Last days in India

So Sky got released from the hospital on his third day. We were so happy to be out of there and we went directly to the train station. We got a ticket to Patna which was all we could get at the last minute that was on the way to Darjeeling. We got general tickets for the first time and ended up sitting in the luggage racks of third class. It wasn't that bad at all. All the locals were looking at us like we were crazy. Westerners don't usually take third class. We arrived in Patna at about 9pm and planned on catching a 10:45 train to NJP (the closest train station to Darjeeling). I will never forget a poor little boy, that must have been about 10 to 12 years old, laying on the floor in a corner, shaking just like Sky had been doing right before we went to the hospital, with flys all over him. This was a very populated and poor area that doesn't see tourists very often. We got third class tickets again to NJP, thinking that the last trip wasn't so bad. The train station was very interesting. First we had some guy following us around for about 30 minutes. He would follow us everywhere we went and then when we stopped he would just stand a short distance away staring at us. We told him to leave us alone but it didn't faze him. As we were waiting for our train, we eventually ended up with a crowd of indian men standing around us just staring. They didn't try to talk to us, they just stood there and stared. I felt like a monkey in a cage. It was very uncomfortable. We talked to one man that explained to us that we were just very strange, and that they were curious. We tried to tell them to leave, but they just stood there. So I eventually took my camera out and started taking pictures of them, hoping that they would get the point. Nope. Finally our train came and it was mad dash to get on. We found our car and it was jam packed with people. It didn't even look like we could fit in there with our huge packs on, and even if we could there was no way we could ride all night like that. We turned around and left the station. The next day we got sleeper class tickets for that night and ended up with a day to spend in Patna. We went to see a Bollywood movie which was hilarious. It was long and goofy and full of singing and dancing. It was interesting how they use random english words and phrases. We met a man that spoke really good english, who worked at the theatre, and had a nice talk with him. He told us about growing up with servants in his house and how his family has quite a bit of influence over the government. We also talked about India and it's problems and how the US is having a hard time. He let us see the movie for free.

We went back to the train station and got on our train later that night. It was fine, until some military boys got on the train and decided to set up camp in our area. They didn't have tickets. They were loud and very rude to everyone. I went to sleep on the top birth and one of them climbed up and tried to sit at the end of my bed. I asked him to get down and he said, "No, you move your feet." A nice man across from us said something to him in Hindi and he got down. Poor Sky on the bottom birth got the worst of it. They messed with him for a while and tried to intimidate him with their military badges, but Sky got them to leave him alone.
The next morning we were eating breakfast on the train and it was about time for us to be at our stop. We were stopped at a station and asked the guy across from us if it was NJP. He said no, next one, so we didn't get off. Sky still wasn't sure so as we were taking off again he looked for a sign. Sure enough, we were at NJP. If we didn't get off we would be taken a long way in the wrong direction and could have possibly gotten stuck in some random place for a night. So we grabbed all of our stuff and we jumped off. The train wasn't going full speed but it was going fast enough for us both to fall flat on the platform, first Sky, and then me. Everyone at the station thought we were crazy sitting there on the ground with our stuff all over the place, laughing hysterically.
Next it was a bicycle rickshaw to the bus station and a beautiful, and long, bus ride to Darjeeling. Darjeeling is a beautiful small town built into a side of a mountain. We got there after dark and got a taxi with a Japanese guy that we met on the bus. All the roads are very steep and we ended up pushing our taxi up a couple of hills, and yes we still had to pay. We tried about four hotels before we found one with a vacancy. The next day we walked around and went to the zoo, which is small but has some good projects going on. They are breeding and releasing endangered species like the Red Panda and the Tibetan Wolf. We also ran into a girl named Alina that we knew from Varanasi and the three of us planned a trek for the next four days.
The trek was awesome. We originally wanted to go on our own and camp, but that is no longer allowed. I guess last year there were some tourists caught stealing bugs from the national park. So now you have to go with a guide and you are also not allowed to pitch a tent. There are small hostels along the way that you stay at. It was nice not having to carry a lot. We got to hike by some temples and we spent a night in Nepal. Yeah! We made it to Nepal! The weather was not the best. We were in the clouds half the time so you couldn't really see anything and we never got to see Everest. It was still a nice hike and we met some students from Philly that were there teaching english. We had a great time hanging out with them. I loved the forest and got to see a wild Yak. There were tiny little villages all over the steep hills. It must be crazy to live on such a steep slope. I also got to see some Himalayan Ginger, which I spent two days chopping down in Kauai last summer.
After the trek we went back to Darjeeling for one last night in the mountains and all of us had a hard time walking around town. I was almost falling down stairs I was so stiff. Out of shape, fire here I come! It was then a jeep ride down the mountains to a bus stop. There we got on a first class AC sleeper bus to Calcutta. A few hours into the ride the bus broke down. We got moved from our nice beds to a crowded sitting bus for a few hours and we had to get on a government bus (stop and go, people filling the isle and hanging off the side). It took us much longer to get to Calcutta and when we arrived we only had two hours for last minute shopping before we had to go to the airport. That went surprisingly smooth.
Our plane was delayed. Of course. We flew to Mumbai and missed our connecting flight. So we had to spend a night in Mumbai. The airlines gave us the nicest hotel that we had been in yet and we layed around and slept for hours. We felt a little guilty for not using the day as an opportunity to explore the city but we were over the traffic, honking, hasles, staring, pollution, and just all of the craziness of the Incredible India cities. We watched the election news, about how one of the candidates was found hanging from a tree, and 19 people dying at the polls, and the bombing in Assam. We also watched Pulp Fiction and the Simpsons Movie.
Our new flights were all on time and the trip was long but not to uncomfortable. India is over. :( Now we are in Kentucky. We went straight from the airport to the Kentucky Fried Music Festival and Bone Pony rocked! What a trip in itself, just being back. Manicured grass, clean water from the tap, toilet paper in bathrooms that aren't covered in mysterious liquids, sidewalks, sane driving, being respected by men, being able to understand people talking around me, solid food, huge people (tall and wide), clean air, and clean streets. It is better to be back than I thought it would be. India was a great experience and changed the way that I think abouta few things. I recommend that anyone should go there as long as they have an open mind and a lot of patience.
Great trip, can't wait for the next one.

