As I wrote the last time I got company from a lady ...
We met in Kolkata, a town in which you can stillfeel the colonial influence due to the victorian architecture located almost everywhere ... the Courthouse, the Post Office and the Victoria Memorial
Kolkata is a very busy town, in the streets mostly reigns chaos and Darwins laws of the surveivel of the fittest - when the traffic moves. If not you can enjoy a free horn concert
Among all these cars we found a special one... Kolkata has also been the acting ground of Mother Theresa, whose Hospiz, Living Place and Grave we've visited.
After all this you wouldn't assume that this town can have a "romantic" side ... Howrath Bridge during sunset.
... and actually it wasn't that romantic ... fortunately pictures don't smell and make noise ;-). But things should change soon since we drove to Darjeeling - The "Queen of the Mountains"
Right the first day we met four other German travellers and with two of them, Markus and Esther we sticked together for another week and still meet them here and there ... where ever our routes cross.
In Darjeeling we visited the deep green tea fields and a spectacular sunrise that we shared, once again, with a huge crowd of other tourists.
But once the sun is up, you have a beautiful view and we really enjoyed these days far away from dusty cities.
From Nature we went back to a really spiritual place ... a town called Bodhgaya where Buddha found it's enlightenment. Since there has been no chance of getting a train ticket, we had to take a slieghtly overloaded bus ... The trip was safe but the roads were so bad that our asses won't forget theses 13 hours of ride for a very long time.
Bodhgaya itself was exactly the right transition from the quiet Himalaya back to the business of the indian towns. Quiet a small village that is situated next to the Mahabodi Temple.
The Temple is built right next to the bodhi tree where Buddha sat getting it's enlightenment and thus a very spiritual place for the Buddhist.
From one of the most important places for Buddhism we went to the probably most important place in the Hindi Religion: Varanasi at the Ganghes River.
We got very lucky to be able to vitness the annual puja (a ritual prayer) for the sungod, that takes place from sunset til sunrise. The Hindi people bring oblations in form of fruits, flowers, candles and coconut milk, which they dip in the Ganghes to sacrifice them and take them home afterwards to eat them ... an amazing colorful and loud (firecrackers were all over the place) happening.
Varanasi most impressive sight is the Ganghes River, respectively the Ghats, the stairs that go down from the city to the water. It's the place for the hindi to take their daily bath, where they burn their deads and where they celebrate their religion (for instance a daily ceremony to put to sleep)
Remembering our early childhood and the Mogli Story in the Dschunglebook, it was a deep wish to make a safari and see the indian national animal: Shri Khan. On the way to there, we passed some temples in Khajuraho that show scenes we had no idea of, reading the dschungle book as innocent childs
On the Safari in the Bandhavagarh National we met two Dutch as well as an American with whom we made two Safaris ... one in the morning and one in the evening. We had great time seeing all kinds of animals.
But probably the most impressive moment to last in our memories will be our contact with Shri Khan
From seeing the national animal we went straight to see an other national indian symbol: the Taj Mahal, where you can already recognize how our further travilling will turn ... we will spend the next two weeks in Rajasthan, the land of the Camels.
Hope you all are doing well and some nice greetings from India
Tanja & Boris
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