Enjoying the Oberoi. Once the Grande Dame of Calcutta hotels. A bit frayed around the edges but a welcome oasis from the mayhem of another Indian city. A massive street market on the doorstep so had to buy a couple of white cotton shirts to supplement my wardrobe. 2 for ten quid and they haven’t fallen apart yet!

A private guide and driver took me for a city tour. A couple of temples

Then some of the old colonial district where the East India Company operated out of back in the day. Including the Anglican church and a memorial to the victims of the infamous Black Hole.

The vast Victoria Memorial which unfortunately is closed on Mondays. A pretty impressive building/ legacy considering Queen Victoria never made it to India.

Lunch – well an anaemic chicken sandwich (with the crusts removed of course!) in the oldest coffee shop in town

Sara (my ex and close mate) was born in Calcutta in the mid fifties and lived there for a few years. I had always said that if I was ever in Kolkata I would see if her old home was still there. So armed with the address from her birth certificate my guide and driver set off to investigate. Unfortunately the house was long gone having been replaced with a (residential complex).

The photos that follow were of the family pets which included two orphaned tiger cubs. Including Sara’s mum bottle feeding one on the sofa.

Only 65 years ago – definitely a bygone era!!

The next day was spent resting at the Hotel before an evening flight to Delhi and the redeye to Heathrow. Then a four hour drive down to home and Flete House in Devon.

Reunited with Max the next morning

Both happy to be home. Just jetlag and covid hangover to get through……

Postscript

Not the holiday that I had been hoping for. India is a complete tip!! Poverty, pollution and diseases everywhere. Pandaw who have always been reliably brilliant in Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia were a complete shambles. A very unhappy bunch of passengers on both legs of the cruise including those who joined us from other Pandaw cruises.

Absolutely Pandawful and not to be recommended!!!

I will need to find another destination before the whole world implodes and rivers and waterways become unnavigable. Watch this space!!

The Brahmaputra is an immense river that flows out of Tibet, through India where it ultimately joins the Ganges and into the Bay of Bengal. It’s tributaries drain a large proportion of the Himalayas and a combination of “snow melt” and the Monsoons make it one of the world’s greatest rivers in terms of volume of water flow. The volume of silt creates a vast and ever changing combination of islands and sand banks. Needless to say the Chinese have already started disrupting the flow with a series of hydroelectric dams in Tibet (which of course they claim to own).

Impressive in size and scale, especially if you like an endless series of sand banks and relatively featureless riverside activity. Sparsely populated it is flanked by some vast nature reserves containing many endangered species including the one horned rhino and Indian tigers etc.

Our first major excursion involved a bumpy 90 minute minibus ride followed by a two hour float down one of the Brahmaputra’s many tributaries through a somewhat disappointing region known for its variety of bird life. Not today however….

Lots of cormorants, a few herons and a kingfisher or two…

Followed by a wander through a remarkably clean & self sufficient village with lots of fruit & veg growing and some comparatively well tended cattle, goats & pigs etc.

Another dawn start to visit the Kaziranga National Park for some Rhino, Elephant and hopefully Tiger spotting.

Success on the Rhino front and also some impressive Water Buffalo, a lone Elephant and various species of deer. No tigers spotted unfortunately but a recently killed and extremely pongy Water Buffalo carcass was proof that one had recently been in the vicinity.

Lots of bird life which made up for the lack thereof the day before

An obliging kingfisher posing on a dugout canoe and a rare black squirrel up in a tree. Oh and a butterfly..

A trip to a Tea plantation was cancelled as we are again!! “here at the wrong time of year”. Did spot one field of green tea bushes…

A pretty mediocre stop for lunch at as Assamese glamping site and then another long bumpy drive back to the mother ship which had repositioned while we were on our adventure and took an age to locate as they were still building the access road.

Pandaw are clearly running out of things to keep us entertained as we head back downstream – a much more rapid process as we have the not inconsiderable river flow behind us.

