India-Bangladesh travelogue, Winter 2007

[Sean McHugh]

India and Bangladesh, winter 2007 (not polished work!!)

India’s sacred philosophical tradition provides it with a backcloth of unmatched richness, making it the cultural centre of the world. Its contrasting norms and values and confident identity provide an intoxicating experience with many thought provoking observations for the Westerner, putting ones understanding through a different lens. As with many places though it's being subject to processes of change- its development is far behind China’s but does indeed seem to be progressing in a similar way; it’s had many invaders across many centuries and subsumed them all under the power of its identity, and the issue is how far it can do this again. Hopefully a distinction can be made between material development and the excesses and corrosive effects of Western mass culture.

 

I also made trips to India eight and ten years ago and everywhere remains the involving flux of characteristic scenes and activity, varied religious expression, and the sense of a refined gauze across everything despite the bedlam. Streets see endless animals- cows, buffaloes, camels, elephants, horses, goats, pigs, sheep, chickens, monkeys, dogs, cats, rats and birds: herds progress downs streets in the thick of rickshaws, bikes and throngs of people. The sunlight is particularly ravishing and mellow in winter, bathing all in a gold glow and gently illuminating and enhancing pale colours; the fields, plains and sky shimmer in the heat and stillness: there's a connection between the climate and the Indian temperament- the almost spiritual haze has a parallel in the lack of articulation and disinclination even to say 'yes' and instead the marvellous sideward head movement meaning only 'I understand'. Arguably reality isn't comprised of delineated components with particular attributes to find the truth about but indeed merges holistically together.

Increasing wealth is enriching rather than detracting from the culture in people being better and more colourfully dressed, especially the women and their saris, and less dust meaning the cities are even more a seething blaze of sights, the drabness lessened as buildings are painted in characteristic styles- higher standards have allowed the delicate rainbow that was always there to be better brought out. However the travel experience has been softened with more roadworthy vehicles, street lights, illuminated signs, painted instead of rusted trains, fresh banknotes, phones, internet, menus with more than curry, and things generally not in quite such a bad state- there’s even less dung and rubbish: it’s as though there was something in the harsher realities that has cultural value. India’s intensity and strength has slipped slightly, the sophistication bevelled in parallel with the worst of the living conditions.

Traditional battered wooden rickshaws of tremendous character and unity with their environment are now seen alongside quality Western vehicles, almost nowhere to be found in the 1990s, the aesthetic power and inwardness giving way to squeaky clean, soullessly manufactured curves of glass and metal; dung dumping cows and bulls, with their sacred imperturbability and virility, are threatened with removal from the streets; and more and more train station platforms have caretakers, in shifts governed by whatever rational schemata, and are being upgraded into the usual neurotic cleanliness and anonymity. When public spaces are never swept or cleaned there’s no worry about keeping them so and no-one bothers you at unspecified moments, pushing you out the way with a broom- the attention and focus have a little less stress and interruption: Quentin Crisp’s insight that 'after the first four years the dust doesn't get any worse' is being lost.

Scenes may still be compared with the refined impressions of Turner paintings, but at least in the larger and tourist trail towns they're changing. Disheartening aspects of modernization then include more insensitive fearful foreign tourists peering through the tinted windows of safe aircon coaches, whereas before you could walk around sites alone in a much harsher and culture-shocking environment. Alongside this, guidebooks were fabulous things to read once, alluding to other worlds and appealing to a necessary open mindedness toward the new, whereas now most are offensive rubbish, putting the travel experience on the surface in childish jokey terms and appealing to the cliquiness of sameness. A culture is enriched by less under-development and support from society in as far as in order to look after oneself and deal with life the attention tends to be focussed inwards more rather than remaining on the surface.

