Bangkok, Khao Yai National Park

On Sunday we left India and took a plane to Bangkok, where we met Nuria, Laura's sister, who had already been here for 2 days. As we had already stayed twice before in this city, we didn't go on sightseeing tours. The main goal was to go to the Myanmar embassy to get a visa. After 3 days waiting time, which we used for Christmas shopping and relaxing, we finally got the visa without any problems!
Afterwards we went straight to Pak Chong and the Khao Yai National Park. This time we slept 1 night in the park, so we could go trekking on our own and we went also on a night safari. Unfortunately we couldn't see any big animals like a tiger, elefant or crocodile... just a lot of deers, mosquitos, leeches, a great hornbill (a big parrot) and 2 unknown animals (sth between a big marten and a long cat).
Well, as we've already put photos from Bangkok and the National Park in the blog in February, we don't do it now again. Tomorrow afternoon we're leaving Thailand for nearly a month and we take our flight to Myanmar!!

Kolkata

Another night train brought us from Patna to Kolkata, the last stop in India. After the troubles in other places before and the bad fame this city enjoys, we were positively surprised! The center is full of nice old colonial buildings, very green and clean and the traffic is less chaotic than in many other cities.
Especially many churches are in Kolkata, which is more famous because of it's original name Calcutta, which was once the capital of India and the East India company had their headquarters here.
Kolkata is also home to India's biggest museum, the Indian Museum. It's inside a nice colonial building, but the exposition is disappointing. Poor Labellings, sometimes nearly no light to see the things, rooms full of artefacts (no order), dust and no care (neither the building nor objects) are only some of the problems inside. It's maybe a bit typical in incredible India, that the best of all rooms is this one about Egypt!
These problems show in a good way the challenges which have the whole country on the way to a modern state, in many belongings it's still a third-world country.


The Writer's building was once the headquarter of the East India Company and not far away is the St John's church with a nice organ inside. We had a free concert, John played for us a bit.


The Hooghly river (an arm of the Ganges river) flows through Kolkata and the Howrah bridge, built by the British, is one of 4 bridges crossing this river. This bridge is famous, because it has the highest traffic load in the world! Other British remainings are the Victorial Memorial (a marble building to honour Victoria) and the St Pauls Cathedral.


Also some temples are found in Kolkata like the Digambara Jain Temple and the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple. Famous in the city are the rikschas which are pulled by man power!

Bodhgaya, Nalanda and Rajgir

From Varanasi we took another overcrowded night train to Rajgir to see some other Buddhist places. Nowadays only a small percentage (less than 1%) of the Indian population is Buddhist, but India is the country of origin of this religion. Gautama Siddharta (Buddha) was born in a place which lies now in Nepal, but afterwards he lived and learned in India.

The main tourist spot Bodhgaya (near Gaya), where Buddha found the enlightenment. This place is full of tourists, mainly coming from other Buddhist countries and visiting the sites by coach. Here in Bodhgaya is the main temple and the Bodhi tree, below this one Buddha was sitting when he had the enlightenment.


Around the main temple, many Buddhist countries built modern monasteries (photo of the Tibetan and Bhutanese monastery) and also a big Buddha.


Rajgir is another place on the Buddist pilgrimage, but there are nearly no remainings of a once big town. The main attraction is a big stupa on a hill, as interesting as the stupa is however the ropeway ride (only 1 person fits inside) up and down.


Nalanda, close to Rajgir, had once a very big and old Buddhist university. Nowadays only a lot of ruins of the university buildings and temples remain. The landscape around the place is also very nice, many rice fields and palm trees around.

Varanasi

Varanasi is the holiest of the holy Indian cities! To get there was quite difficult, from the Bandhavgarh National Park we needed 48 hours... the distance wouldn't be a lot, but our journey was exactly during the Indian Diwali festival (like Christmas for us) and the buses and trains were full... From Tala we took 3 buses, all of them more than full, people were sitting on the roofs, to get to Rewa, the closest bigger town. There we wanted to take a nightbus to Varanasi, but unfortunately this was impossible. These buses exist, but they were too crowded, people jumped in and out of the windows even before the bus came to its stand in the bus station! Other buses were canceled, so we had no other choice than looking for a hotel to stay somewhere overnight. After looking for a long time we finally found a place and there we stayed till the next day late in the afternoon. Then we took a bus to Satna, from where we had a ticket in a night train to Varanasi. We arrived there on time, but for the train we could wait for ages... instead of leaving at 19.30 pm, it came finally at 2:30 and all the time we had to wait somewhere (in an uncomfortable sitting area) in the station, because they postponed it many times...
Well, instead of arriving in Varanasi at 4.40 am the next morning, we got there at 12.40, 8 hours delayed!

