India Just Doesn't Love You..

 

“India just doesn’t love you man. And that’s why it hurts so much cause you love India, but no matter what you do you can’t change the fact that India just doesn’t love you. Thailand on the other hand, Thailand doesn’t care who you are, Thailand just wants to give you a hug.”

This was it. This right here was the quote of the night, the perfect summation of how I was feelings, the nugget of truth which seemed to make everything else clear. You see I was spitballing with a good friend who has also spent a number of years living in India but now lives in Thailand and it was becoming abundantly clear that he too was privy to India's dirty little secret. You see India (and Banaras especially) has this nasty little habit of not letting you go quietly, instead, it drives the boot in deep and kicks you out. I don't know why, perhaps she's upset you're leaving and so lashes out like a child who doesn't quite yet understand the depths of her own emotions or how to control them, or perhaps she wants you to carry a scar with you throughout the rest of your days so as to always remember her by. But you can ask any number of the folks who’ve gone before me and sure enough they'll have their story of woe to tell from the time they finally decided to pack up stumps and leave India. With this knowledge in mind I went into our final month with my eyes wide open and heart braced for impact. I did my best to be prepared and so I emailed friends and asked their advice on what best to do and what to avoid, I made plans with Wild Flower that allowed plenty of time to accommodate for unforeseen set backs, I even had 3 Aussie friends who came along with us just to help us with the pack up and move. But somewhere in amongst all the busyness and preparations I allowed a tiny crack in my armour to appear from which the belief that I might just get out unscathed began to leak in. Needless to say..

I was wrong.

The new Termite mound in the bedroom cupboard & the Caveman giving it hell..

When we first walked into our home that had laid empty for six months while we were back in Australia we were hit with an immediate sense of dread. We had paid someone to come in and do a some cleaning from time to time but as with many things in Banaras it turned out to not be money well spent. The place looked like it hadn't been lived in in centuries. Mold, dirt and an inch of dust lay across the surface of everything, and I do mean everything. And then there was the termites, oooooh the termites! I went to unpack some clothes and put them away in my draw but as soon as I began to pull on the handle I knew something was amiss. Usually the wooden draws would slide out somewhat gracefully on their metal runners, but this time it didn't budge, not even a little. I tried tugging again; nothing. I tired putting my back into it; nothing. I put one foot on either side of the draw and reefed back on it with all my might; nothing. My good friend the Caveman and I ended up going at it with saws, hammers, chisels & screwdrivers for almost an hour before we got it open and then roughly another hour per draw before finally having unfettered access to our wardrobe and clothes draws (9 draws in total!!). The swelling of the wood during the monsoon coupled with the colossal infestation of termites (check out the football sized mound that was in our cupboard in the above image) had made the draws harder to get into than Fort Knox and set us way back in our packing. There it was - Kapow; right in the nuts. I figured this was it, this was Banaras' goodbye..

I was wrong.

Little Feather Deliveries..

I've been riding motorbikes in Varanasi for a number of years now and rarely, if ever, do I encourage other people to do it. My old man's been riding bikes most of his life and skill wise he may very well be a superior rider, but when he was visiting us here last year I asked him not to ride, not because I doubt his skill, but because I know he didn't understand the Indian road mentality. And if you haven't paid your dues and spent sufficient time on the roads here then how could you?

I equate the roads here to the ultimate game of Tetris except instead of the pieces only coming one at a time and only from the top - they come from every direction all at once and move in every direction with regular changes and with no notice; sounds challenging right? And in my last week of living in Banaras as I was peacefully riding through a roundabout a young kid on a bike pulled across in front of me and stopped dead in his tracks and I found myself coming off my bike for the first time. I managed to avoid the kid altogether - at the expense of hammering the brakes and fish tailing into a heap on the ground – but the kid rode away alive and I rode away with a grazed leg, bruised ego and busted rib. Surely this was it! My first and only accident! Just enough to make me grimace in pain every time I lifted anything heavy - and considering the amount of heavy lifting I was about to undertake while moving most of our worldly possession from Banaras and Pai that amounted to quite a bit of grimacing! Kapow; right in the nuts. Surely this was it, this must have been Banaras' goodbye..