A morning walk through a village populated by a well established Bangldeshi (Muslim) community. The local school – madrasa style turned out to greet us and as usual they were as fascinated by us as we were by them!!

Some friendly locals and them back on board to head on downstream.

Our final excursion involved another extremely bumpy tuk tuk ride to a remote village where they make the “finest silk in the world”. I’ve heard that before however still using antiquated methods of spinning and weaving they were producing some very fine scarves and shawls.

A quick display by some local musicians and dancers, a visit from the local beekeeper and then back into the tuk tuks, a quick stop in a local town and back to the ship in time to see the local fisherman catch a sizable catfish next to our mooring

Dinner after a chilly Assamese dance experience on the “sundeck”, followed by the usual full crew introduction. No fancy dress or audience participation this time which was a relief!!! An early start for the trip to the airport and one hour flight from Guwahati to Kolkata with screaming temper throwing brat a few rows behind. How someone didn’t strangle it was a miracle!!!

Checked into the Oberoi in Kolkata (very civilised) for the final couple of days before the long haul back to Blighty.

Everyone relieved to be away from the clutches of Pandaw. Their Indian operation was totally shambolic and to those of us loyal customers, who are used to their normally high standards, in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, a huge disappointment!

Pandawful in fact !!!!!!

More to follow…….

Overnight in Chandernagore which used to be French or Dutch before the Brits dislodged them and took over. A stroll along the riverside with visits to various very tired and dilapidated old colonial buildings including a somewhat garish Catholic?? church, a statue of Ghandi and some confused school children being drilled in preparation for joining the military. A short display of Hitler youth style marching, a chap having his head shaved and the usual bunch of locals bathing and doing their laundry on the ghats leading down to the sewer – sorry river!!

We cruised down stream to our final overnight mooring on the Ganges.

A typical riverside view of the garbage and air pollution that has been omnipresent all along the Ganges……..

Makes for a good sunset but has definitely been a contributary factor to the respiratory problems that we have all been suffering from.

After a night moored on the river in Kolkata (Calcutta to you and me) and a fairly excruciating last night fancy dress party with endless selfies and group photos. I did my best to avoid being dragged onto the dance floor, before a somewhat subdued final dinner of leftovers which seemed to take forever to serve!! After a very early 0530 start, we bade farewell to the Katha Pandaw and their less than competent crew and headed into the Kolkata traffic mayhem for the drive to the airport and the flight to Guwahati where we embark on the next leg of our journey.

Multiple tedious security checks as we made our way through the airport, followed by a one hour flight to Guwahati.

Eventually arrived at the Kindat Pandaw where 12 of us survivors from the Katha were joined by around another dozen passengers joining us from other Pandaw cruises. A slightly larger and more spacious ship. No more fog – yet! and considerately warmer so able to enjoy lunch outside on deck.

A first excursion with the new team and an extremely unnerving experience !!!

After lunch we were bundled into a bunch of minibuses, driven for 40 minutes across town to see a less than impressive Commonwealth cemetery containing a couple of hundred graves from WW2. Being Sunday it was closed so we viewed it from the street. The monkeys invading the apartments across the street were a welcome distraction.

Another 40 minute drive across town to a hillside Hindu temple complex where Shiva had allegedly dropped her womb and is now one of the most venerated shrines/temples in India. After major traffic and parking mayhem we clambered out of the minibuses into a heaving mass of thousands of devotees, pilgrims, worshippers and the usual streets lined with beggars and stalls selling religious paraphernalia and anything and everything.

Your truly needed to answer the call of nature and asked to be directed to the nearest “facility”. Now Pandaw is usually fastidious about herding us around and ensuring that no one gets lost or left behind. I was duly allocated one of the team who pointed me in the right direction. However when I emerged from the less than hygienic “facility” my guide has vanished along with our entire group.

So there I was in a huge temple complex surrounded by thousands of Hindus, not a westerner in sight, no idea where our busses had gone, let alone where our ship was moored!! No one spoke a word of English, oh yes and the sun was starting to set. In other words – completely fucked!!!