 

The concern is what has happened to Thailand for instance is happening here- in the mid ‘90s Bangkok had far more foliage and much of it quiet, refined and sophisticated in a way it simply no longer is: if you hadn't been there you could just never know what it had over the present metropolis, and Delhi’s refurbished roads, market areas and neon marketing lights are looking distinctly Thai. Indian culture runs deeper though and it sometimes seems that the West's excesses must always have an antipode, perhaps in a way similar to the wind's inability to blow everywhere on a sphere but necessarily having points of rest and reference. There are over 600 000 visitors annually now, an enormous increase from only a few years ago, but the smaller and less visited places remain largely untouched by Westernisation and tourists are much less of a horde just bringing their own culture with them; even on the train to Jhansi south of Agra I was the only Caucasian.

India’s being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century but needs to avoid a levelling of the character of its society down to the simplistic desires of the largest, democratic tier of society at the base. The qualities and unique insights of Indian culture and religion have come top down not bottom up, whereas Westernisation as lead by the moronic masses means passive television, junk food, ring tones, celebrities and the rest of pop culture’s white noise and rubbish. And surely even the masses don't really want this, but instead something to believe in and feel part of, something not just determined by them. There's a confidence to the south-southeast Asians which can come as a surprise- there's a self-assurance and spring in their step you don't quite see in the West.

Unfortunately, if understandably, most Indians who speak to foreigners do so with a few to getting money out of them and have little compunction about deception, especially in view of the wealth differences. The idea is that if your attention’s focussed only on the surface of things then you can rightly be deceived, and certainly you’ll be wanting to kick yourself as much as them. It's a place where good personal organisation is a constant need and where small mistakes will count against you, possibly drastically: you need to think all the time, and which also perhaps justifies the disapproval towards alcohol.

I only use budget hotels- I wouldn't use expensive ones even with a lot of money to spend, and indeed in most places they don't exist: you want to be as close to the local way of life as possible without compromising safety or cleanliness too much, and without having to address moral questions about high spending in a place of such poverty; Indian ones are around $5 a night. Occasionally there may be the company of rodents, ants, spiders or cockroaches (ten inches once) but they also tend to be secure with plenty of staff around. You don’t let your guard down- at one place I asked for a bucket of hot water and they gave me the exposed element of an old immersion heater with wires coming out the top, to plug in and place in the water myself, suspended by a piece of wood across the top: absolutely lethal. At least in the north in the winter months there are few mosquitoes and a net isn’t needed- the days are pleasant but nights much cooler.

The Taj Mahal at Agra is a mausoleum built by the Muslim Moghul ruler Shah Jahan, over 20 years in the early 17<SUP>th</SUP> century in memory of his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal who died young- it's a quite profound statement of eternal love and very moving, with the solemnity, strength and passion of great art. The building's proportions are unexpected but have fabulous unity and rhythm, as though reverberating within themselves, and indeed the interior under the massive dome provides an appropriately strange echo; there’s also a Hindu lightness, sense of play and range of colours as the sun moves. He was devastated by his loss and spared no expense ensuring she'd never be forgotten- numerous precious stones were imported from many countries and worked by artisans in fine detail, all at immense cost: to think he would do this as you walk around is rather touching.

 

Lengthy train and bus rides get you to Khajuarho, a small town famous for its erotic medieval temple complex; interesting to see immense numbers of all-over bright green birds here making a tremendous racket, swarming around a few trees on the edge of the town, really deafening to walking past.

I made it to Puri on the east coast after shuffling across two or three towns near Khajuraho for the right rail network- they had no entries in the guidebook but were quite interesting urban India, vibrant, mean and unclean. Puri's a town with a famous large temple to Jaganath, a somewhat abstract form of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place>Krishna</st1:place>; certain gods are popular in certain areas and little known in others. It's one of four pivotal religious sites in the country's points of compass but unfortunately non-Hindus aren't allowed inside: I didn’t bother arguing that I’ve studied Hinduism and visit a large local temple in <st1:country-region><st1:place>England</st1:place></st1:country-region>.

