Travelogue: Varanasi
The man at the Nepal/ India border stole my pen yesterday and so I write now in blue ink in between bouts of electrical outages. While in quarantine in Varanasi, I've had a moment to think about the job I've accepted shortly before leaving the states. It's overwhelming to think that I've decided to stay with this current political track. The first job, sure, that was just making money but this is pretty methodical. It's like those years of being a child, refusing to vote, thinking oneself too "above" having a definitive opinion, having a stake in anything, are over.
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Sami said today at the Internet café upon hearing my complaints that “you are the one who decided to go all Abyudd and adventurous on us.” So I did. No more complaints to the peanut gallery.
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I've rested up enough to catch you up on my arrival to Varanasi and my subsequent self-quarantine in this expensive “Palace on the Ganges.”:
The trip to the Indian border took 12 hours. It involved, in addition to what I’ve already documented, ear-splitting noise from the various moving parts of the rickety bus and uncomfortable seats with metal bars digging well and hard into my backside. The rocky road was like a trampalene from hell. That and the intermittent rickshaw rides have caused the bruised ribs which I now nurse. I also allowed myself to be robbed of something like 2000 RS on the border due to the questionable rickshaw drivers, money changers, and border officials whose favorite English words were "extra fee." My festering toe wound kept my mouth shut even as an official lecherously stroked my cheek.
After a total of 24 hours of, as my mother would put it: “living like a man,” (and not just any man, that ride would even frazzle my father during his Mexican border-crossing days) I arrived in Varanasi with infected toe and battered ego. My face and body was covered with a thick paste of soot and sweat when once removed revealed a blooming rash. The rickshaw ride in search of my hotel through pitch black streets finished off my nerves and I have not left my hotel room since. Amriv Ghosh (and his tales of the West Bengal tidal basin) keeps me company as I eat my breakfast of toast and chai and drench my toe in "Detol," which I've gathered (thanks to Rushdie's excellent account of Indian history and culture in Midnight's Children) is antiseptic.
* * *
Sami said today at the Internet café upon hearing my complaints that “you are the one who decided to go all Abyudd and adventurous on us.” So I did. No more complaints to the peanut gallery.
* * *
I've rested up enough to catch you up on my arrival to Varanasi and my subsequent self-quarantine in this expensive “Palace on the Ganges.”:
The trip to the Indian border took 12 hours. It involved, in addition to what I’ve already documented, ear-splitting noise from the various moving parts of the rickety bus and uncomfortable seats with metal bars digging well and hard into my backside. The rocky road was like a trampalene from hell. That and the intermittent rickshaw rides have caused the bruised ribs which I now nurse. I also allowed myself to be robbed of something like 2000 RS on the border due to the questionable rickshaw drivers, money changers, and border officials whose favorite English words were "extra fee." My festering toe wound kept my mouth shut even as an official lecherously stroked my cheek.
After a total of 24 hours of, as my mother would put it: “living like a man,” (and not just any man, that ride would even frazzle my father during his Mexican border-crossing days) I arrived in Varanasi with infected toe and battered ego. My face and body was covered with a thick paste of soot and sweat when once removed revealed a blooming rash. The rickshaw ride in search of my hotel through pitch black streets finished off my nerves and I have not left my hotel room since. Amriv Ghosh (and his tales of the West Bengal tidal basin) keeps me company as I eat my breakfast of toast and chai and drench my toe in "Detol," which I've gathered (thanks to Rushdie's excellent account of Indian history and culture in Midnight's Children) is antiseptic.
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