i bumped into the french and spanish tourists again, so i talked with them for a few minutes before i left to get my train. the french guy gave me his iran lonely planet (in french) which i figured i could use for maps and stuff. i had some iranian food for dinner and got the train to delhi.

day 332 – i spent the day on the train. i read ‘natural born killers’ and finished it in a few hours. i listened to music and also listened to some singing from the compartment next to me. the people in the compartment were traveling as part of a group. i couldn’t figure out whether they were religious or a good samaritan group or what. they sang a lot, which was fun, and in the evening they did a prayer. i had a long conversation with an indian guy and was given some literature about ‘love, life and the universe’ by one of the singers. it seemed like hippy/cult/religion stuff, so i smiled politely and didn’t read it.

day 333 – the train was delayed by six hours and we arrived really late. the train had stopped at a station an hour south of delhi in the early hours of the morning. many people got off, thinking that the train wouldn’t continue, and went in search of buses. the conductor told everyone that there was a problem with the train.

i was in two minds whether to go or stay, when suddenly they announced that the train was leaving. i jumped back on and got to delhi. the train was half empty and i think there must have been a lot of angry people stranded on the platform or looking for a bus.

we arrived in delhi and i had to wait another hour for a connecting train to the new delhi station. when i got to new delhi i walked through the main bazaar and checked into a hotel. after a shower and change, i headed straight to the pakistan embassy to start my visa application.

the freaking pakistan embassy require a ‘letter of introduction’ from the applicant’s home nation. i couldn’t get the letter or pakistan visa application forms until the next day, so i headed back to main bazaar. i had dinner in a nice rooftop restaurant, checked email and did an upgrade on my ubuntu os.

day 334 – i got up early, had a quick breakfast and went straight to the embassy district.

the pakistan embassy official gave me the application forms and confirmed that i need the letter of introduction. that meant walking to the australian embassy (which was nearby) and forking out $30 for a stamped letter. damn! i returned to the pakistan embassy, filled out the forms, had them typed (as is required and is a retarded rule) then walked down to the bank to submit my visa payment. applying for a pakistan visa is a ridiculously complicated process. it’s not difficult, it’s just stupid bureaucracy.

i had to wait three days to complete the visa.

i then headed to the iranian embassy to see if there was any easy way of getting the iranian visa (without the approval code issued by iran’s foreign ministry). the embassy official was very rude to me and told me to get the visa in australia. so i gave up and returned to the main part of town.

i walked around connaught place, bought a phone and decided to relax for the evening. i chatted and played chess online.

day 335 – i had breakfast and walked around the bazaar. i found a small bakery which had nice food, and the owner liked to play chess. we played two games (1-1) and i was happy with the result. i sold some books and had dinner.

when we arrived in vagator i realised what a nice little village it was. the hotel elsa had booked was nice and she invited me to split costs and share the room (there were two beds). i agreed and we dumped our gear and went for breakfast.

being wednesday, today was the day of the famous anjuna markets. we rented a scooter and rode a few kilometers to the massive weekly market. the market was fantastic and i enjoyed walking around. there were bands playing in a few places so we sat and listened to a few, drinking beers and talking about travel.

we split up for a while to explore the markets separately. i bought a chess set, a new diary and a cheap tshirt with a ganesh picture on it. elsa and i met up again in the late afternoon. she wanted to return to see the evening bands and i thought it was a good idea. we sat and watched the band perform. after they were finished, it was late and we rode back to the hotel. we got some tibetan food for a late dinner and, since i was tired as hell, got some sleep.

day 327 – i had an early breakfast, checked email, then met elsa. together we took the scooter to panaji (a bigger city) to see old goa and get tickets (bus/train) to our various destinations. on the way we were stopped by police because we weren’t wearing helmets and didn’t have a licence. we paid 600 rupeees as a “fine” (baksheesh) and continued to old goa.

old goa was fantastic. we visited bom jesus and st francis of asissi. i bought a small figurine of st christopher (the patron saint of travelers) and we wandered around the other chapels and churches.

we took the coast road back, hoping to avoid police, and enjoyed the goan villages along the way. we stopped for a late lunch and rode up to chapora fort for sunset. in the evening we walked to the beach for beer and cigars, then returned to the room to sleep.

day 328 – elsa was heading south towards the ancient city of humpee. i decided to check out too and move to anjuna beach for a few days. i had a small sleep and wandered around the markets. i bought a ticket back to mumbai, then had dinner on the beach and watched the sunset. i watched a movie on my computer and went to bed late.

day 329 – i had breakfast and spent a little bit of time online. i was running out of money and made the 1.5 km walk to the nearest atm. when i returned i decided to buy a train ticket to delhi, since it seemed that the trains were busy and i didn’t want to be stuck in mumbai.