At pilgrim towns like this there’s added religious symbolism and minor temples around, a larger bovine contingent and extra beggars and other unfortunates pestering you for good favour, as well as the usual touts and scammers. There's plenty of accommodation and lots of Westerners, Japanese and Koreans, although they're drowned out by the devoted throngs and you can still go all day in town without seeing them; you can also walk to a pleasant and extensive beach.

There are far fewer auto-rickshaws here and instead mostly cycle-rickshaws: harder on the driver but at least a green and quiet vehicle, they come with retractable rain/ sun roofs, and cost about the same. There seems to be a connection between the bad aesthetics and alienation of petrol engines’ mass production and their running on a polluting, irreplaceable and unearned resource: they may have advantages but issue from a less balanced approach to the world.

Cows by the dozen are found around the temple entrance, in the crowds, the stalls and side alleys, sometimes pursuing you for bananas or at least the skins if they see you holding any; vendors hit them with sticks to push them off but they don't go far. Trying to relate their sacred status to providing milk or labour in the fields, or because Krishna was a cowherd and so on, really misses the point about these creatures- this is the sort of explanatory perspective of Western rationale that doesn't apply here. They embody qualities of the divine as do no other creatures, noted also by the Egyptian and Mesopotamian ancients for instance- they're singularly calm and peaceful, with the bulls exuding a head-in-the-air masculinity and inner strength.

[Sean McHugh]

Street food is good if you see it cooked and served immediately, and sells for a pittance: popular things include pakora- a potato/ vegetable paste, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1:place>varna-</st1:place></st1:City> a battered potato or maize, jeluvie- a sweet made from a sugar cream solidifying when poured into hot oil, and vegetable samosa. Tea or chai, served with milk and sugar in little glasses without handles is popular all over, and sometimes there's black or white Nescafe. Food stalls are preferable to many restaurants because of transparent preparation and freshness, and it matters little if the equipment looks horrendous; join a group already standing around for vendors with a good reputation.

As in nearby Buddhist countries Hinduism provides a powerfully contrasting set of norms for and understanding of sexuality, and key expressions of this are at the Shiva and Vishnu temples at Khajuraho and the Surya sun god temple (an aspect of both Shiva and Vishnu featuring in the Mahabharata) at Konark near Puri, a couple of states away in Orissa. Both are World Heritage sites and feature sculptures of sexual activity and sensuous human and divine forms; they're made of different stone with the Khajuraho complex somewhat better preserved- both would have been phenomenal sights in their original polished state in what was clearly a liberated medieval India.

They're dated 950-1050 and 1250, before <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region> came under the sexually conservative sway of its Abrahamic religious rulers, first the Islamic Delhi sultanate from 13-17<SUP>th</SUP> centuries then the Christian British to the 20th. Other examples of Hindu religious and sexual unity include works in the early Ellora and <st1:place>Ajanta</st1:place> caves in <st1:place>Maharashtra</st1:place> to the west, as well as the still ubiquitous phallic Shiva lingam and images of mortals in sexual congress with Brahma. These of course contrast fundamentally with Islam’s and Christianity’s denial, and consequently sexuality’s position in the Hindu worldview became largely theoretical: although they visit in large numbers, today Indians show some immaturity and repression in finding such images embarrassing or humorous, as indeed Asians of nearby countries don’t.

Religions are interested in sex from a moral perspective that goes far beyond the fact that it can result in children someone has then to look after: their main concern is the Dionysian character of the sensation and sense of abandonment, loss of restraint and absolute negation of Apollonian principle. Carnality is then further troubling as out of this it provides a powerful transcendent experience where corporal and spiritual, subject and object, lust and love, desire and beauty are dissolved, suggesting there’s something wrong with their understanding.

The Abrahamic religions accept sex has to be central to life but harbour deep uncertainties if not repressed contempt for this core level of humanity, and have problems with fornication, homosexuality and a range of practices. Obviously it's the nature of the wider culture that's at fault, not our natural, God-given state. Dharmic Hinduism isn’t such a principle-based castle-in-the-sky doctrinal religion asking to be debunked and acknowledges sexuality as an interface with the divine; indeed the sculptured figures at these sites are not only human but semi-divine and divine, expressing the unity of God and us through sexual transcendence. Shiva's intercourse with his consort Pavarti is a focus of the Khajuraho complex: needless to say the idea of God having sex is anathema to the Abrahamians.

