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| March 15 - 25, 1996 | Backwaters ---> Kovalam | Good Bye Paper Napkins |
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Okay, so we left Goa and split up with the girls (heaven knows why) and took to the south, once again, just the guys.
I shaved my head afresh to provide a little extra irritation on the vinyl headrested bus ride, and we were off.
We made it down to Kerala, a state in the Southern tip of India. Kerala is vastly different from the north. Kerala features include palm trees,
water, literacy, and communism. We took a slow boat down the backwaters (a system of inland canals and such) and saw many things,
like palm trees, water, literate people and communists. We also saw children run along
the bank shouting at us for "school pens". We obliged them, of course. Arriving in Kovalam, a beach town at the very tip of the country, we hit the beach and balanced eggs for a few days, taunted wealthy tourists up on the hill, and generally ate food. |
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| Of course, our separation from the norske was taking its toll on us. What time we didn't spend talking about them, we spent writing songs about them. So we abandoned our independence from the fairer sex and boarded a 57 hour train for Varanasi. | |||||
| March 26 - April something, 1996 | Varanasi (Benares) | Reunited, and it feels so good |
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After an epic 57 hour train ride during which the borders of sanity were definitely
explored and perhaps exceeded, we arrived in Varanasi thinking that the girls had probably
already been there and left for Nepal, but we were gaining on them. We spent the entire day on the roof of our hotel, resting and eating and recovering from our journey. After about 13 hours or this, we look up just as Tanja nad Marte come walking up onto the roof! There were shouts and hugs and cries of joy and I believe some applause from the patrons as they saw an obviously very happy reunion. It turns out they had just been wandering the alleyways and had decided at random (or so they thought) to go to the top of this particular, non-descript hotel. Halfway up the stairs they almost turned around, but something called them ever upwards. Varanasi has a power... |
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So after scaring the hell out of Gry by walking into her hotel room butt naked, they all moved
over to our hotel and we spent the next few days hanging out in Varanasi, watching very interesting funeral ceremonies,
debating the existance of the Gangetic Dolphin, and putting on puppet shows. I think Varanasi was my favorite place in India. It's a very magical place where several strange and wonderful things happened to us and we saw and experienced a town with an ancient and mystical force. |
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| Last Word on India |
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I had an amazing experience in India. It was my first experience outside
of the western world, and so has really served as a starting point for
many things that have happened since. I met three amazing new friends, and one particularly amazing woman,
and spent time with two of my oldest and best friends. Sure, we spent a lot
of time on the beach, but that's okay. We had a good time, we learned
a lot, even if not in any scholarly way. I later saw my experience in China as
a sort of counterpoint to India, and come to think of it, have judged a lot of experiences
by this first truly bizarre and wonderful trip. |
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