Varanasi Hospital

So, as usual plans change. We planned on staying in Varanasi for one night max. We are still here. Skyler got sick our second day here with a fever. We thought that he might feel better the next day but instead he woke up the next morning shaking uncontrollably with a fever still. It was almost like he was spasming. So we decided to go to the hospital. You never know what you might have when you are in India. What an experience. We showed up at 7am and we were immediately taken to the emergency room. There was a man laying on a bed next to skyler, moaning in pain with a gas mask on. He didn't look like he knew where he was and was shifting and rolling around. At one point his blanket fell and a got accidental peak at him. His wife was crying by his bed and she looked terrified. There was a mouse hanging out in one corner of the room, mosquitoes flying all around and the room was not clean. It was not exactly reassuring.
Sky was in bad shape and they asked us some questions and then immediately hooked him up to an IV. Sky asked them what it was and they said it was an IV. "Yes, of course, but what is it?" They could not tell him. I looked at the label and it was just sodium, potassium and calcium water for dehydration. Then they started giving him shots and every time he asked what it was, they gave very vague answers, and when he asked what was wrong with him they said they didn't know. If they didn't know, why where they treating him. Then they said that he would be put in a private room. They took blood, urine and stool samples and put him in the room, which was nice, and just left him there for 6 hours. Sky asked so many questions about when we would get results, and how long he would be there and how much the room was costing us and no one would answer us. It was always, "yes sir, 10 minutes" and then never came back. Finally a doctor came in and Sky was very frustrated by then. The doctor kind of told him what his results were but not what he would be taking. At this point Sky's fever was gone and he was no longer shaking, but still sick. Our thinking was, why do we have to stay in this room if we are not doing anything but waiting. We knew that we were paying just to be in there and didn't think that we needed it. The doctor was very rude and unhelpful and it turned into an argument. Skyler said he wanted to leave and asked them to take the needle out of his arm and they refused. It was like they were holding him against his will and they had his passport and insurance card. It wasn't until there was a huge fus, that a man that spoke good english and was willing to listen to us, that it got sorted out. A new doctor came in and told us exactly what was going on and we found out that they wanted Sky to stay for 3 days. He has a urinary track infection and some kind of stomach infection. They still could not tell us how much all this was costing us. We asked if they could just prescribe him meds and send us on our way. Surely there are other patients that need a room more than Sky does. We were told that because Sky is a foreigner that they must take special care of him. If he were Indian, they would do just that and send him away, but he is american so they have to make sure that he leaves well. It is because most Indian's can't afford the private room. All I could think of was that poor old man in that dirty room downstairs. He should have a private room. We didn't find out until today that the private room is 20,000 rupees per day. That is 400 dollars. What?! It wouldn't matter if we didn't have to pay up front. We will get our money back but if we stay to long we would not have the money to pay. We were upset. Why was this not told to us earlier? Now we owe them 800 dollars for Sky to get medicine twice a day. We simply tried to explain our situation to our new doctor and he got mad at us. He was being very defensive and accusing us of being racist almost. What a nightmare. Now we had the hospital administration in the room. They calmed the doctor and Sky down and they said that after tomorrow the billing would stop no matter how long Sky had to stay. So now we are both staying at the hospital. Sky is better but still not feeling 100%. They gave him a shot in is ass and told him it was a pain killer. Now his head, stomach AND ass hurts. We hope we will be able to get out of this town soon. I figure that if they aren't going to get any money out of us they won't keep him there. I just hope that he will be okay and that he won't get another sickness just from being in the hospital with people sticking needles in his arm all the time. There is another girl from Boston there that we spoke with that was having the same problems. She plans on leaving tomorrow no matter what they say. Oh India.