The temples’ celebration of love-making is both riotous and movingly sensuous; they display a complete and unselfconscious continuity between ordinary life, where the attention is focussed outward and things related to each other, and sexual activity where it returns on itself and makes no reference to anything else, hence being absolute and divine. Everywhere sexual fullness is matched by refined and measured intelligence: there’s no loss of control, due not to Apollonian denial but to opulence paralleled by an inner order. The deities at the centres of assemblages of amorous couples are themselves very sensual and at one with the ravishment all around.

At Kharjuraho only around a tenth of the sculptures are obviously erotic but all are arousing and curvaceous, embodying sexuality’s combination of detached beauty and intense desire. At Konark however almost all are erotic, there are thousands of couples having sex in endless positions all in deep bas-relief: in amongst them are images of oral sex, sixty-nine, chains of three and group sex, masturbation, homosexuality including monks giving oral sex, even sex with animals.

The figures smile across the centuries with the fantastic coordination of sexuality with serenity, embracing all of life through a knowingness that transcends affected relations with it (either sensory or intellectual): there is relative or sensory plus absolute or spiritual pure consciousness together. The two can't be separated in rational Apollonian terms, only from within the Dionysiac itself: this unity is lost in the Christian West, sexuality as fundamental indeed being the first thing that has to go.

Kolkata lives up to its reputation as defining some of India's extremes and immediately around the train station are scenes of severe poverty- there's a large underclass with virtually no possessions living hard and short lives; I'm not at all sure one filthy half-human looking wretch I walked past today wasn't dead. Some sources still call it by its colonial name <st1:City><st1:place>Calcutta</st1:place></st1:City>, one problem with the new name being it sounds too close to the original.

There are man-pulling rickshaws here, sad to see, though quite why cycle-rickshaws are beyond them I'm not sure: there aren't any in the town centre. The main travellers’ hotel area is in a tangle of streets not far from a busy road that might get my vote for the most chaotic, polluted stretch of barely controlled mayhem in the country, it's a real rat race. Alternate clouds of petrol fumes and thick dust blow at you in the heat as the touts, con-artists and beggars with every imaginable deformity run or crawl after you; drugs and whatever else is available. A couple of kilometres away is a huge area of great street food stalls, getting you stuffed for a pittance: these streets absolutely seethe with people and activity.

 

There's quite a sharp social gradient upwards and a sizable relative middle class emerges, with a few well dressed businessmen and some good vehicles on the main roads; the atmosphere is fairly sophisticated and the hassle factor for the foreigner perhaps a little easier to deal with; being a young city developed by the British the roads layout, as in Mumbai, vaguely resembles that in large English cities. The wrecked buses only slow down rather than stop and have windows only short Indians have any hope of seeing out of; rather than auto-rickshaws though there are negotiable taxis.

 

One night there was a hairy spider in the room- I was impressed how sensitive it was to the vibrations from movement, shooting across the wall when I took a step; meanwhile on the television included for my $4 was news comprised of articles of conditioned drivel closely related to that in <st1:country-region><st1:place>England</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Also one taxi I was in, with no wing mirror, pulled sharply into traffic on a main road and smashed into a motorbike- fortunately the bike skidded so it hit side on and I think managed to stay upright: the taxi just drove off.

 

Went to the <st1:place><st1:PlaceName>Indian</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType>Museum</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> here- the usual scruffy assortment of dust covered junk with poor labelling and lighting, specialising in dreary rocks and the odd supposed meteorite. However the collection of first millennium Hindu and Buddhists sculptures are good- superbly ornamented voluptuous deities with tremendous headgear, really sophisticated and fantastic, with some Buddhas and bodhisattvas dated to 1st century. I also liked the fossils of extinct giant elephants and turtles, some quite bizarre: the hall's Aladdin’s-cave gloom adds an aura to them, rather magical.