After about an hour of about as stressful as it gets, I decided to head up the hill further in case our group were still in the vicinity. Finally I spotted a couple of blond heads making their way down the hill towards me. The entire group appeared and I exploded at the head guide who promptly gave my appointed guide a severe bollocking – apparently he was “new” and had not realised that he was supposed to watch my every move. I was offered a quick viewing of the main temple but I was not really in the mood for Shiva womb worship and just wanted to get back to the safety of the ship.

Not Pandaw’s finest hour and apologies are still resonating. The twat in questions seems have been relegated to on board duties only. And life goes on……..

Phew!!!!

Lhurgie update

The lhurgie that had been ailing me since the start of the Ganges cruise had been confirmed as Covid – some dodgy Indian varient that had managed to circumvent all my vaccines and boosters. So not much fun over the past two weeks and finally the arrival of some testing kits in Kolkata have been negative for several days so I am “safe” to continue with the rest of my adventure. Not what I needed however……

Though still officially part of Ganges, the Hooglie is a much lusher river since we crossed the barrage. The banks are much greener and there is a thriving river community on both banks. The fog has cleared and so at least we can now see where we are going. My lhurgie seems to be on the wane though many of my fellow cruisers are not well bunnies!!

A few stops on the way downstream and visits to several temples, mosques and palaces. All a tad decrepid and messy but that seems to be the norm here!

We are sailing through areas that were pretty pivotal in the East India Company’s initial land grab culminating in the Battle of Plessey at which Clive of India managed to defeat the local armies including the French. The British plundering of India had well and truly started!!

Hare Krishna – give me a break!!

The Hare Krishna movement has come long way from a bunch of orange clad hippies wandering up and down Oxford Street and the King’s Rd in their orange kaftan chanting their mantra and ringing their bells. They are now a HUGE global brand – dare I suggest Cult that has a massive number of temples across the planet. We stopped off at their global HQ where we were shown around their “campus” by a clearly brainwashed American disciple trotting out the party line whilst chanting and banging on about their glorious and now deceased guru, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada who since he emerged in the 60s is clearly a big deal as far as these suckers are concerned!!

Right next door they are building a much huger new Temple that is due for completion next year and must be cosing billions to construct and will supposedly rival The Vatican in scale and magnificence. I did enquire why they didn’t spend the money on much needed schools and hospitals but was firmly put back in my box!!! It’s a memorial to Sri what’s his face that will celebrate his holiness for the next 10000 years.

Quite why the dog in one of the many ghastly tableau on display depicting his holinesses life, is displaying his “manhood” was a question that went unasked and therefore shrouded in mystery!!

I will probably be struck down by some karmic force for the above rant but please…………!!

Anyway back to the ship before heading down to Kalna and a sunny day – yeehaa! A visit to an amazing cluster of terracotta temples. Much more what I had come to see and explore!!

A local mongoose and the regulation in house vegetable peeler…

Back to the ship as we head towards Kolkata and the next leg of our adventure…

A morning tour of Patna where our first stop was a HUGE Sikh temple where they were celebrating a major something or someone. Very strict dress code – no shoes or socks and compulsory head coverings. A couple of hours sliding around on cold wet marble as we wended our way through thousands of Sikh devotees and very loud music and prayer readings and chanting. Needless to say we stuck out like sore thumbs looking like a bunch of western twats as we were forcibly coerced into appearing on live global Sikh TV…….trying to look cheerful as frostbite set in.

A huge kitchen where free meals were being prepared for the thousands of pilgrims and attendees. A Sikh thing apparently…..

Then a trip across town to see an enormous stupa like granary built by the Brits in the 18th century to try to avoid another devastating famine. In 1770 & 1771 millions starved to death due to drought and the appallingly abusive behaviour of the English East India Company.

Designed to be filled from the top – using lots of cheap/slave labour it was never used, as some idiot designed the doors at the bottom to open inwards. Which of course, once filled, it would be impossible to open….

