18 April 2010 16:15
Sacred India
Highly sacred in its spirituality, decidedly colonial in its past and undeniably varied in its landscape, India offers an unparalleled opportunity to explore a country of vast extremes.
By Jessica Russell
Kitted out in breathable, practical cotton Kathmandu clothing, a fresh pair of Teva sandals and armed with a ludicrous amount of essential pharmaceutical goods, I embarked on an adventure that had people turning up their noses or insanely jealous.
Once described as being able to beat the restlessness out of anyone, backpacking through India is a complete assault on your senses. Complete chaos and startling contrasts will mesmerise you, get under your skin and turn your world upside down. Although the country is renowned for being able to challenge and frustrate the most patient traveller, few people leave the spectacle of India with regrets.
While the sight of emaciated sacred cows digging through rubbish piles on the side of the road or drugged up babies being used as pawns in the beggar trade may taint moments of your Indian travels, once you adjust to its raw, poverty-stricken underbelly and learn to glide through its chaos and frustrations, India will take you on a magical, enriching escape.
While India’s landscape, ancient religious sites and historical monuments are stunningly beautiful and diverse, nowhere else in the world will enrapture you with the faces, characters and lives of the people you see and meet every day.
Situated on the edge of the eerily calm Ganges River, Varanasi is both one of the oldest living cities in the world and one of the most vibrant, madding places in India. Visited by multitudes of Hindu pilgrims and worshippers every year wanting to purify themselves in the polluted Ganges, Varanasi is also the place of peaceful Hindu death. To die at Varanasi is to achieve enlightenment and freedom from the continual cycle of reincarnation, which is fundamental to Hinduism and the pervasive caste system.
To truly experience the spiritual calm and serenity of Varanasi, take a dawn boat trip on the Ganges where you will witness the surreal display of religious rituals from afar, the cremation of devout Hindus on the burning ghats, with the ancient city behind, shrouded in purple mist.
Bouncing along a camel led by bearded, turbaned Indian men for two days in the Thar Desert was an enriching escape of another sort.
Beginning our trek in the mud hut village of our eager young guide, we were greeted by his family like Bollywood movie stars and escorted into the ‘local men’s café’ which consisted of a white washed concrete building full of fifteen inquisitive men sitting cross-legged on a dirt floor.
Aware that we were akin to zoo animals, we politely sat down opposite the group, nibbled the spicy curry offered with chapattis in our bare hands (trying to discretely clean my fingers with sanitizer was not an option in front of Indian eyes) and washed it down swiftly with sweet chai tea.
Unsure whether what we had just consumed would cause us excessive discomfort on our camel trek, with much grace and holes ripping in our quality Indian trousers we finally mounted our camels. Being led on camels by our bearded men was a luxury and we relished the open expanse of the desert, the heat and ice cold Coca Colas.
Expecting rolling sand dunes and not another soul to be seen, the desert was not completely desolate. Instead, little mud huts and settlements spread over the dunes with kids popping up everywhere, begging for pens and Coca Cola. While overpopulated Varanasi seemed like another world, the endearing, innocent smiles of children and vivid colours of the saris worn by women working in the ochre desert reminded us that we were still in India.
Another stark reminder we were still in a country of 1.2 billion, where solitude is near impossible to find, was when we took to the dunes to relieve ourselves. Thinking we had escaped from onlookers, we re-arranged our traditional Indian attire and squatted in the sand. However almost on cue, a train full of leering male Indians literally appeared out of nowhere and hurtled past, leaving us speechless in the sand and gobsmacked in disbelief at the uncanny timing of the train. Just like healthy cows, privacy in India is a sacred and rare thing.
Yet solitude was gained when we parked to spend the night on a sand dune looking to the west across the desert towards Pakistan. An idyllic experience is sleeping under the stars with the last image you see before you go to sleep at night being the silhouette of the camel you have been riding all day.
The sight of the breathtaking Jaisalmer fort, rising up out of the arid, flat desert in front of us was even more impressive than expected given our state.
One of the only medieval forts still inhabited, staying in golden Jaisalmer is close to escaping to a scene from “1001 Arabian Nights”. We stayed high in the fort in a traditional Jaisalmer mansion, a ‘haveli’, with views of the baron Indian landscape stretching for miles.
Noise and people are forever in your face in India, yet in the face of this apparent disorder there is also an underlying sense of order and obedience; order of the religious and caste kind which is all pervasive, obeyed and completely foreign to a Westerner. To talk to a rickshaw driver who believes that by being the best he can be will determine his fate in his next life. Being content with that outlook on life is eye-opening.
India will no doubt consume you, and while you may be ready to sit on a western toilet, do away with hand sanitizer and throw away those Tevas, every time you feel your senses dull, you will think of India.
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