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After spending a painful 7 hours at the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu we somehow managed to bag our visa and eventually leave Nepal to India. A quick note for anyone considering spending time at any Indian Embassy ... don't do it. The combination of tediously slow bureaucratic officials having to serve spaced out hippies looking to find themselves is not a good one. Add to this the complete lack of information or signage and you find you've lost a day. Oh well we made our way by bus to the boarder and spent a pleasant evening on the Nepalese side planning our onward journey in India.
The next morning we got up early and by 6.15am we had crossed over into India and by 6.23 we had been mugged - well done India. So what happened? Having crossed the border we were searching for a bus to Varanasi, we found it, asked the price and hopped on. Storing our bags at the back of the bus we settled down only for the conductor to approach us and ask for double the fare that we'd just agreed - oh dear. Now this should have been a clear sign for us to get off the bus but we were tired, run down and just wanted to get to Varanasi so foolishly after much protestations we paid. You expect little scams like this when "travelling" what you don't expect is for your bus to then pull over and let two thugs onto the bus who then demand a further payment from you in 'baggage charge'. As you can expect we were having none of this and in our most formal English explained that we had already paid our fare and these burley gentlemen were having no more of our hard earned cash.
Our well thought out arguments were rebuked with a clear "give us more money or we will beat you and kick you off the bus" with such a strong counter argument we reluctantly parted with yet more of our hard earned cash - b******s. So a bus journey that should have cost us £3.20 actually cost us £24.00 - damn it. The worst bit though was the fact that we'd been threatened with a beating and now had to sit on the bus for a further 9 hours with the same conductor who had scammed us and been part of the mugging - it was not a pleasant journey.
So normally that would be that. But as you all well know, we are a couple of stubborn individuals who really don't like being threatened or being taken advantage of. So the next day in Varanasi we took ourselves off to report the crime. Back to the bus station we found the offices of the bus company and watched as Indian bureaucracy kicked in. First we had to explain what happened to the assistant, and then we repeated it to the 'station manager' then the 'regional manager'. We then had to make a written statement, and then sit in the office with all these officials whilst we sipped chi and watched as various conversations unfolded around us in Hindi. The upshot was that the bus company was particularly apologetic ('you are our guests' 'India does not need this at a time like this' etc) and gave us our money back and promised us that the conductor would be investigated, cautioned, would probably lose his job and may even 'be sent to jail' - get in! So there is a moral here: we may not be fighters or the strongest people around but my word ... we can snitch, telltales, grass and squeal with the best of them. We do feel a little guilty that we may have sent a man to prison ... but hey he mugged us so screw him!
Drama over, we had a great couple of days in Varanasi. Varanasi is on the Ganges and - as all you Hindus out there will know - it's regarded as a deeply holy place and where many Indians go to cremate the dead. So you walk along the banks of the river turn the corner and oh look a cremation, turn the next corner and there's loads of people washing in the river, round the next corner people doing laundry and round the next there is some water buffalo wallowing. So a great place for people watching and generally watching the world go by - a great way to round off this leg of our trip. So after Varanasi we trained it back to Delhi (a very civilised journey with no criminal activity!) had a pleasant day sightseeing, then flew back to the UK for a wedding, Christmas and New Year.
It's cold here isn't it? Our plans now are to enjoy a few weeks in the UK before jetting off again in January to explore Australia, New Zealand and 'South America'(details tbc) and we'll be continuing the blog then.
Merry Christmas Polly and Pete
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