Cross Country

Manali was beautiful for us. It was the first time in 3 1/2 months that there air was clear enough to see a defined horizon or ridge line. We were some of the few tourists which meant that most restaurants and markets were closed but it was also very peaceful. It was sunny all day and then dropped below zero at night. We walked around the small little towns and got some good views of the mountains, and checked out a small nature reserve full of huge old trees. One day we were just wondering when we found a Tibetan monastery. We went inside and looked around at all of the art and statues of the gods. We bought some incense and prayer flags and one monk invited us into his kitchen for tea. So we went inside and had tea and some food. They put home made flour, chunks of butter and sugar into a bowl and made it into a gritty dough and served to us. They said that it helps with diabetes. It wasn't bad at all. We sat and talked about india and the effect that globalization has had on his religion. He was a very modern monk. He was wearing crocks and had a cell phone and a nice watch. He said that the biggest problem is money. He explained to us that if there was a very poor indian person in his kitchen he would have to leave if some rich people came in and could not join the conversation. We also talked with a man who was half indian and half Canadian. He was a dj who also owned a hotel in Manali. He told us all about how we should go to "upper" because that is "where the freaky people are, doing freaky things, its funny." I guess that is where all the drugs are, and raves, and there have been reports of gurus giving tourists too much LSD. We did not have time to explore upper. Besides, everywhere in Manali the marijuana plants grow like weeds anyway. It is in people's yards and lining all of the roads. People just ignore it.
We realized that we were running out of time and decided that we wanted to spend our last week in Darjeeling. It is better weather over there and we can go trekking without a guide and see mount Everest. So now we are just pushing our way across the country. We took a 15 hour bus from Manali to Deli. This was the scariest ride of my life. It was an over night bus and half of the drive is on a mountain side. This is a narrow road with a drop off on one side and and very tight curves and turns. Also at night the only things on the road are huge trucks and buses. All this, and they still drive like lunies. We were keeping in mind that they do this every night and they know the roads, but I still thought we might be done for a few times. Plus the buses are all painted on the front with bright colors, some have flashing lights, and the windows are always outlined. So it looked like huge metal clown faces flying at each other in the dark. When we got to delhi we were dropped of, with half open eyes, in the middle of no where it seemed, in the middle of a huge crowd of rickshaw and taxi drivers up in your face. We got a ride to the train station, waited a few hours and then got a train to agra. We were in agra for only 7 hours. We saw the taj mahal from a restaurant rooftop and that was good enough for us. Then we got on another train to varanasi. We arrived yesterday and got a room for a couple of nights. Varanasi does not seem as bad as people say it is. The river is dirty, but the area in general is the same as the rest of the country. We have walked along the ghats and there are many people doing laundry, bathing, washing dishes or just cooling off. The sun here will steal all of your motivation and energy if you let it. We also say a ghat where people bring their dead. They burn the bodies with wood and then send them down the river. There is a specific amount of each kind of wood that will burn a human body most efficiently, and different kinds of wood have different prices. Sandalwood is the most expensive. This is the best place in india for the dead to go because it is the town of Shiva. Some believe that if your body is sent down this river when you die you will be released from the wheel of samsara and will not be reborn. So everyday, all day, there are about ten bodies laid out on the steps burning, just down the street from our guest house. Tonight we get to go on a boat ride down the river at sunset and also tomorrow morning at sunrise. We will get to see all of the rituals that are done everyday. Then it will be back to the cool clean air of the mountains. And the toy train!