Also went to the Victoria Memorial, very popular with the Indians though unsure why- just a large old imperial building with paintings of limited artistic merit, of whatever bunch of stuffed shirts and street scenes- most of which have changed little. <st1:State><st1:place>Victoria</st1:place></st1:State> never even bothered to come to <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, far from it, so it's all a bit mysterious, and indeed many other such colonial places have been renamed or demolished altogether. However interesting similarities between English and Indian cultures include their class or caste societies, formality and decorous speech, cautious pragmatism rather than theoretical planning, a rich inwardness issuing from the parsimony, scepticism towards change and development, congested small scale approach to design, an overexcited rather childish tone to urban activity, small-minded pleasure taken in gaining through others' mistakes, sexual repression and birth control problems, a confident disregard of other cultures, and cricket as an expression of measured and pacifist psyche.

 

Before long I felt I’d had enough of Kolkata, though with my itinerary knew would probably have to come back. I secured a Bangladesh visa from the embassy here- the terms are restricted, a maximum 15 day single entry stay within a one month period, and a land entry point east of here I'm supposed to use was noted down. One explanation might be the state of emergency and curfew in the capital <st1:place>Dhaka</st1:place> imposed yesterday after resignation of the acting premier and various troubles approaching a planned election: there are a few other boarder crossings with <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region> and I'm going to try to get in from the north, to exit in the southwest.

No one at the embassy had much reliable information regarding visa issue requirements, office hours, collection times or anything else- as of course nobody in south Asia does about anything: generally speaking what people may say and how things actually are often have only the most vague and distant relationship. If you want to get the feel for something you ask at least three separate officials and take a majority vote.

I arrived at Siliguri by train then got a shared jeep for three hours up to Darjeeling, only $2 once past lying touts and taxi pushers: not much fun though, the driver was atrocious even on the flat but the endless bends up the hills had one guy vomiting on a regular basis out the window and turning most of the rest of us green- lucky I hadn't eaten. Fortunately the road has modest concrete barriers most of the way and isn't too narrow, otherwise the drops mean one mistake and it’s certain death: signs read 'if you drive like hell you'll get where you're going sooner than you think' and 'Take time in this life rather than adding more to eternity'.

It’s a town 2200m up in the Himalayas just south of Sikkim, between Nepal and Bhutan: there are said to be great views of snow capped mountains here including the world’s third highest, but I couldn’t make much out due to mist and cloud now in the low season. It's very cold in the day with your breath visible and it drops a lot lower at night: the hotel has enough blankets but are themselves so cold it takes a couple of hours before you feel warm in bed, and hot water and electricity is limited with the infrastructure not really up to it.

[Sean McHugh]

People here speak English better than anywhere else in India I know, and use it more than Nepali their first language; the Darjeelingites are surprisingly sophisticated and worldly, their personalities with a keen and Western edge. There's a clear Tibetan aspect to the population with <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1:place>Lhasa</st1:place></st1:City> only a few hundred miles away, flatter and sharper features with lighter skins. Buildings are stacked up on hillsides rising at the steepest angle with narrow walkways and small houses, reminiscent of Andean countries; there are no food stalls so I eat in a restaurant for the first time in nearly two weeks. The place became a popular retreat with Victorian British and is known for fine tea- it contributes only 3% of Indian output but includes some of the world's most expensive grades. I’d like to stay an extra night and relax as it's certainly peaceful, but have to leave the next day as the cold is too severe.