after lunch i had some beer and took a long walk along anjuna beach. it’s a beautiful stretch of beach, but (like much of goa) is crowded with indian and foreign tourists.

i had a very early start the next morning so i organised a taxi, packed and got some sleep.

day 330 – i woke up at 3.30am, got a taxi to the station and got on the train to mumbai. some arsehole was in my bunk, so rather than wake him up, i slept in the vacant window bunk. in the morning, the same arsehole wanted the window bunk (which was his original seat). i swore at him and let him take the seat. fucking shithead didn’t want the window at night because it was cold, so he stole my bunk and then wanted his back during the day when it was warm. hooray for indian ethics!

i arrived in mumbai and was fortunate enough to get a bed in the salvation army hostel. i didn’t want to stay there, but it was the cheapest place in town and i was prepared to play the ‘bed bug’ roulette game. i checked email and had dinner. in the evening i got talking to some french and spanish tourists that had come through iran and pakistan. so we chatted about travel and shared advice on what was happening in the places we’d been.

not long after, some old codger came along and started rambling at me in hindi. i couldn’t understand what he was saying, but it was pretty clear that he wanted to sit in my seat. being an indian train, people sit wherever they please, despite the allocated seating. rather than fighting with him, i moved. then i grabbed my bag and walked the length of the train (if you’ve been on an indian train, you’d know that’s a damn long way), and found the conductor. i complained and asked for another seat. he obliged and i had a nice window seat to myself for the afternoon. i listened to music, read and tried to get some sleep through the cold, drafty windows.

day 322 – i arrived in mumbai early in the morning. it was still dark. i got into a taxi and asked to be taken to a hotel. the driver said that the hotel i asked for was shut down. in india, that’s a typical scam used by taxi drivers to get you to go to a different hotel which will be more expensive and pay a commission to the taxi driver. so, naturally, i didn’t believe him. i told him to take me to the hotel anyway … and as it turns out, the hotel was shut down. damn!

i walked to a few nearby hotels, which were all full, and headed back towards the main street. i found the salvation army hostel and was told that i could check in after 9am. i waited and managed to get a bed in the dormitory.

i was happy. i put in some laundry and headed off for breakfast. then i went to a shopping mall to find a sleeping bag. one store had sleeping bags, but they were quite expensive, so i headed to the main bazaar. i got a cheap sleeping bag and returned to the hotel. i read my book, found a cafe which served beer (a rarity in mumbai, apparently!) and got some sleep.

day 323 – i had breakfast and checked email at a wifi cafe i found near the main intersection. then i went to the train station and bought my ticket to goa. i decided to have a lazy day and spent the afternoon reading my book. i went for a walk through the street market, had a shave (which is always fun) and collected my laundry.

day 324 – in the morning i woke up covered in bed bug bites. despite the sleeping bag, i had been bitten by bugs in the mattress. annoyed and itchy, i moved bunks. some of the other guys in the dorm also complained about bed bugs. it was then that i checked the guidebook and it mentioned bed bugs in this hotel too. damn! rather than move to another hotel, i decided to complain to the manager and hope that the new bunk was clean.

i went for breakfast, scratched myself silly, checked email, scratched more, and walked around town. i returned to the hostel to read my book and met a frenchman called christian. we started talking and in the evening decided to go for a walk to find some beer. we ended up walking half way through colaba (the touristy section of mumbai) before we found a small place which served grog. we had a few beers, talked about traveling, and returned to the hotel for the night.

day 325 – today was my train to goa, but the train was in the evening, so i had a full day to kill. christian was leaving too and his train was also at night. we decided to spend the day together and go to elephant island. i had breakfast and some coffee then we got the ferry to the island. much of the island is free, but the caves and grottos require an entrance fee. christian didn’t want to pay it so we walked up the hill to the lookout point and saw the old guns which were used in ww2.

then christian asked a drinks vendor if it was possible to walk around the hill to the caves. the vendor, waiting until nobody was looking, showed us a small path. we followed it over the hill and around the corner, jumped a fence, and were inside the caves area. sweet! we enjoyed the free caves and grottos.

we had lunch and returned to mumbai. i spent an hour checking email then met up with christian again for dinner. we ended up talking to two indian ngo guys we’d met at the hotel.

after that, we jumped in a taxi to the train station and, upon arriving, christian realised he was at the wrong station. he scrambled back into a taxi and made the dash across mumbai to his train. i had plenty of time, so i got some water, bought an inflatable pillow and got my train to goa.

i headed into town for another wander around the streets. i had dinner at a street stall and bought an assortment of junk to eat in the evening; chocolate fudge, a giant apple, a hot corn cob and beer.