Again, I was wrong.

Can always rely on Wild Flower to capture me at my best..

Within days of being back in town the first indicators of sickness were becoming apparent throughout my whole tribe. Wild flower was complaining of a nasty throat pain, little feather and wild foot both began to have a constant stream of fun pouring out of their noses and my asthma was going haywire. By the end of our first week the entire family was struck down with the flu. Needless to say, with only a short amount of time to pack up and sell the majority of our worldly possessions coupled with getting in decent time with all our friends, we had no time to lay about in bed and ride it out, there was work to be done and we had no choice but to push through it. But on our very last night in Banaras things jumped up a notch. The kids were in bed asleep and I went for one last walk along the ghats to pray for this great city and drink in the atmosphere one last time. I came across one of my favourite spots and sat upon the stairs that used to frequent and I began to experience a terrible pain in my sinus. For days the pain had been growing in intensity but as long a I didn't exert myself to hard or throw my head around to fast the pain was minimal, but tonight I was in agony! I tried to push the pain out of my mind, knowing that this was my last chance to enjoy the ghats, but a fter an hour it became unbearable...and I was forced to retreat home. I spent my final night in Banaras not with my friends, not at my favourite spot, but with my head between a towel and a pot of steaming water whilst regular blasts of pain rocketed throughout my cranium. In terms of ways to spend your final night in Banaras, this one was not on my list. Exhausted, in pain, still with plenty to do, finally this was it, this must have been Banaras' goodbye.. But as by now I'm sure you're learning, again...

I was wrong.

 

Almost everything we own in nine bags..

It was midday when we arrived at the airport with tear stains down our cheeks, mountains of baggage loaded on our trolleys and heavy hearts. I was feeling pretty wired considering the previous night and the three flights and three days of transit that lay a head (not to mention that our taxi driver had fallen asleep at the wheel half way to the airport!! Aye aye aye!!). But we were there, we had made it over our first hurdle, our flight was in a little less than 3 hours and that would give us plenty of time to process and get any last farewells out of our system. But why then was the guy at the check in counter being so evasive with me? Why was he telling me I had to go to the Spice Jet office in the back of the airport? Why wouldn't he give me any boarding passes or any straight answers?

Wild Flower stayed with the kids and our friends while I walked into the Spice Jet office and handed over my ticket. The first guy looked at it and told me to go to the guy at the desk, the guy at the desk looked at it and told me to go to the guy I'd just spoken to, the first guy then told me to go to the check in counter.. I stared at him and demanded to know what was up. And that's when it happened. That's when I felt the warm embrace of Banaras' bootstraps as they plowed straight into the family jewels.

"I'm sorry sir. Your flight is cancelled."

Kapow.

 

The waiting game..

The adrenaline burst was instant, my mind catching up with everything that was going on might have taken just a tad longer. "When's your next flight?" I asked. "None today," was the reply, which of course is of no use to me when I have another flight out of a different city tomorrow morning. "When was it cancelled?" I sputtered. "Three days ago," came the reply. "Then why wasn't I told?!?!?" Turns out that because I had booked our flights months in advance (while we were still in Australia) they had therefore sent a text to my number in Australian to notify me that my flight from Varanasi to New Delhi had been axed.. gee, thanks! And part of booking so far in advance was so I could get this great deal they had going on excess baggage (which of course we had lots) which was now redundant. 

I burst out of the office and let Wild Flower know what had just happened. I then snuck in through the back door of the Indigo airlines office and began showing photos of my daughter to the guy at the desk (listen, if you have white daughter with blondish hair and you're traveling in Asia then do yourself a favour and have her photos handy as they can and do move mountains!!). This managed to get him to stop serving the line of about 20 people waiting in front of him and thankfully secured us some seats for a flight later that night, however it did nothing to bring down the monstrously high excess baggage fees which might mean that we'll now be eating Ramen noodles three times a day for the next five to ten years! But thankfully forty-five minutes and a whole lot of sweating bullets later I returned to my little tribe with boarding passes in hand and together we began our painfully long wait.