The old town of Varanasi is nice, especially along the banks of the Ganges which are full of Ghats (steps). The streets inside the old town are so small that only bicycles and motorbikes can pass, so it's quiet. However it's very dirty, sometimes smells bad and it's also full of cows...
In 2 Ghats along the river they burn dead people in a big fire. After a small ceremony they burn the body and at the end the rest of it they throw into the river. It's possible to see this event from very close, but it's not allowed to make photos. The river is useful for everything, during the whole day people take baths, clean the body and teeth, wash clothes and dry them afterwards on the steps, drink holy water, ceremonies, etc.


Fredi made a good job as captain on a boat to go along the ghats. From the boat we had a nice view towards the steps and the temples and palaces on the river bank. People go inside the river and prey next to it.


Sunrise on the Ganges river, many people are already on the way to the river, for example they put candles inside, and many tourists take a boat ride.



One day we went to the fort on the other side of the river. Except a nice view from the walls there's only a museum which has some not really old things which are in a quite bad condition; broken, full of dust, poor labellings, etc.


The old town with its narrow streets, full of people and cows.


On a half day trip we went to Sarnath, the place where Buddha hold his first speech after his enlightenment. Except a few ruins of monasteries and temples it doesn't have more to show, only a small museum.

Indian Railway

With 1,6 million employees Indian Railway is the world's biggest employer! The trains are always full, 11 million people use them every day and 8000 locomotives are on a network of more than 66000 km. These are the main facts, another one is, that the trains are always late!

To get the timetables of the trains, we bought already in Delhi a book with everything inside, it has a lot of pages and at first look it's quite difficult to understand it, it's full of numbers and times. If the correct page with the desired route is found, then starts the search for a train which runs from the places you wanna go. To make it more complicated it's very important to check the days, because many trains doesn't run every day...

Trains doesn't have only one class, 2nd and 1st class are divided in subclasses which makes everything more complicated. Except the basic (general) 2nd class, which is the cheapest one and so the most people use it, it's complicated to get a ticket. Apart of the 1st class, the 2nd class is divided into 2 AC, 3 AC, AC chair class, Sleeper and finally the cheapest gereral class.

Once found the train you'd like to take, it's necessary to fill in a paper with all information about the train and passengers. Afterwards it's possible to queue up in front of a counter in the railway station. If you're unlucky, but it can be quite common, you have to wait for 1 hour in this queue for your turn. A problem can also be, that Indian people doesn't know how to make a queue, so all are around the counter and try to get the ticket first, a real chaos and for a tourists hard to find a way through it.

Well, once you arrive, you can handle the paper to the employee which tries to book the train if possible, that means if it isn't already full. There are also waiting lists available for the trains, the problem in this case is that you never know for sure if you get a seat on the train or not...

By the way, it's possible to fill in more than 1 form and so book more than 1 train, quite a good investment to avoid again the same procedure as described before.

Well, once in possession of a ticket with reservation, it's possible to board this train. First however has to arrive the train and normally it's late than published on the timetable. If the waiting room isn't full, it's a good place to sit down quietly. When the train finally arrives, it's just necessary to find the correct wagon and take the seat or berth. If it's already occupied, which can easily happen in the trains which are often quite full, then the other person moves normally without problems to another free place.

During the train trip it's easy to get in touch with people and enjoy the landscape through the open doors, doors which are never closed. Often the train has to stop on the way, sometimes people get out to walk around, normally the trains hoots before continuing, so passengers can get on it again.
Night trains are usually good to save money and time, but Indian people are very noisy, trains stop often and people enter and go out, so it might be hard to find sleep. It's possible fix the luggage below the seats witha locker, so at least you don't have to worry about it. If the train gets full, people from the normal general class look for space in the upper classes, so it might be possible that it's necessary to fight for the berth, especially if it's the lower one you're occupying.

By the way, it's now possible to book tickets online, but they don't accept all credit cards and you have to register first. The website is however useful to get information about available trains and seats before going to the station to book it and also check the status for a reservation which is on a waiting list. It's also possible to check the running status of the trains, means if it has delay or not... Well, could be quite a good tool, but as for the information on the waiting list and also in general, never trust it.

Due to the stops and an average speed which is rarely higher than 40 km/h, the trains usually are delayed. Our worst case so far has been 8 hours... quite annoying waiting for hours in the station for the reserved train, especially if they always change the delay, for example first it had had only 3 hours, but afterwards they always increased it.

