The ongoing Wow

Banaras



Well, I always wanted to go to Varanasi. And I finally made it. When i arrived there i was straight running into uncleji Rattan. He took me with him for his daily pooja-run. We visited many holy places. Rituals are performed in a very public way here. It is very astonishing how much time many people are spening with religion. I was staying at Assighat and met many interesting people there. Did some boating on Ganga. Saw the burning of corpses. Talked to manymany people. Met f.e. the wonderful documentaryfilmaker Petr Lom. Have been into the very stupid movie “FoolnFinal” with my friend Aalok, whom I definitely will meet again in Bombay. Saw the first season of “My name is earl”. Did 3 hours of yoga everyday at 47 degrees. It was mindblowing. Then I met a bunch of nice US-girls who took me for a Buddhism tour to Sarnath, where Buddha gave his first teachings. We also went for buying Bollywoodmovies together and had lots of fun. I hope these Bollywoodnewbies will like my Film-suggestions. (I recommended them LRM, KHNH, K3G, Hum Tum and stuff like this). It turned out that they had one AC-Trainticket to Delhi left. So I had a wonderful free ride to Delhi after one week of mindblowing supersticious Varanasi. I still cannot believe how many rituals there are. And I am a very bad anthropologist- I was rather bored of it. Incredible how much time and energy people take for this stuff. And indeed so many Indian people seem to hide something (like smoking, drinking, fucking around with prostitutes,….). It is gross. But everybody keeps talking with the white lady about their secrets and then worries on the next day if I told anybody. Whatever. Banaras was really a tough choice to go, not only cause of the temperatures. But I wanted to see this city which is supposed to be the most “Indian” city. To bad that I am not much of a fotographer.



Delhi
So then I spent one night and one day in Delhi again. I had my backpack with me and explored Chandni Chowk, the Gandhi Samadhi and India Gate. So it was obvious to take more Can-pictures.



I found a nice Rikschawdriver and did what everybody with little money and much time would do: I said: take me to the shop. So then I spent 20 minutes in some shops. And cause the driver got a nice commission for it I had a free rikschaw-ride for the rest of the day.



Then I had the worst busride ever. As all the time I was guaranteed by the travelagent that the Bus is a nice comfortable Volvo, that the Bus will leave in time, that it has AC and all this stuff. Every thing the Travelagent told me turned out to be lie. It was really horrible but actually I was not really surprised. We had a rebellion in the bus at 2pm at 20km outside of Delhi cause the AC was not working. People created a real bad situation. Then finally we could leave Delhi at 3 pm. But we were stucked in traffic till 5 pm. We were supposed to reach Nainital at 7 and finally arrived at 12:30. Well, at least I had some very nice conversation with 17 years old guy named “Honey”, who is fluent in English and will become a pilot soon. And, arewah!, his daddy once played pool with Amitabh. And I think he is looking just like Siddhu, doesn’t he?




Nainital
My good karma made me run into the lawyer Nusrat shortly after arriving in Nainital. So the next days I was with this wonderful and mindblowing openhearted and openminded familyfather from Lucknow in the backlands around Nainital. We did a small pilgrimjourney to the school where Amitabh Bachchan went to. And we also visited the bording-school where “Koi Mil Gaya…” was shooted.



We had an extraordinary good time and it is so fine to be in the mountains again. And Nusrat is amazed about the Can. Oh my god- we had so much fun (more pictures coming up soon). And we went for a clubbing which would freak out some people I know in Vienna. All the familymembers were dancing together to “Jhoom Barabar Jhoom”. The 6 years old children doing a choreography on stage. And the youngsters and parents freaking out in Bhangra-rhytms, while crazy Dj`s changing the music every 30 seconds. Deewanna.

Still many more to say. But no time hai. I have to catch the next bus.
Stay tuned.