The waaaaaaiting game..

Two flights and twenty-four hours later and we dump our bags on the hotel floor in Bangkok. It has been a long, looooong day and the kids pass out immediately in their beds yet Wild Flower and I are still wired, still on India time and still starving. She disappears into the night looking for food for us and returns 30minutes later with a two white plastic bags and a startled expression on her face and tells me I need to sit down because "I'm not going to believe this." I sit down on the bed and feel the familiar wave of anxiety wash over me as I cover my crotch and brace myself for what I anticipate to be India's final swing. What will it be? Did we loose a bag in India? Did I leave my wallet on the plane? Has our credit card have been hacked (again!)? Wild Flower's eyes go wide in amazement and she begins saying;

"We found a little roadside place that had noodles but the people there didn't understand a word of English. We were trying to get some without any pork in it but literally nothing was getting through. Then this Thai guy who was probably in his 40's just walks in out of nowhere, starts talking to us in decent English and helps us order our food! Then we had a nice little chat with him while they were making our dinner and I told him that we were moving here from India and then when our food comes out we asked him how much it costs and get this! He says 'Don't worry about it, I've already paid for your food. Consider this a welcome to Thailand gift from me to you and your family.' Then he just turned and walked away!

Finally enjoying our back porch with friends..

So if it didn't hit home the first time let me close by repeating it again;

“Thailand doesn’t care who you are, Thailand just wants to give you a hug.”

Running With The Bull..

I doubt that more than a week has gone by in the two and a half years since first moving to Banaras that something hasn’t caught me off guard. Whether it’s a festival, a person, a smell or a person emitting a smell, it’s a city that’s never short of new, confusing and often challenging experiences that rarely lets you come down off your toes (and often times wants nothing more than to knock you flat off your feet).

My most recent experience of this came in the midst of the most mundane of activities; buying lunch.

Wild Flower and I were having a pretty chaotic morning at home and so I opted to grab Little Feather, jump on the Scooter and ride off and get us all some lunch. There is this wonderfully cheap and nasty little eatery around the corner from our place that makes a fantastic Aloo Paratha (which if you haven’t had one before then do yourself a favour and don’t bother reading the rest of this post, instead close up your laptop, go find a good Indian Restaurant, and enter into paradise) and so we rode on up and put in our orders. I didn’t have cash with me and so we then proceeded to ride off in search of an ATM that wasn’t bone dry; a feat which sounds simple but can often prove a challenge round these parts, and were lucky enough to find a local one flush with cash on our first attempt and so rode back victorious.

Our food still wasn’t ready so Little Feather and I sat at a table and began waiting, and waiting, a.n.d.w.a.i.t.i.n.g.a.n.d.w.a.i.t.i.n.g.a.n.d.w.a.i.t.i.n.g....

During the next 40 minutes I’d been told the usual “just 5 minutes more” (with obligatory head wobble) about 100 times and apart from the handful of times when the Uncle who ran the place would come out of the kitchen with a bag full of food scraps and throw it out the front door to some of the street cows who would happily eat it up, nothing much really happened. I finally decided to kill some time by riding off and buying a clay cup full of Dahi (yoghurt) to go with lunch with the hopes of returning to a meal that was ready to go. So off we went.

All pretty mundane..

Except that upon arriving back at the food place I began pushing down the kick stand on the Scooter to park when I saw the Uncle stepping out the front door with a plastic bag full with our lunch. I left the motor running and reached into my pocket to get the cash to pay him and as he got closer to us so too one of the bulls from the street decided to follow suite and wandered right up along side. I handed the Uncle the cash and he began handing me my food when the bull, which was literally standing inches away from the bike whipped it’s head over and tried to bite the bag out of his hand. The Uncle slapped the bull on the face and pushed its head out of the way with one hand whilst handing me the bag with the other. At this point still all very normal (yes.. even on a main road in the middle of the city this is all rather normal) so I took the bag with one hand and slowly began accelerating to just move a bit past the bull so as to not fall off balance, but it was at that moment I felt something in the air change.