day 317 – i was woken up by someone talking on a loud speaker at 3am. at first i thought it was prayers from the nearby mosque, but it sounded different. it could have been some buddhist sermon or something else … i don’t know. it was quite loud and took me a while to get back to sleep.

i woke up later, had breakfast and checked out. i checked my email then got a taxi to the airport. my flight to india was business class (yay!) so i spent the free time in the vip lounge drinking beer, eating snacks and watching bbc news.

the flight to india started late and, due to the stopover in gaya, arrived in kolkata in the early evening. it was dark by the time my taxi reached sudder street and many of the guesthouses were booked solid. i ended up staying in a dorm, with three other koreans. i bought a lonely planet india, had dinner and slept.

day 318 – i changed hotels in the morning, returning to hotel maria – an old favourite from my previous trip to india. i walked around the markets, withdrew some money and bought myself a train ticket to mumbai.  i mailed some packages to korea and australia, then found a bookshop and acquired a copy of ’1984′ by george orwell. i had been wanting to re-read it and snagged a copy very cheaply.

i headed back to the market, looked around some more, and spent some time online. i returned to my room and started the book. i bought some delicious kimchi bokeumbab for dinner from the street stall outside, read some more and went to bed.

day 319 – i had breakfast and checked my email. then i devoted a few hours to finding a sleeping bag. i had no luck and decided to leave it until i got to mumbai. i returned to the same bookstore i’d gone to the previous day. this time the owner showed me some rare and expensive books he had for sale. some were beautiful, but there was no way i could buy them. i picked up a copy of ‘around the world in 80 days’ by jules verne. it’s an old classic that i’d never had a chance to read. i also got a book on buddhist dharma for free.

i walked through the market, had a great beef masala for dinner, then returned to the hotel to read and sleep.

day 320 – after a cold shower, i checked out of my hotel. the train to mumbai was late, so i had all day to kill. i had breakfast and continued reading 1984. then i spent some time online playing chess and chatting. in the afternoon i got some take-away kimchi bikeumbab from the same restaurant, jumped in a taxi and headed to the train station. i ate dinner on the platform, read my book and waited for the train.

the train departed and i read for a little while longer before going to sleep.

none the less, the taj mahal was awesome. i went in at opening time and walked around in the dawn light. i took lots of photos and got “guided” to good photo spots by an employee who then requested a donation (and even got shitty that i only gave him 50 rupees).

the only downside to the taj was that i couldn’t take matilda inside. they checked bags thoroughly and i was told i couldn’t take toys or my storage drive (they could have been bombs, perhaps). i put them in a locker and retrieved them afterwards. matilda had to be satisfied with a rooftop photo from my hotel overlooking the taj.

after that we went to the baby taj, moon garden behind the taj, and agra fort. the fort was really bloody big and would have been more impressive if i wasn’t so hot and tired. i walked around for a while and ended up getting lost. i took a turn and ended out, somehow, on the fort’s outer walls which would have originally been used for defense. i thought that i could walk back to my entrance gateway, so i walked about 500 meters following the big stone ramparts. when i realised i wasn’t going to connect to any buildings, i walked all the way back when a woman yelled at me “off limits!”… apparently i shouldn’t have been there at all. i walked back down, took two turns and promptly walked out the front gate … so close, yet so far!

after the fort i told the driver to take me to the hotel. i was tired and didn’t want any more of agra’s culture. agra is a dirty, shitty place which is quite a contrast to the taj mahal itself. i also got my train tickets to lucknow and vananasi. i had a wash at my hotel and slept all afternoon. here is the rant i wrote in my diary:

i haven’t enjoyed my travels so far. delhi started well, but i wasn’t prepared for all the touts and scams. mathura was terrible and in agra i paid too much for my hotel (and way too much for a rickshaw tour). it’s because of the constant scams that i dislike india so much. it’s a hard lesson for me and an important learning curve. hopefully i will become more wise to it all and enjoy myself more. if i can survive varanasi (a famous scam city) then i should be happier in sarnath, bodhgaya and on to siliguri and darjeeling. hopefully i’ll enjoy india more …

day 7 – i checked out of the hotel and had an 11 hour wait for my train to lucknow. i was hating agra and i didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. so i sat on the rooftop of my hotel for most of the day. i read lonely planet, repacked my bag, wrote in my diary and ate some food. in the afternoon i checked email, booked some hotels, ate a nice curry dinner and went to the train station to wait.

during the day i’d been thinking a lot about india. about not liking india and what is going wrong. i decided to try and be more careful. i was also determined not to let it get me down.