Then back to our ship to set sail, through the fog, downstream on the Ganges, east and then south towards Kolkata. It was by this stage becoming apparant that I was not alone in arriving on board with the lhurgie as there was much coughing and spluttering going on amongst all 17 of the passengers. All apart from me had been cooped up together on a train for 12 hours the day before.

The next few days became a bit of a blur as our floating “petri dish” made its way downstream and we struggled to keep apace of the twice daily shore excursions. I, and several others, took to our cabins as “Delhi Belly”, due to something we ate on board, added to the discomfort and malaise. Onshore “facilities” were virtually non-existent and pretty horrific so my stock of imodium took a hammering!! This despite take all the recommended precaution.

Our passage involved passing through a pontoon bridge which had to be opened specifically for us, much to the relatively good natured traffic that was stopped while various bits were removed and then replaced.

Another ruined University Monastic compound. Much smaller than that at Nalanda but quite impressive none the less.

A small museum containing the few statues and relics that had not been pillaged during the rediscovery and excavation process.

A hilltop ruined palace outside somewhere that used to be owned by one of the Nawabs or Nabobs – it all gets very confusing!!

Getting to these sites usually involves extremely bumpy tuktuk rides through towns, villages and markets. Poverty, squalor and garbage everywhere. Malnourished animals – cows (Sacred!!) goats and dogs feeding mainly on the garbage that is omnipresent and sometimes burning. All struggling to stay warm and alive but at least not eaten!! Some of the goats wear warmer cloths than the humans with whom they cohabit: but suffering from neglect nonetheless!!

Some get some attention and care

But the majority not!!

Can’t bring myself to photograph much of it as it is an appalling abuse of our fellow creatures and the suffering that then endure.

Through a ferry crossing and then a lock to traverse the Farakka barrage. Another masterpiece of Indian misdesign built to divert the Ganges and reduce the flow of silt and the need to dredge the river on its way to the Bay of Bengal. Almost precipitated a war with neighbours Bangladesh whose water supply it cut off, not to mention the impact that it had both above and below the barrage. A total cockup in other words. This time not the fault of the Brits. And this is a country who just managed to land a exploration module. on the moon. The mind boggles………..

Will post this now and then get back to the sites – you do not need the sounds!! – on the next post.

We are not a happy or healthy bunch of travellers with more succumbing and keeling over as we head south. We are now on the Hooglie river as the Ganges has now become. A lot greener and more fertile at least!!

Left Bodh Gaya in thick fog and headed to Nalanda the oldest residential university in the world. Back in the day when Buddha was getting enlightened in around the 5th century BC a huge series of temples and monestaries was constructed as the core of a university to promote Buddhism and learning,

Needless to say at some point around the 12th century the Muslim invaders trashed the place as it was teaching all the wrong things. The site has recently been rediscovered, excavated and in some places restored. In it’s day it housed over 10,000 students and serviced them with full kitchen facilities. Most of the carvings and statues have long since been relocated. Some are in the small museum adjacent to the site.

We drove another 90km to Patna where the Katha Pandaw awaits to take me on down the Ganges to Kolkata. At this stage I just wanted to get on board as my heroic driver Raj who had been coughing an spitting quite a lot had clearly passed on some form of lhurgie and I was starting to feel very flu ridden. Declined a visit to another museum and headed to the ship arriving at about 1430 to discover that all my fellow passengers were stuck on a seriously delayed nightmare of a train journey and would not arrive until much later that evening.

It was a huge relief to have made it and felt like coming home!! Settled into my cabin and had the run of the ship to myself. The lhurgie was worsening so I had an early dinner and decided to retire to my cabin rather than wait for the Gang to arrive. They finally made it at around 22:30 after a gruelling 12 hr train ride. We all met up at breakfast and was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of mates from my Mekong cruise last year.

Bodh Gaya is where Lord Buddah attained enlightenment under the Bhodi Tree and spent a great deal of time hanging out and recruiting his disciples.

