Backpacking in India in 1997 part 2

We decided to leave Goa after a few months there. We loved our time there, but we really wanted to experience the big cities, and after our shock and scare in Mumbai, we now felt ready for Indian cities, so we booked an overnight sleeper-train from Goa to Delhi.

I can’t remember the name of the place the train picked us up. It was 20 years ago and where we went was a one-hour drive from Anjuna. There might be a train station in Goa nowadays (might be!), but back then there was nothing: no train station, no platform, no anything apart from some train tracks and a field. Our driver told us to wait there and the train would come eventually and would stop for us.

So we just put our backpacks on the floor, chilled out against them and waited and read our Lonely Planet guide books. It came six hours late, which isn’t too bad for India. And so we got on and went to Delhi.

By the time we arrived in Delhi the train was 18 hours late! It wasn’t as bad as it sounds as it was a lazy experience and we had a bed etc. but it was good to be finally in Delhi. As we were pulling into Delhi train station there were hundreds of Indians crouching down emptying their loads on the wasteland. It was a disgusting site, when I think about it, but it became a normal thing to see in India.

Delhi is a great city, and we really enjoyed it. No longer were we intimidated by the big cities, now we could really enjoy them, and so we spent a week enjoying it. There’s some pretty impressive architecture. Some of the forts, temples and even the British colonial buildings are very impressive. But all the while I was there, I was impatient to get to Agra and see the Taj.

Agra is amazing. Well, it has the Taj Mahal, so it has to be amazing. The Taj really is the most wonderful wonder you will ever clap your eyes on. I’ve seen a lot: the Pyramids of Giza, Great Barrier Reef, Grand Canyon, Himalayas, Icebergs, Iguazu and Niagara Falls, London, New York, I could go on but this is about India… Anyway, The Taj Mahal is simply the most awe-inspiring thing I have ever seen!

Set in a beautiful gardens, it’s a great way to spend a full day, just admiring its beauty – we did. Twice. It’s amazing when you’re there and you just think ‘I’m actually at the Taj Mahal right now.’ It’s a very surreal experience, and as I say better than anything I have seen before.

It was 1997 and not long after Princess Diana had died, and all the visitors were queuing to sit in the same seat she had famously done so not long before. I think we paid the equivalent of about 5p ($0.08) to get in and I realized then why India was so poor. One of the most import sites in the world, ok people from India should pay 5p as they can’t afford it, but a foreign visitor would have happily paid £5 or more. I’m sure now they’ve cottoned on and are charging more, but really it was so surprising (and nice, haha) to pay only 5p to see the wonder of the world.

Our next stop was Varanasi, and that place is a very interesting city. It’s so hectic, it makes Delhi feel like a backwater town. I remember seeing what must have been hundreds of thousands of Indian people just out and about shopping in the avenues, and there was us two and there was this other white face: a dutch woman on her bicycle. So, naturally we got talking. She had cycled all the way from Holland to India on her own. In fact, she had just clocked 10,000km while she was in Varanasi. It was there that I got the idea for long bike rides. I have never done a 10,000km one, but I’ve done a few long ones.

Anyway, back to Varanasi. The River Ganges is an amazing site, especially when the sun is setting. Locals bathe in the amazing river everyday, as it’s personified as the goddess Ganga. It is believed that bathing in the river causes the remission of sins, while facilitating the liberation from the cycle of life and death. What’’s more, the water in the river is considered to be very pure.

Pure? I’m not so sure about, because along with all the rubbish and sewage that flows through it is tonnes of ashes. Hindu Pilgrims from allover India go to Varanasi so they can cremate their dead family members. And the ashes are then emptied into the River Ganges, which helps aid the purity of the water the Indians insist on bathing in.

Like everything in India, it’s very interesting to see. I hope I haven’t painted a negative outlook on India, because it’s a place I loved dearly. I will go back there one day and hope to see more of it. It’s definitely hard work, and it can disgust and endear you at the same time. One thing for sure, there’s nowhere like India.