when i got to the train station i met another foreigner waiting for the same train. he’s a kiwi named kevin and we talked while we waited. he told me about his travels and, listening to his story, i realised he’d been spending a hell of a lot more money (and getting scammed) than me. he paid three times too much for the same train ticket as mine. despite that he was fairly cheerful. i also realised that i hadn’t been doing so badly.

when we reached the platform we met a lot more foreigners. they were all headed to varanasi. there were two german guys, one danish guy called casper (you know, like the friendly ghost) and an italian girl. we talked and laughed about our experiences in india. they all told stories about ripoffs and scams … sometimes avoiding them, sometimes getting caught, but laughing at the experience. the train ended up being over an hour late, but we barely noticed as we talked about travel and india and the experiences we’d been having.

i really started to feel much better about india after that. for the ride to lucknow, i thought a lot about myself and my attitude towards india. i decided that i needed to relax more and take it all in my stride.

it was late at night, so i slept most of the way on the train.

day 8 – i arrived in lucknow at 5am, found my hotel (near the station), and got an hour’s sleep before i was woken up at 6am:

ring ring ring ring
me: (sleepy) yes?
sir, would you like some chai (tea)?
me: no thanks
hangs up
moments later
bzzzz bzzzz bzzzz bzzzz
me: (sleepy) what the fuck is that? oh, it’s the door.
opens door
good morning sir, chai?
me: sure, i’m awake now.

i drank the tea (which was really good) and promptly went back to sleep for three hours.

when i woke up again i headed out and about. i went to ‘the residency’ which is the site of a very famous battle during india’s independence. a british estate was the site of a siege when indian mutineers tried to retake their land. the residency is mostly ruins, but would have been a beautiful estate when it was at its height.

after that i went to sahara ganj, one of india’s biggest department stores. it turned out to be quite boring, so i splurged and ate kfc for lunch. on my way to the next place, sikandar bagh, i ran into another tourist called neil. he’s a brit who is working as a journalist in mumbai. we went to sikandar bagh together and it turned out to be incredibly boring. then we went to janpath market (also boring). neil and i parted company and i headed to a coffee shop. about half an hour later neil walked in, so we spent the afternoon talking about various things – particularly india. he was in mumbai during the attack last november and we talked about that too.

after he left i went back to my hotel room to relax. i watched the liverpool game, picked up my laundry, sorted out my bag, and got some sleep.

here’s my diary entry from that day:

after my rant two days ago, i feel much better. i wanted to leave india. just fly to bangladesh or myanmar.  i slept on it and felt good then next day. then i met kevin. he’d spent more money than me. he’d been ripped off more than me. i also got talking to casper, some germans and an italian girl at the train station. we all shared stories of scams, touts, fake tourist offices, et al. then i realised it’s a kind of ‘right of passage’, a baptism of fire, part of the crazy adventure that is india.

when francis (darjeeling limited) had his shoe stolen, he said ‘i love this country. the people are beautiful!’ at first i passed this off as naivety and as the cliche. but maybe he was right, it’s just a shoe.  when all those crazy things happen; when things go horribly wrong, when you get robbed or scammed in a way that’s only possible in india, you know you’re in india. you know you’ve been experiencing the uniqueness of india. no matter how bizarre, it could only be india.

by taking those hits on the chin, bouncing off it, surviving it and, ultimately, learning from it. i become wiser and i become smarter. i become a better traveler. the indian government’s tourism slogan is ‘incredible india’. i’ve been sarcastically saying this every time something goes wrong. india’s slogan is more appropriate than i ever understood. everything about india – the good and the bad – is incredible.

when tom and i were talking about darjeeling limited, we both agreed that francis seeing india as beautiful was a cliche. it’s what people want to see. but i’ve changed my mind. francis is not being naive, he’s seeing the side of india that makes it unique, taking it as it comes, and loving it all for the experience it offers.

day 9 – i checked out and got my train to varanasi. i found my hotel, had some lunch, and headed out to the famous ghats. because of my recent mental transformation, i’m enjoying myself much more now. even when the touts get pushy i just talk with them or i ignore them. at the train station, two women were begging and pestered me for money. they wouldn’t go away. i took the lid off my water bottle and threatened to pour water on them. actually, the water is clean, so i thought they’d appreciate the bath, but the threat of water was enough to send them scuttling away.

so i walked amongst the ghats along the ganges river. the ghat near my hotel is a burning ghat. they burn dead bodies there and every body burned at those ghats attains nirvana. i listened to the rituals and explanations. it’s very fascinating. i walked along the riverfront, getting a view of many ghats, people, cows, buffalo, dogs, shit, sellers, touts and everything.

i almost got into trouble because they don’t like photography at the burning ghats. i have to be careful and i probably won’t take the risk.

after dark i walked back to my hotel to relax, have a beer, check email and get some sleep … tomorrow’s another early start.

incredible india!!!