Lucknow
Trip Start
Aug 17, 2007
1
27
Trip End
Apr 2008
Lucknow,
India
Monday, March 24, 2008
Time for one last blog entry before I return to England.
After my trip to the Chitwan National Park, I spent a couple of days In Kathmandu, and am very glad not to have missed it out. I'd heard lots of people complain about the hassle and pollution, but actually I found neither to be that bad, certainly not anywhere near Cairo! Kathmandu's Durbar Square, packed with interesting temples of both the (Indian) Shikhara style and the more oriental Nepali pago style, was most impressive.
I also walked to Swayambunath, the 'Monkey Temple', which lies a few kilometres from the city centre in the early morning, and was the only tourist there. Swayambunath is one of the two biggest Buddhist stupas in nepal, and indeed in the world. As you can imagine, the atmosphere was very intense given the large numbers of Tibetans living nearvy and worshipping at the stupa, and whilst in Kathmandu I was very conscious of the large police presence - they were heavy-handed to say the least in putting down the protests, though I personally saw little of this. Later I visited the even larger stupa at Bodnath, where the protests had taken place in the preceding days, but all was calm by the time I got there. Later in the day I took a taxi to Patan, a neighbouring town which escaped the ravages of the 1934 earthquake and thus has the best Durbar Square in the valley - absolutely beautiful. It also has a fine museum established by the Austrians in the old Rana palace, and demonstrating the techniques used to create the fine Buddhist and Hindu metalwork sculptures.
After my visit to the capital, I returned one last time to Pokhara, and had a wonderful farewell meal with J.P. Cross, Buddhiman and family. They were all so kind and hospitable to me, and I miss them all already. In particular I have learned so much from the colonel himself and have been quite inspired by him. The following day was Holi, the Hindu festival of colours, which coincided almost with Easter this year, and worked out as a great send-off for me. In the morning, the remaining students - still in their SLC exams - along with Balaram, Vijay and Lok held a farewell ceremony for me, and presented me with a Dhaka Topi - a traditional hat worn by Nepali elders, which I shall treasure. Then in began! One of the students, Sujan, put a tikka mark on my forehead with red powder paint, then quickly emptied the rest of the packet over me - holi had started! We had a huge waterfight, and considering that they are all partially-sighted or blind, they all had very good aim with ice-cold buckets of water!
After this, I walked over to J.P.Cross' house one last time, getting liberally covered in paint by everyone I met on the way there, and said a final farewell. Then I went over to Lakeside, and got another covering of paint from Raj, Sonti and everyone else at the hotel. Raj then gave me two packets of tikka paint and took me out of the motorbike - him driving it and me throwing paint over people we passed. After this we all had a cool beer and I turned in eraly, ready for my bus to the border early the next day.
After more tikkas from Raj and family, I started the 9-hr journey to Sunauli on the Indian border, then a 2-hr jeep ride to Gorakhpur. After a 4-hr wait at the station, I got the 6-hr train to Varanasi, arriving in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Lots I've people I'd met who had been to Varanasi raved that it was the best place in India. Personally I was slightly underwhelmed, but perhaps I missed the point of the place. My first impressions were of a very dirty town of limited architectural interest, sloping down to a smelly and polluted river full of dead bodies and people scrubbing their armpits. As the day went on, the place grew on me, especially towards evening when it became far busier and people offered their puja to the river, which Hindus believe to be a goddess. I went on a boat ride to view the ghats, on one or two of which cremations constantly take place. I found the ceremonies interesting, but thought the attitude of some of the tourists was little short of ghoulish - gawping at the burning bodies and families of mourners. Two bodies, one half-rotted and one rather more recent bumped on our boat on their meandering journey down stream. They had one been saddhus or holy men, whose dead bodies are not cremated but thrown into the river as they are. I was dismayed to see the boatload of tourists next to us clambering over each other to take snap-shots of what, after all, had once been a living, breathing person.
Overall, then, I can certainly see the attraction of Varanasi, but it was not entirely my cup of tea, and by lunchtime I had decided I would change my rail tickets (not an easy thing to do with beaurocracy-loving Indian railway officials!) and spend a day in Lucknow, where I am now.
Lucknow is of course very central to the history of the British Raj, and as I'd hoped there are many fine examples of Victorian and Edwardian architecture here. Tomorrow I will visit some of the Imbabas, Oudh-dynasty mausoleams, as well as the Dawzat-ar-Rumi, a copy of a Byzantine gate in Istanbul. Most of all I am looking forward to seeing the Residency, the scene of the infamous Siege of Lucknow in 1857. So far, I like the look of this city.
Lucknow has a long Muslim past, and some of the mosques here are most impressive. I couldn't help noticing though, that many people fixed me with most unfriendly scowls, (the first time I've experiemced this on the subcontinent) and so far I have only seen one other white person here. I'd expected it to be off the main tourist route, but nonetheless am surprised to see so few Westerners. I can't really imagine the reason for the stand-offish attitude that some people seem to have, though I had heard that memories of the Empire are not forgotten here. Still, I will reserve judgement until after a much-needed night's sleep. The Moghlai cuisine here is tops, anyway!
I won't write another update before getting home, I shouldn't think. Tomorrow evening I take an overnight train back to Delhi, where I plan to visit the Red Fort, Jama Masjid and one or two other sites of interest, before getting my flight home early on Thursday. However, I shall write up about all that when I get home, and stick up the rest of my pictures.
All best,
Tom