A huge Buddhist Temple is the centre of it all and just about every strain or nationality that embraces Buddhism has built temples and monestarys in and around the town.

The Dalai Lama is in town for a couple of weeks to promote World Peace. Good luck there!!!!

I will let the photos speak for themselves but tens of thousands of fully robed monks from all over the buhdist planet is a pretty impressive site. Holy water, incense and flower garlands and petal in mega abundance. Constant prayers and chanting.

Needless to say I stuck out like a sore thumb as I gazed down over sea of safron and marigolds.

A direct (4th generation) descendant of the original Bodha Tree is centre below having been transplanted from Sri Lanka a while ago.

Even the dogs were chilled and even fed!

Further afield: large Buddah statues and ornate temples and monestaries are everywhere. All of the above surrounded with the chaos and mess that I am coming to realise in the norm in India. I checked out the Thai one and then retreated to the hotel for lunch.

Off to Nalanda in the morning where the world’s first residential university was founded several millenia ago whem Buddah was being enlightened. Then finally I get oboard the Kathy Pandaw for a 12 night cruise down the Ganges to Kolkata. I can’t wait as it should be considerably more tranquil than the India of the past few days!!

Originally booked to fly from Varanasi to Bogh Gaya I had managed to switch to going by rail as I was keen to experience the legendary Indian railway network. However awoke to dense – and I mean dense!!! fog. All flights and trains grounded and cancelled. However the ever resilient Pandaw arranged for Raj, my driver to take me by road and then stay with me until I finally board the Katha Pandaw for my cruise down the Ganges.

We set off for what was estimated to be a 6hr drive on a good day, which with the fog, this definitely wasn’t. Indian motorways are either still being constructed or in serious need of repair! Raj managed to navigate the route and fog with a terrifyingly heroic drive of the white knuckle variety which at times I seriously thought was doomed to end in disaster.

Most of the time the fog obscured everything and most of the time I couldn’t look anyway!!

Memo to all Indians of things not to do on or near roads, let alone motorways…..

Do not drive on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic

Do not walk or ride bicycles, motorbike, tuk tuks or rickshaws across or on the wrong side of the road.

Try not to allow sacred cows (loads of them), goats, children or dogs to saunter onto or across the road

Do not drive large herds of sheep along the motorway

Antiquated farm and construction machinery should not crawl along the road in any direction

After several hours I was still unable to work out which were the fast and slow lanes. Needless to say there was no “hard shoulder” and just a series of ditches containing unrecognisably mangled vehicles and machinery.

Anyway after about 3-4 hours the fog started to clear and we made it to the hotel in Bodh Gaya after just under 6 hrs. One of the many Indian gods must have been looking after us.

An afternoon relaxing at the hotel and firing up this blog. Somewhat long winded so far but I’m taking advantage of decent Internet access before the usual problems with rivers and WiFi takes over.

Full immersion into Buddah world tomorrow. “Timing is everything” and the Dalai Lama is in town. So serious OTT security everywhere that I plan to go. Needless to say it is swarming with saffron & redrobed monks and pilgrims.

Where do they get all the petals and incense from???

After breakfast we set off through the crosstown chaos and mayhem for an hours drive to Sarnath and the deer park where Lord Buddah gave his first sermon in around 500 BC, after his “enlightenment” and where a vast Buddist monastarial complex was build. It beccaame one of the four places of pilgrimage that Buddhists were supposed to visit – a kind of Buddhist “Mecca”. However when the Turkish Muslims arrrived in the 12th century they trashed the place and it remained hidden and smothered in jungle until a deer hunting Brit discovered it in the late 18th century. Needless to day the Brits did a thorough job of excavating and plundering of the site. Relics were discovered including a few bones and pearls which were chucked into the Ganges. In the mid 19th century it was rediscoverd by another Brit who surveyed the entire site and carted off anything of value to Calcutta and beyond. Lots of bricks were removed and used for a multitude of contruction projects around the Varanasi area. The main Stupa has been restored and the whole site excavated and is now a UNESCO World heritage site and place of pilgrimage.

