked for a donation. Well I say asked for a donation, a guy with a uniform on and carrying a little multi-carbon-copy receipt book stands in front of me asking my name and donation amount. He looks aghast at me in disgust when I suggest 200 rupees, but Kamal is looking after me and mutters something to the “official” who accepts my donation. He keeps telling me that I don’t have to keep making donations but I don’t know what gives in this country. Like many gullible Westerners who get confronted by official looking people asking for money – well they were actually official donation collectors – I’m going to hand over something. Carrying my candle, a priest/monk comes to me and beckons me down to the Ganges. He will say a blessing for me on my behalf. As he asks me to repeat after him in Hindi he keeps mentioning 2000, 1000. I suspect he’s talking about rupees but as it’s so high I decide to treat it as words that are part of the blessing. My candle is lit and I’m invited to cast it to the sacred river. Now one of the things that took me by surprise is the speed of the water. I had always imagined this to be a slow, meandering type of river, but this is a fast flowing mountain river that take my lovely candle and whips it into its torrent, capsizing it within seconds! Back with Kamal – who is looking after my boots – the monkpriest is hanging about for his own donation with a big glint in his eye. 200 rupees comes out of my wallet to which he objects and exclaims about how he made a blessing for me. Again, Kamal mutters something. The monkpriest simply says, quite genuinely, “Are you happy?”. “Yes”, I reply, “Thank you for the blessing”. “Then I am happy” he says as he goes to look for his next donator.
It’s grown darker now and the crowds have swelled. There are kids selling whistling, spinning lights and glow sticks and necklaces and it’s no different from a night time event in the UK. As what seems to be the main event begins (seriously large candles being lit and large chanting crowds) there are lots of mobile phones being held aloft to capture the proceedings. I’m far back in the crowd and have no desire to push through the crush for a better look and lose Kamal. Kamal puts the percentage of tourists here at somewhere around 90%. If you had a good vantage point, there are none as the bridges are closed off, then you may get a very photogenic scene, but as it is it’s a bit of an anti-climax.






It’s just after 6pm when it’s all over and we set off. The traffic back is seriously thick (both in volume and attitude). We hear a two-tone siren and can see a flashing red light behind us. Nothing pulls over and a white Ambassador car (the ones I thought were Morris Minors earlier) with rear curtains squeezes past. “Is that Police or Fire or something?” I ask Kamal since the red light has thrown me. “No. Minister” comes the reply and he pulls out of the traffic and tails the unknown state parliament minister. It’s 60+km back to Dehradun and for a good 40km, Kamal tails the minister’s car matching it overtake for overtake, weave for weave, wrong-side of the road for wrong-side of the road. No sign of any lackadaisical calm now. It takes balls to drive in this country and Kamal has the testicles of raging bull elephant in full musth! Mine on the other hand have retreated and are in constant danger of being sucked up through my anal sphincter.
When we eventually overtake and lose the minister we make good progress and reach Dehradun. The traffic is absolutely mental and it is now that I discover that directionality around roundabouts is optional. I get home in time for curry and as I enter the dining room the guys double take at my multiple Hindu-spots! They are, however, jealous. Everyone else here is studying their arse off, working really very very hard and determined – as without exception they are all, like me, spending large amounts of their own money on training and certification. I’m off on safari for a week tomorrow, but when I get back I’ll be taking a taxi through the Himalayas to Shimla. Then my own arse scraping studying will also start and this blog will likely stop or at the very least - like my testicles - shrink!

1 comment:

  1. wow, i think i should go to india for a weak, just to drive ;D after that my driving skills would improve at least for 500 percent, especially in avoiding bumping into other cars ;D

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