We are baaack: Delhi, Holi, Varanasi!

Ganesha on the wall

***SPOILER ALERT***

Just 2 fast facts:

1) We are back to Europe! Yes, for real! And so many things have happened in the past 6 months that we weren’t really able to keep up with the blog. But it doesn’t mean we don’t want to finish our story, even from here. So stay tuned and we’ll keep on posting!

2) We managed to make our first photo exhibition of the trip in Chiavenna (Anto’s hometown) and it was a big success! Now we want to make it real in a city environment, Poznan and/or Berlin. Maybe contact us if you think you might help with a tip, a place or anything that could be needed. https://www.facebook.com/events/314171545437870/

***END SPOILER***

Laughter Yoga at 6am in the park

This is a special post as it has been written by an other guest: the crazy artist  Ernestyna Orlowska, with whom we shared some of the way:

“It was in the middle of the night. We (My boyfriend Jan and I) had just arrived from Switzerland and took a prepaid rickshaw to Munirka Market in Delhi. And who stood there? Antonio! My dear friend who once did me the favor to kidnap me out of a church in Berlin (no it was not on my wedding… it was something else, ask him when you get a chance). Next to him a polish exchange student, who offered us his couch (or a bed and some floor) for a couple of days. I was my first time in India, so I was very happy to have two professional India travellers to show me how things roll in this place. They introduced my to the Dabbas, Thalis, Chais. They showed me the chikoo fruits that is something in between a pear and a plum or so. They told me not to look at the monkeys, otherwise they would jump in my face or steal my bag. They led me to a Sikh temple, where we all hoped to get free food, instead we got some very strange white kind of sweet (I think dessert is not the strength of the indian culture). Munirka Market was on the outskirts of Delhi, we were the only white people there, except this one time I saw a white, very lost-looking couple sitting in front of an ATM, the girl holding a red rose. What I only noticed later: I didn’t see any cows in Delhi. Probably they swiped them all out once in a dark and foggy night. We took walks in the beautiful parks of Delhi, drank coconut water, tried pan, the digestive spice stuff wrapped in a green leave (disgusting in my opinion) and watched a theater group in a park doing a play about rape. 

You’ll never forget your first time

Paan

The polish exchange student, Lukasz, lives in a 6-story house, and sometimes we would do some Yoga up there, and Anja even did a laughter yoga session with us (on our way back to Switzerland, we were one more time on that rooftop, and the monkey clan was having a gathering up there. We filled a banana peel with toilet paper and taped it together, so it looked like a normal banana. We placed it on the roof. One monkey after the other came, eating the content of the banana peel, spitting it out, and trying to eat it, again and again. They just didn’t get it).

Promoting fabrics for Nawaz

We moved to another couchsurfer, Nawaz, a young indian artist who paints shoes, trashcans and much more. Here we discovered the pleasure of Tibetan Food Home Delivery Service. Anja and Anto took tours in having fever, and me and Jan left to Vrindavan. We took a rickshaw to the exit of Delhi and wanted to hitchhike, but a few minutes later we found ourselves in a local bus with a little indian kid on the lap, driving to Vrindavan. Because: We wanted to spend HOLI, the feast of Lord Krishna, in Lord Krishnas birthplace.

On Holi, people throw pigments on each other, because Krishna got poisoned mother-milk and turned blue. Then he was very depressed, because he thought, he would never find a girlfriend. His mom was so annoyed with his whining, that she told him to color some random girl. So he colored Radha and they became a couple (poor Radha, stolen the chance to find another hubby).

Holi in Vrindavan was aggressive, and I found out, that I did not appreciate people throwing buckets with colored water, using water machine guns with colored water or bad smelling color foam out of the spray can in my direction. We were hiding in a Hare Krishna Ashram until that thing was over.

Meanwhile, Anja and Anto spent a really nice Holi in a Delhi neighborhood, winning money in games that were played in the park.

Playing HOLI on the streets

Playing on the train

We moved on to Varanasi, where they joined us again, a few days later. It was so hot, and we spent the days meeting basic needs and walking along the Ghats. My sweetheart stopped smoking and was in a bad mood, so to cheer him up, I invited all of us on a boat ride on the Ganga. But what did my dear boyfriend do? He jumped into the Ganga. In Varanasi, the Ganga is 2000 times more polluted than what the World Healt Organisation calls the maximum. No wonder, with all the dead people and cattle and ashes. Here they burn dead people, and a few meters next to that, people wash their clothes and themselves. The water contains a lot of silver (from the spring, it has an antibiotic effect or something like that), that is why it has not become a bigger disaster with the pollution, so far.

Travel buddies

Chai, the Indian tea

Sunrise

The Holy city of Varanasi on the Ganga

Every evening, the Ganga Aarti is being performed: Priests dancing with all kinds of items in their hands, loud music and incense. All for the worship of the holy Goddess Ganga.

Varanasi is the place where I found the most annoying kids, trying to sell their swimming candles in flower baskets. They just didn’t let go of you. It was quite fascinating. Once they spotted another tourist, they went off to torture them, but only to return to you, after 2 minutes.

Contemplation

Small monks

Cycle rickshaw

Not to miss in Varanasi is the Bhang Lassi at Baba Tandais place, a Lassi that you get together with a green, wet ball that smells like shit and probably contains all parts of the marihuana plant. I could resist the temptation, but Anto and another traveler that we were hanging out with, had their fun with it. Or was it rather bad? I think Anto wished to have ordered the smaller portion.

Bhaang!

Neo-jugglers on the street

Then we said goodbye to A & A out there, and moved on to Nepal, where we experienced all kinds of adventures (weddings, dramas, dead people, lakes, waterfalls, rivers, the 10th highest mountain of the world and village life like 1000 years ago) to be told another time.”