(Darjeeling-Sikkim-Assam) Nightbus nightmare

For a change of pace and to get off the main tourist track we headed northeast to Darjeeling and Sikkim. Darjeeling had not lost its charm and I was delighted to see that the Darjeeling zoo had been re-vamped and had more restrictions and rules than last time. 11 years ago I was very upset by ill-behaved local tourists that teased and threw plastic bottles at the poor bear!! In Darjeeling and Sikkim we enjoyed some cold mountain air and delicious momos, but soon realized that we had to move on if we wanted to make it to Assam and then back across the country. Our grand plan was to catch the train to Guwahati ( capital of Assam) from Siliguri, a town of no interest other than as a necessary stop on the way. Little did we know that it was the Holi festival (Hindu festival where people celebrate spring by throwing paint on each other) and everything was closed. We patiently waited until the next day to try and sort out a ticket to get out of Siliguri. Unfortunately, all the trains were ridiculously booked and our plan B was the night bus. I was a bit hesitant about the bus considering the driving we've seen in India so far has been anything but safe. But we had to get going and there were seats available.

The bus, which of course was nothing like the one hanging in the company office, arrived and we got on. It was probably one of the smelliest buses I've ever been on . Imagine, if you can, a mixture of onions, sweaty feet, sour milk and perhaps an old fart or two. We were both desperately grasping to open the window and let some "fresh" air inside. It was either petrol fumes or the smell and I would choose toxic fumes any time! Once settled in the bus with the open window I was pretty ready for our 12 hr busride. The bus was only half-full when we started rolling and I thought that's OK. Only 5 minutes later a herd of 15 people literally rushed into the bus shoving and pushing to get the remaining seats. So much for the nice and quiet! Finally, we were heading out I thought, but no. Now we had to refuel the bus, which of course hadn't been done. That would've been too organized when you know you are driving overnight:) An hour later and after various stops that didn't really make sense, we had barely made it to the outskirts of the town. However, eventually we actually seemed to be making some progress....maybe.  For the next few hours, the bus made several more stops (pretty much every 30 minutes) on the way stuffing the bus full of supplies. No wonder it takes 12 hours to travel 300kms here. It was getting increasingly hard to even see the aisle of the bus and boxes and sacks were stacked to waist height. Apparently, we were not the only ones getting a bit agitated and a full on argument broke out. We of course didn't understand much, but gathered that people on the bus got annoyed that it was so hard to get in and out of the bus and the outcome of the argument was that one sack of something was removed!! (we later found out that these were boxes of 'flake' brand cigarettes that they were transporting across state lines...)

Maybe now we could relax and enjoy the ride....
The roads were anything but smooth and with no suspension on the bus every bump in the road was a major "butt-lifter". Gravel and stones were also flying left and right it was bound to happen. One of the bus windows cracked and shattered. The sound was almost like something out of a cartoon and the poor guy sleeping next to the window got a lap full of glass. In an instant the bus-conductor came out and furiously waved a piece of glass at the poor guy's throat. There was a lot of commotion and not sure if he thought that the guy had broken the glass on purpose. Nevertheless, all the glass was thrown out of the bus (while still driving) and problem solved.

Now maybe we could get some sleep....
The bus had super-reclining seats and I could just fit my legs in as the guy in front of me sure made use of all of the reclining possible. Alright I thought, I don't want to be the bitchy tourist complaining about insufficient space and it would've been fine if it hadn't been for the bumpy road. Each bump resulted as a blow to my knees against the hard plastic of the seat in front. Any position I tried to take meant that one or the other knee got banged up. I lasted for 10 hrs before I was in so much pain that I couldn't take it anymore and I nicely asked my fellow bus rider if he could please put his seat up, which he kindly did. Damn I should've said something earlier!!! At last we made it (2 hrs late) to Guwahati, tired and bruised, but the main point was that we had survived a bus ride from hell.  