Very impressive and a welcome relief from the mayhem of Varanasi which we then had to navigate to get back to the hotel in time for the evening sunset ritual along the ghats.

Another boat ride ensued – motorised this time – and some serious jostling for position involving an enormous amount of pushing and shouting as several hundred boats of all shapes and sizes arrived simultaneously.

Tens of thousands of Hindus and tourists lined the banks to participate in the nightly Aarti spectacle of ritual celebration and worship. An extraordinary sight – totally OTT involving flowers, candles, flames and chanting, bells and wailing. This went of for about an hour and was a full-on visual and audio assault on the senses. Apparantly this was a small gathering and on key festive days in the Hindu festive calendar (of which there are many) hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions attend.

It was hard to say which was more entertaining – the ceremony along the ghats or the multitude of naval battles taking place in the river. Suddenly it was over and the flotilla disentangled itself and dispersed. We motored back to the sanctity of the hotel and dinner. Passing a multitude of fiery cremations that are carried out on a 24/7 basis on several key ghats. The practice of Sati where widows were burned alive on their husbands funeral pyres was banned by the Brits in 1829 though there were isolated incidents reported in remote areas on India as recently as the late 20th century.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to take the train to Bodh Gaya where Buddah was enlightened so full on Buddhism beckons………

The first thing that I always do upon arrival in whatever country I am entering is to purchase a data SIM card so that I am not reliant on the extremely limited communal Wi-Fi that is offered on board whatever vessel that I am about to board. This can usually be done swiftly and reasonably at the airport that I have landed in. India had other ideas and I had to get my guide to take me to a shop in the city where two extremely frustrating hours was spent filling in multiple forms and validation procedures. We got there in the end. Eric Newby in his very amusing 1960s travelogue “Slowly Down the Ganges” summed it up thus:

“The inhabitants of India have a simple genius for concocting exasperating situations which, however much time one may have lived in the country and however much one may have anticipated them, burst on the victim each time with pristine force”.

Boy was he right!!!!!!

Now I knew that Varanasi was high on the bucket list of your average Hindu – if there is such a thing – as they all want to come here to die and/or get cremated on the banks of Mother Ganga. What I wasn’t prepared for was a city which, with what is known as “urban sprawl”, currently has a population of 3 million people and is even by Indian standards completely out of control !!! Total mayhem of traffic and pedestrian chaos with tuktuks, sacred cows, goats, monkeys, way too many stray and malnourished dogs, and a myriad of gods critters thrown in. Mind you come to think about it, no cats. Maybe they took one look at it and went sod this and went elsewhere!?! All accompanied by throngs of Hindu pilgrims and tourists, all making their way to, and vying for position along, the sacred ghats that stretch for approximately 5 km along one bank of the River Ganges.

My hotel was an extremely welcome oasis and refuge from all of the above despite the monkey problem and the funeral pyres on the ghat below.

Due to the ban on firearms the hotel instead employs a man with a large stick to patrol the balconies and roof terrace to keep the monkeys at bay. Not very successfully I might add…..

A very early start on a freezing misty morning involved a trip in a rowing boat along the ghats at sunrise (which due to the mist it didn’t!) to see a multitude of Hindus perform their prayers and ablutions in what has to be one of the most heavily polluted sections of river in the world, And that’s before they sweep the not always fully cremated ashes into it. They do it for it’s cleansing and spiritually purifying qualities and some even drink it and/or bottle it to take home!!! Anyway I didn’t even dip my finger in it and after a walk through the narrow streets being the ghats made it back to the hotel for breakfast.

More monkeys, a huddle of stray dogs, and always my favourite, a man showing off his snake…

Next up, after breakfast we headed across the nightmare that is Varanasi to see where Buddah “found enlightenment” and where the invading Muslims decided to demolish a HUGE Buddhist monestery complex. I will post this now and cover the rest of day one in the next post.