The big advantage of the trains is that it's normally more comfortable than buses. Those old carriages have only one goal, put as much people as possible inside and a bus never can be too full! In case the interior is really too crowded you can climb up to the roof and take a seat there. Inside the bus are often 3 + 2 people sitting in a row + additional one's if necessary (children doesn't count). As Indian people mainly aren't tall, there isn't normally a lot of space between 2 rows, for tall people it can be a real problem to take a seat.
Well, buses are old and roads often too, means that it can be a bumpy experience, the seats in front of the bus are better than at the back where you can get a free rollercoaster... Stops of sometimes more than 30 minutes at bus stations + bad roads slow down the average speed to maybe around 30 to 40 km/h... so it can take ages to get from one place to another one, India is a big country so distances as well.

Indian trains stopping at a station, sleeper class wagon (quite comfortable, at night you get your own berth, but during the day it can get overcrowded).


A nearly empty reservation room at a station, the cows know already better how to get a ticket than Indian people, this one is qeueing up correctly in front of the desk!

By the way, cows are everywhere, inside the stations, on the railway tracks, in the middle of streets in the countryside but also in small and big cities. As a holy animal, the traffic flow goes around the cows, even if they take a rest in the middle of a busy street or wanna cross it! The cows are like a quiet, small island in the middle of the Indian traffic chaos, and this one can really be horrible. Every driver thinks that he has to be the first one passing a junction, so they drive from all sides in meet each one in the middle, where nobody wanna give way to another one... Except honking the horns (of course all together at the same time, something horrible they do anyway always) they aren't able to get an order. It's possible to wait for minutes on the same position without moving a meter... Rikschas are smaller than cars and trucks, so they find easier a way through the chaos.

About the rikschas, as everywhere in India entrance fees are always 10, 15 times more expensive for foreigners than for local people (for the Taj Mahal the difference is nearly 40 times more), they think that also rikschas have to be much more expensive for tourists... Sometimes it can get really annoying to find a driver who offers a reasonable price. For an Indian fare they normally does't want to carry a foreigner, it always has to be a bit more otherwise they prefer to drive alone and let you standing in the rain!

In this case it's just possible to repeat the slogan of India tourism: INCREDIBLE INDIA
This one is really true, in positive and negative ways!!!

Jabalpur, Kanha and Bandhavgarh National Parks

Well, after Khajuraho we contiued our trip to Jabalpur, a bit in the south. The city is busy and dirty as all cities in India and has no attraction. However outside of it are the Marble rocks, a marble canyon and a waterfall, and the city is the base to go to the 2 National Parks in the area, the Kanha and Bandhavgarh.


In the marble canyon we had an expensive boat ride, we were the only tourists. Afterwards we walked to the waterfall where we had a nice view of the canyon.


Well, as the city doesn't has anything of interest we continued directly to Kathia, the village just outside the Kanha National Park. This place is famous for the tiger population which lives inside, it should be more than 100!
Unfortunately going there wasn't worth it, the entrance to the park is only possible by jeep and this is a very expensive adventure. As no other tourists were around, we left the place without seeing the park.
The village with the houses painted in blue and white are also nice and in the hotel many monkies visited us, it's funny to see them eating and playing around (this race is much more quite than the other agressive one).


As walking inside the national park isn't possible, we did it outside. The landscape is nice, but we couldn't see any tiger... just spiders and 2 jackals.



As the Kanha National Park wasn't a good place to visit, we thought it would be better in Bandhavgarh, another park more in the north and also famous for the tigers. To get to this national park, to Tala (the village in side it) is even more complicated than to the other one, but at the end we reached it. Compared with the Kanha, we also found quite a lot of tourists and so we could share a jeep on the 2nd day.
Actually we already wanted to go on a jeep safari the 1st day, but as the administration here in India is complicated and normally not understandable (for western tourists nothing is possible, for Indian one's all), they didn't let us in at 6 o'clock in the morning. So, we went for a walk outside the village, which was very nice, due to the high grass everywhere however we couldn't see any animals except monkies.
As we wanted to go on another walk in the afternoon, the guards wanted to stop us (the only tourists) as it isn't allowed anymore at this time... Another strange thing and when we asked why, they couldn't give us any answer. Already enough from the missed jeep safari in the morning and the other Indian national park, we disregared the guards and continued our way (the same as we did in the morning).
Well, finally on the 2nd day we managed to get on the jeep and so entering the park. However we lost more than half an hour waiting in front of the gate because of a mistake of the park office... at the end we also missed a tiger, we arrived 5 minutes late and the jeeps before us could see one crossing the street... Again bad luck, except an expensive tour and the same animals as always, we couldn't see anything more.


On our walk through high grass, a good place for the tigers to hide themselves, bad for us. Officially this area isn't part of the park, but just a few meters away from it and open for animals.


On our jeep safari, we started at 5.30 in the morning and we stayed from 6.30 to 9.45 in the park. The landscape is nice, but the animals always the same one's: deers, monkies and jackals...