A visit to India is an experience that will change your life. A comment that you often hear is that people either love or hate India. For most of my time in the country I have to be honest and say that I was in the later category. The fact that I was sick for most of the time that I was in the country probably didn't help.
As time passes between my visit to India, I am however certain that the countries has left its mark on my memories and the way that I look at the world. Fortunately it tends to be the most painful or irritating memories that shrink into insignificance and that I now think of with good humor.
After an epic trip to cross the border from Pokara, I finally arrived in Varanasi in the early hours of the morning, maybe an hour before dawn. By the time I’d arrived I was traveling with a Mexican girl who I’d met on the roof of a bus on a journey that took up half the distance from Pokora to the border.
Click on the Varanasi page for the rest of the story and some photo highlights.
Delhi was my second stop in India. Despite my experiences in Varinasi, I was expecting something akin to a modern capital city. Instead my first impression of Delhi was the view from the train as we entered the outskirts of the city, and most memorably the sight of several locals using the space next to the railway tracks as a toilet. In a way I was fortunate that I'd not had too much breakfast. In a way Delhi is symbolic of the rest of the country. Loud, polluted and filled with chaos. It is possibly the only place in the world where I have encountered a roundabout where traffic was directed to go in both directions around it.