Varanasi-4 weddings and a funeral

Varanasi, the holiest of all holy cities in India. A city that I missed out on last time I was here. I had heard different accounts from other travellers. Either they loved it or hated it so was not sure what the verdict would be for us. The initial impression was the usual= crowded, dirty and congested with traffic, but the guesthouse that we had set our eyes on was located in the area closer to the ghats (stairs that lead down to the Ganges river) consisting of cobble-stoned, labyrinth-like streets or alley ways. Beacause the streets were so narrow only cows, people and the occasional motorbike could fit, which I liked better. The only trouble was that we had no idea where we were and how to find the guesthouse. We walked for a while and luckily by asking people in every crossing which way we needed to go, we finally found our guest house. Now the issue was to find this place again once we had checked in and went out for a stroll. Amazingly, we only got a little bit lost the first few times, but soon figured out the easiest way to the main ghat.
Although we were constantly asked if we wanted to go on a boattrip or asked for "donations" by holy men (Sadhus) Varanasi was really an interesting place to be. One of my favorite past times is people-watching and there was plenty of it to do in Varanasi. Not everyday you can watch people have a dip in the river Ganges that supposedly washes away your sins and will break the circle of reincarnation. (in my opinion the only thing that you most certainly will get in the Ganges is a douche of E. coli water:) or being in the middle of 4 weddingparties. Not sure if we were a bit lucky with seeing so many weddings or if that is "the thing" to do in Varanasi. Nevertheless it was interesting to observe entire wedding parties of at least 30 people get onto a small boat all in their best and most colorful saris. In contrast, on the other end of the spectrum, a few ghats upstream there were several corpse burnings and funerals. We saw several bodies, which were prepared for the cremation and it was intriguing and  fascinating at the same time. This is it! The end of the road for these people and one last public burning before becoming part of the river....that people swim in and sip from.  Hmmm it's a bit bizarre if you think about it. To add to the  weirdness of the situation, we were told that Sadhus (holy men), children and people with leprosy were dumped in the river without burning since they were already considered pure. Yepp, that really did it for us and we decided to skip our well-needed bath after all:). Despite the apparent need for some hygiene upgrade on the city and the river, I absolutely loved it and consider Varanasi one of the highlights of India so far!

India (Delhi-Agra)

It's been 11 years since I was last in India and I'm not sure how I could've forgotten how absolutely noisy, smelly and chaotic it is. Dan once asked me if India would be as smelly as San Francisco (walking down market street or being on the number 9 bus) and I said no, but being back here I think San Francisco may have some competition here:) It is interesting that everything from horrendous traffic to cows roaming around are one thing that will probably never change in India since no where else will you find a billion people that can exist with constant chaos and still be happily unaware of it. After the initial shock it is also easy to realize that the big mess and apparent lack of order is one of the reasons that tourists flock here. In very few countries will you find a place where even the most travelled person will continue to be amazed and surprised by every day sights etc.
Delhi is not any travellers favorite place but it does serve a purpose of putting the rest of India in perspective. Everytime things seem tough we can always say that it's not as bad as Delhi:) Needless to say we didn't bother to spend much time in Delhi especially since we have to go back there when we fly out. In Delhi's defense they do have some great sights it's just hard to enjoy them since once you reach your destination you are completely exhausted.
Our next stop was Agra just a few hours away by train from Delhi. Trains are by far one of the best ways of getting around India. It's easy to use and there is logic to the system. Big plus there!! In Agra I was prepared to be crowded by touts and hassled by annoying rickshaw drivers, but to our surprise Agra was pretty relaxed. Either Dan and I seemed less likely as customers compared to the tour groups and we were not overly bothered by people trying to sell us stuff.
We visited Taj Mahal during the sunrise which was the only time we got pissed off. You get up and are half asleep (why does the sunrise have to be so bloody early ??) and then as soon as we got out on the street we had 5 people trying to convince us to have them take you to the ticket office and then Taj Mahal. We only lived about 500 metres away from the East gate of Taj but didn't know how far away the ticket office was. The first rickshaw driver wanted way too much and we got into a discussion with him and he kept changing the  price which put us off. Apparently this ticket office was "very far away" so we got an autorickshaw and the decided price was 50 Rupees (about US$ 1.25) to go to the ticket office and then back to the gate as close as possible (Autorickshaws are prevented to drive within a certain distance from Taj Mahal to prevent pollution of the marble). We knew it was too much probably but just wanted to get going. In the end it turned out that this "very far away office" was only about 50m down the road. We were furious! We got our tickets and got back into the autorickshaw. At this point I was still willing to take my losses and pay the 50 rupees with a growl, but the straw that broke the camels back (or as they say in Sweden the drop that made the cup overflow) was when the autorickshaw driver only took us halfway back to where we expected to get dropped off. With some angry words we shoved 20 rupees into his hand and got out. He protested at first but must've seen that both Dan and I were not to be messed with at this stage. Soon all the morning's debacle was gone once we made it into Taj Mahal, although Dan managed to meet another "friend" who eagerly wanted to show prime spots for photos.....for a small donation of 500 Rupees (approx US$ 12.50). Haha not a chance! Luckily I only had about 40 rupees in my purse (1 dollar) so that's all he got after his most valuable assistance....Despite the pretty bad start to the day, Taj Mahal was amazing and truly deserving of being one of the wonders of the world.

