Merry Christmas everyone

Following the rivers west across India...

From Kolkata we travelled west to Varanasi - the most holy place for Hindus in India, if not the world. Millions of pilgrims come here each year to bathe in the Ganges - some also come to die, believing they will be freed from the cycle of reincarnation. Rituals are performed to honour the river every evening.

We stayed in a room with a great view - a balcony overlooking the river and the riverside ghats that run about 5km along the Ganges' western side. Beggars, pilgrims, cows, holy men, tourists, dogs and goats all intermingle freely along the side of the river.
There are 2 main 'burning ghats' in Varanasi where you can watch cremations before the remains are dumped into the river (anyone for a swim?) Apparently if you are a child under 10, a pregnant woman or a holy man, your body is taken out into the middle of the river instead, weighted down with stones and thrown overboard. The water also reportedly contains the contents of 30 sewage pipes that discharge directly into the water.

Despite this, we saw hundreds of pilgrims bathing and washing their clothes in the water each day. Shaun originally said he was keen to take a dip in the holy waters but in the end we settled for an early morning rowboat trip to check out the water quality at close hand. I've never seen bubbles floating along the top of a river before...

From Varanasi we moved west along the river again to Allahabad, a town that does not see that many foreign tourists - and which does not deserve many. I got groped twice at the train station in the space of half an hour (they were duly punished) and Shaun found himself chanting over some coconuts with a holy man in the middle of a rowboat at the auspicious spot where the Ganges and the Yamuna meet ... (here Shaun is rueing the 100 rupees he paid for his coconut ritual)
It was then on to Agra and that famous building. Despite the fact that foreign tourists are charged 37 times the local price to visit the Taj Mahal, it was still worth it. We got up at a very chilly 5.30am to view the Taj from across the river, and then headed over to explore.
Agra also has some lesser-known (but amazing) buildings from the same era - built by a succession of Mughal emperors during the 16th century. Shaun found the harem quarters of some of the old forts and palaces particularly interesting ...

M

First stop Calcutta

Our first stop across the border was Kolkata (Calcutta). While I was apprehensively expecting massive slums and poverty, what we found was a surprisingly green modern city with less traffic and fewer beggars than Dhaka.
Courtesy of the massive textbook Shaun is lugging around (as a 'reading book') the Kolkata area was the original base of the East India Company in the early 1700s. There are many colonial style buildings in the centre of town, including the Victoria Memorial (above). Our trusty Lonely Planet describes the colonial centre of Kolkata as a 'testament to the vain glory of empire'. Uh-huh.

Kolkata is also one of the last places on earth you can ride a human-powered rickshaw. We agonised over whether to ride one and it was an uneasy experience. Our rickshaw driver didn't seem to be having too much fun either as he had to pull over a few hundred metres before our destination with a possible hernia after dragging both Shaun and I through the streets on his bare feet.

On our last day we hunted out the base of Mother Teresa's original "Missionaries of Charity" which, as well as being a working convent, has a small area set aside containing her small nun's room and her tomb. It was very moving.

M

Amar desh New Zealand

From Darjeeling we had a darkened border crossing into the north of Bangladesh and then made our way by cycle-rickshaw, local bus and rickety train to Dhaka.
The people of Dhaka, all 12 million or so, proved themselves to be incredibly curious about our presence and thought nothing of crowding around us and staring while we ate, shopped (you can never have too many kaftans) or got our beards trimmed (mine at least). The separate curtained booths in some restaurants for women (and their male escorts) did give us a place to eat without forty pairs of eyes on every handful - literally - of rice going into the mouth.

Short term tourists are very rare and the universal question asked, or yelled from passing rickshaws or buses is 'what country?' Followed by (thank you to that beard - mine) 'are you Muslim?'

After the congestion and madness of Dhaka it was a pleasure to cruise (in first class, including a private cabin, stewards and access to the first class deck) southwest towards the border with India for a day on a Bangladeshi institution - one of the 'Rocket' paddle steamers.Being on the river did mean we could engage in some nature spotting, including the Gangetic Dolphin and a rather laid back crocodile (I got my subservient 'wife' to go and poke it to see if it was in a biting mood before approaching).

S

Tea Town

After crossing into India from Nepal we headed for Darjeeling - the quintessential colonial hill station (at least before Indian independence from Britain). Nowadays it is local politicians who want independence from the West Bengal state and to press their demands they called an indefinite strike in the region just before our arrival - no shops open except pharmacies, no restaurants and armed police at all intersections.

Nevertheless we managed to wander through some of the tea plantations as well as visit the 'highest zoo in the world' and the Himalayan Mountain Institute which Sherpa Tenzing helped establish and run and which holds some fantastic artifacts such as three of the four flags raised by Hillary and Tenzing on Everest's summit (the UN flag is elsewhere) and equipment from pioneering Himalayan expeditions (battery heated socks?).

One of the few restaurants that would provide food to us was the restaurant attached to the ever so elegant Elgin Hotel, a colonial era building set in a rose fringed garden overlooking Darjeeling. Given our surroundings High Tea was the order of the day (with the finest Darjeeling Orange Pekoe Tip tea of course).

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