I probably hadn’t moved more than a meter or two when I turned and looked back over my shoulder to witness the Uncle who’d just given me my food literally diving back into this store and slamming the door closed. I was continuing forward slowly so needed to turn my attention back to the road ahead, but would seconds later turn my head for a second glance that succeeded in uncovering a sight which will live with me forever; the bull, terrifyingly close, charging down the ragged streets of Varanasi with his sights set firmly on me and my little bag of Parathas.

Instincts kicked in and I ripped back on the throttle as far as it would go and the motor roared to life (well.. buzzed a little bit, it is only 109cc after all). In front of me all I could see was the familiar pandemonium of locals running to get off the streets, behind me a bull with it’s hooves pounding on the cracked bitumen. We accelerated pasted a handful of shops which were quickly filling up with locals all scrambling to get off the street and out of the way of the charging beast before I would turn my head again and feel some relief seeing that we were making a little patch of space between us and our pursuer. Turning my attention forward however, revealed that before us lay an even greater challenged; a crowded 4 way intersection.

In amongst the constantly merging traffic that acts like thousands of Tetris pieces fighting for position, I could see the line I wanted to take but knew that within seconds it could be blocked by any number of vechicles and thus there was really nothing for it. I lowered my head, squeezed Little Feather between my knees and floored it. 

With my thumb firmly holding down on the horn and a prayer on my lips we sailed through the intersection and whipped through the corner, only then turning our heads to see if our pursuer would follow us.. and he did.

Again I ripped back on the throttle and continued flying down this wider street, horn blasting as loud as it could go, overtaking anything and everything until I came upon a side street where I knew I could disappear in amongst the gullys and alleyways that I've come to know so well. One last glance over my shoulder at the beast which was now back some distance yet was still charging, still struggling to stay from falling off balance in every pothole and still kicking out his legs in a deranged Aloo Paratha desiring frenzy, and we disappeared into the labyrinth which is the Varanasi gulleys/alleyways/backstreets.

Minutes later we busted through our front door and being fired up with adrenaline I told the entire story to Wild Flower before I'd even cleared the welcome mat. I thought it was a great story, though her response of bursting into tears leads me to think that perhaps I should have shared it with a different crowd. Whilst the whole event lasted no more than a couple of minutes, it's a memory that I plan on boring my great grandkids with around the dinner table on more than one occasion! And whilst it might sound insane, it's really just the way life goes in a town like Banaras; one minute you're peacefully buying your lunch, the next minute your running with the bulls. 

The Dream Mobile..

I've never really owned my own car before. Eight years ago my parents gave us their old car as a wedding gift but because I was young and cheap, I didn't want to pay the money to transfer it over into my name, so I've never really officially owned one.. but that's all about to change! Well.. sort of..

As you can see, the traffic around here is straight up chaos and it takes a while to really understand how it works. A few tips I've picked up are that nobody has ever shoulder checked in their life, side/revision mirrors are completely irrelevant and it doesn't matter who has right of way (from a Western's perspective) the largest vehicle with the most obnoxious driver has right of way at all times. Thus transporting my family of 4 on a motorbike (including my 4 month old Son) with no safety gear weighs on me a bit. I do it - and I feel confidence to do it - but I don't ever truly feel 100% great about it. However, with the intense congestion and completely under planned roads the thought of getting a car in this city would simply drive me mad.


So here enters Bessie..

Winnie has been talking about it for a while now and I've finally caught up to her in thinking that we should look into getting our own Auto Rickshaw. I took this one for a test drive the other day and am now completely hooked! Sadly this one was a bit too old and a bit too expensive (it would have cost a third of the purchase price just to transfer the registration from a public to private) so now we're crunching some numbers to see if we can come up with the money and are continuing the search for the perfect set of wheels! 

And the perfect paint job! 

Below is Winnie's vision (apparently she didn't buy into my idea of black with flames streaked down the side).

  

Soon all that will be left is to take up chewing Paan to master the truly authentic experience.