Bangkok part II- The scam

Bangkok is famous for a lot of scams and one of the oldest scam is the "government owned shop" scam. It involves that your tuk-tuk driver takes you to a "government owned shop" in the hope that you will buy anything or even if you don't, supposedly the tuk-tuk driver still gets petrol vouchers. Whether the petrol voucher is true I have yet to ever find out. Anyway, Dan and I were walking and trying to navigate around Bangkok with our incredibly crappy map. It was almost impossible to figure out where on the map we were and what direction we wanted to go to. This lovely day we had the Royal Palace, Wat Pho and Wat Arun on the agenda. Mostly because those were the only sights I could remember from when I was last sightseeing in Bangkok in1996. We got to a crossing and hauled out the map to get some sense of how lost we were. A man crossing the street at the same time approaches us and is seemingly just wanting to help. He kindly points out a few more sights that we could see, how much it will cost with tuk-tuk and tells us that the royal palace etc is only open in the afternoon. The last part we don't really believe since that is a textbook thing that people say when they want to sell you something or something else is going on, but the guy wanders off and does not try and sell us anything or take us to a tuk-tuk. After a bit of contemplation we decide to go for a tuk-tuk and check out the additional sights.We have two days to kill here in Bangkok so why not. We cross the street and start looking for a tuk-tuk and there's a bunch standing further down the street. We get into the first one that approaches us agreeing on a price. It is a ridiculous price of 20 Bath (about US 75 cents) to visit 4 sights and we know we will most likely end up in a "government shop". There's no way this guy would agree to that price otherwise. The first sight is a nice 45m standing buddha and there's some celebration going on. Next stop is supposedly the Lucky buddha. This time our driver shows us the "entrance" to the buddha which is actually the backside?? Hmm a bit strange. To add to things he's talking on his mobile phone and as we come around the corner there are two guys standing at the backside of the buddha and one of them is also talking on his phone. Coincidence?? The driver and the guy hangs up approximately at the same time which made us both a bit suspicious. We walk in and the driver walks back to the tuk-tuk. The other guy who had also talked on the phone comes in after us and starts talking. I'm on alert as the guy talks and talks and talks. I can't figure out what he's trying to accomplish. Distract us, but there's no one else around? What is the purpose of this whole thing?  After 10 minutes of constant chatter from his part we make our way out of there. Go back to the driver and ask him to take us to sight #3 the marble temple. Yes he say but first we are stopping at the "government shop". I knew it! We discuss a bit but in the end we're like OK but we are not buying anything. Tuk-tuk driver says that's alright as long as we enter and have a look and besides both Dan and I need to go to the loo so these shops should have some nice toilets:). And that's pretty much what we did. The quickest browse ever mostly looking for the toilet sign and then out. There we've done our duty. Our driver takes us to the next stop but we noticed that he seemed a bit annoyed or angry. We don't think much more of it, but when we came back out from the marble temple the driver had dumped us and left.  We knew that it had been some kind of a scam or attempt to a scam but we weren't sure how it worked since in the end we hadn't paid him his 20 bath yet and we got a free ride around Bangkok.
The next day around the same crossing we actually saw the same man that had approached us first and he was talking to a tourist. We watched from a distance and saw "our" tuk-tuk driver walk by while the man was talking to the tourist. This confirmed that they were working together but still after a lot of speculation we can't work out the point of the whole thing and think it was the worst scam ever....and is it really a scam when you know you are being scammed?!

