Varanasi. What a shit hole. I suppose Team Foreigner has, en masse, silently decided to hurrah about this fucking hole because they're worried about misunderstanding Hinduism. Who cares? It's 3000+ years of feces covered in garbage and concrete and noise and assholes.
Varanasi must be one of those "love it or hate it" places, so I fall unequivocally into Camp Hate. Just another Indian city, but more terrible than most. The sounds, the smells, the relentless grift. It's a sacred Hindu place full of non-Hindu tourists. How do they fill their days here?
Yesterday afternoon I paid a boatman to take me on a brief Ganges jaunt. He insisted on pulling over at the burning ghats, despite my protests that I didn't want to crash any funerals. You see, madam, this is where the upper caste people are burned, and this is where lower caste people are burned. It made me think of a comedic bit by David Cross about segregated cemetaries in the American South - how racists were really stickin' to their guns with that one. Wouldn't it be terrible if the grey, greasy ashes of a brahmin got mixed up with those of a farmer? Ewww, yucky!
Our reason for stopping at the burning ghat soon materialized. A gentleman got on board exhorting money from me - ostensibly to buy firewood for the funeral pyres of dying poor people. I got a bad feeling about the guy. He realized that I wasn't going to pay. I said, "maybe I'll come by and check out your hospice tomorrow. I can always donate later, right? Or not at all." And he said, sighing, head drooping theatrically, "Well, it's your karma, ma'am..." Oh shit! No moksha for Molly? His attempt to bring me down had the opposite effect. I didn't feel bad at all. I felt weirdly exultant. Of all the ways I could help India's unfortunates, donating money to those religious rituals would be my last choice. Here's some firewood, and good luck in the next life, old lady! I know that your 70 years on Earth were scrabbling, painful and without respite from horror. But don't worry, next time round it might be marginally less shitty if you follow certain rites. Really, I wish you the best of luck. Because that's all it is - luck, chance, randomness.
Before Varanasi, I spent 2 days in Agra nursing a horrible cold. Instead of describing my visit to the Taj Mahal, I will simply urge readers to use the Google image search term "holding the Taj Mahal". The main attraction of entering the Taj grounds is witnessing hundreds of people simultaneously strike the same pose, while they elbow each other for the "best" spot. Here's a sample picture of a stranger[left]. Oh my God how is he holding up that giant building with just his fingertips??? It mustn't be so large and impressive after all. Nice try, Shah Jahan! Your dead wife must be so disappointed.Speaking of Google search terms, it appears that many strangers from around the world have found this blog while searching "fat baby". And by talking about it right now, hopefully I will increase the chances of more strangers ending up here, against their will. Fat baby fat baby fat baby fat baby.
Rewinding further, let's talk about Bikaner! Recall that my last blog post had me in Jaisalmer, in far western Rajasthan - desert country. Dad and Ben had just departed. Later on the 17th, I took a bus to Bikaner. Upon arrival, I discovered that pure good fortune had delivered me to Bikaner on the night before the annual Camel Festival! Pretty much the best three days of the entire year to be a tourist in Bikaner. I was dropped off at a hotel I'd randomly chosen from the devil guidebook. No dice - pretty much every hotel room in Bikaner was booked. But good fortune continued; I met a hilarious English woman named Millie whose gentleman friend, Bubbles, owned the hotel. He didn't want his traditional Indian wife to cross paths with Millie, his mistress (?), so she was living in a house down the road. She graciously offered me a room in the house for my first two nights in Bikaner. Bubbles and Millie are one of the oddest couples I've ever met. They were wonderful to me. Millie and I spent the first day laughing our heads off, drunk on sunstroke; we watched the parade, camel dancing, camel decorating, and Mr. Bikaner competition - men sporting enormous mustaches and other absurd facial hair. I was even interviewed by Sahara TV, a regional news channel, due to my exceptionally white skin. Later on, I was too impatient to sit through Indian TV news, so I can never confirm whether my 4 minutes of fame went to air. On the second day of the Camel Festival we drove 40 minutes out to the sand dunes for foot racing, motorcycle racing, and traditional dancing. The constant flow of whisky didn't help my incumbent head cold, but it was fun. On the third day, I skipped the camels and went to nearby Deshnok to visit the Karni Mata temple. Due to obscure Hindu mythology, the Karni Mata temple is full of rats! Hundreds and hundreds of rats. Holy rats. I expected enormous, vicious city-rats... but they were actually small and cute. Some day I will post pictures of everything. After the camel festival, Bubbles and Millie gave me a ride in Bubbles' flashy SUV to Jaipur, where it seemed that every young couple in India was getting married on the same day. Wheeeee! I spent an unremarkable day and bought silly footwear. After Jaipur came Agra, and that just about wraps it up.
Into the ether of the interweb, I must send my heartfelt thanks to India's original odd couple. It was unexpectedly awesome.