Bangkok-Part 1 Family trouble

Back in Bangkok after what must be one of the easiest border crossings ever. Started off by being picked up in Siem Reap. This part was one of my main concerns since Dan and I couldn't exactly remember the name of the place where we stayed and was worried that the people we bought the bus ticket from were not going to figure it out. Anyways, we decided to believe in the system and hope for the best. No problem at all and we were picked up as planned. Pretty much driven around the block (if we had known we could've walked but think the secrecy is part of the scheme) to get on a bigger bus. First it was only semi-full but after we stopped a few times and more and more people got on we felt it was getting a bit optimistic with that many passengers. The final crisis eventually came when a family+boyfriend was getting on the bus. They all had about 4 bags each and other extra crap that they were lugging around. The 3 girls were obviously high maintenance with implants and the boyfriend was a cigarillo smoking dude and we knew there would be trouble. Needless to say all their luggage did not fit in the designated bagcompartments and 20 minutes later it was decided that it would be stored in the aisle of the bus, not without more whinging from the family of course. One girl kept complaining that no one had asked her how she was doing since her overhead fan was broken. Please get over yourself sweetheart!!! The trip to the border took about 3 hours and then we were slowly pushed through the immigration process to enter Thailand. On the other side there were minivans which would be taking us to Bangkok. These were nice new vans and Dan and I thought it was fine. We had only been told that there would be a second bus but not specifically what kind of bus. Unfortunately, we ended up with the family. Argh!!!! It was quite amusing since they kept thinking that we were being transfered to another bigger luxury double-decker bus with toilet!! Dan and I made a bet to see how long it would take for them before they realized. Think it took 30 minutes and then all hell broke loose. The dad flipped out and threw some bags around (while the driver was driving at 100km/hr) and the mum kept threatening with the tourist police. The emotions were running high and as we stopped at a petrolstation to refuel the entire family was hassling the driver. We had been asked to step out of the vehicle due to explosion risk, but the boyfriend douche got out and started smoking!!!! Good one indeed!
Rest of the trip was more complaining and 4 hrs has never felt so long before! Dan and I pretty much bolted in the opposite direction as soon as we got to Bangkok.

Cambodia

Back in Cambodia, one of my favorite countries. My last visit here was in 2005, which is not that long ago, but there is a noticeable increase in tourism here (especially tour groups). To my relief, the Cambodian people are just as lovely as I remembered despite the boost in tourist numbers.
In Phnom Penh we started off walking around a bit to see the sights. A very good idea I thought until Dan walked past a German shepard dog that almost took his arm off (No bites, so no worries). I swear the dog had huge teeth and I almost had a heart attack. Luckily the dog was chained, but I was wondering if maybe we should've had those rabies shots after all. Too late now and better just to stay away from any dogs in sight, which is the way I prefer it anyway. We managed to visit the mighty Royal palace, Tuol Sleng and the killing fields. Toul Sleng was a former school that was used as a prison during the Khmer Rouge. Only a handful of the prisoners survived and the rest were tortured and killed at the killing fields. A very sad and disturbing part of the Cambodian history and it feels a bit weird that Toul Sleng and the killing fields are some of the main tourist attractions here. It is a strange feeling to walk around in rooms and in the field where so many people suffered and died and hopefully the willingness to share these horrors will help to educate the next generation and hopefully prevent such atrocities from happening again anywhere.

Our next stop was Siem Reap from where the temples of Angkor is easily accessible. We had a very comfortable bus ride to Siem Reap and then met a tuk-tuk driver named Saly. He had a nice face and smile, so I picked him from the crowd of drivers that tried to get our business. It turned out to be a good choice and he was the nicest guy ever. Saly and many of the locals here think I look like  a Cambodian local which is a bit amusing. They always look at me several times and with a face of disbelief when I say I'm from Sweden. 
Our first outing went to the floating village on a nearby lake  where we enjoyed a stunning sunset and also got to see a school full with over-energetic kids. They even liked Dan which is a bit unusual :) He's not the most kid-friendly person I know!! Then we spent three days visiting temples and more temples. Unfortunately, the hordes of tour groups was a bit annoying and it was sometimes a pain to try and get a good photo without too many people in it. Despite this minor annoyance the temples were stunning. In the morning of the the second Angkor day I experienced the first Delhi belly aka Montezumas revenge aka Travellers belly for the trip. Plenty more to come I'm sure. I wasn't sure I was going to last wandering around in the temples on that day, but fortunately I changed my mind after a quick fix up with Immodium. Luckily we have another 98 tablets left:) (we bought in bulk in the US) which we'll need for our next destination: India.