 

I made my way east from the chilly <st1:City><st1:place>Darjeeling</st1:place></st1:City> mountainside to Jaigon, still in <st1:place>West Bengal</st1:place> province but not far from <st1:country-region><st1:place>Assam</st1:place></st1:country-region>, with the intention of spending a visa-free day in its neighbouring Bhutanese town of <st1:City><st1:place>Pheuntsholing</st1:place></st1:City>. There's no entry in the guidebook but I find a hotel, where I'm lucky to meet a group of English and Australian travellers in the town for the same reason- but they tell me that Bhutan changed the rules some time ago and the excursion is no longer possible without the full visa, and a requirement to spend $240 per day- some crazy policy to limit tourism to the top end for whatever reason. I have a walk down the road to the boarder and it checks out, so I just take a couple of photos of what I can see and the hills not far away from the top of the hotel. I meet another couple of travellers on the way back and they too were expecting to pass through- the guidebooks are out of date.

 

So I clear off again south to the Bangladesh boarder, hoping to persuade the officials to let me in despite the stupid note on my visa to use the entry east of Kolkata: I'm not sure why they put this on, it might have been with the present uneasy political situation but more likely the officiousness and self-importance at so many embassies, delighting in causing inconvenience. I have to take four buses, about 26 seaters in these parts (carrying about 45), and get late to this tiny village with very little electricity or anything else called Chandrabangha- fortunately there's a dodgy hotel with a few rooms divided up by thin plywood. In the morning I walk through to the chaotic boarder post and of course they query the visa: at first, after a bit of persuasion and waiting for the Bangladeshi side to think it over, they come and tell me I have permission.

However I go back to the Indians to stamp me out and they're still not too happy, even though it doesn't really matter to them as there are no exit restrictions, and I also have a multiple entry Indian visa to get back. So the man comes back to the Bangladeshis and explains again to them again what they already understand, and they then phone their boss from a few kilometers down the road: he arrives and he blinking won't let me in- pity as I was almost there as well. Needless to say there's no real logic to any of this nonsense, so often the case with immigration issues- there are plenty of Indians passing and they know I'm a nobody tourist not an international terrorist, but certainly they’re all a bit afraid for themselves of contravening any kind of officialese.

Anyway I head back to Siliguri for a train back down to Kolkata, where I have to both enter and exit <st1:country-region><st1:place>Bangladesh</st1:place></st1:country-region>. I've never been turned away at a boarder before but now it's happened twice in as many days! At least the bus rides out here were worth it- northeast <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region> is more rural with much less rubbish and obvious poverty and often beautiful, if needless to say still a hard life for them here. There are vast flat fields, often multicoloured with different crops, woodlands, palm trees, clean rivers with people washing, houses on stilts, well dressed women, and as usual the close proximity of animals, including sheep and chickens as well as ubiquitous cows and goats.

The buses all have a good 50% of the widescreen variously obscured by an image of a deity fixed on the middle on the dashboard, two sizable pots of plastic flowers on either side, a frilly curtain hanging down from the top sometimes with gaudy flicking lights, and a string of little shiny glittery things placed up and down across the driver's whole field of vision: nothing like a gauze between you and the world, not taking it too seriously.

From there I got a two-hour local stations train to the boarder, standing for a couple of hours along with most of the rest of the passengers, dangerously full and frenzied as ever but great views from the side- no doors just wide open gaps onto the carriage. An all-painted up Vaishnavite (Vishnu follower) on board spoke to me, showing surprising understanding, for his economic position, of the Hindu philosophy of unity of God in other religions, and all people and things.

A shared auto-rickshaw gets you to the boarder where despite the usual creeps and consters coming from all directions, is relatively hassle free. Boarders can be a great experience with a lot to think about- everyone's the make and thinking up new ways to defraud you, wanting to be your guide, trying to obtain or fill in forms, claiming to be an official and giving false information, distracting you as you change currency. You have to sort transport there, money change, get visa if necessary, exit country immigration departures, customs, officials' checks, walk over boarder ignoring creeps giving you directions, entry country immigration arrivals, customs, officials' checks, and transport away: there's every chance of officials lying about visa prices and exchange rates if you're unsure in advance and you need to know the baksheesh/ bribes situation. Also only a small minority of the passport-checkers can actually find or read much of your details page, visa or stamps.

However <st1:country-region><st1:place>Bangladesh</st1:place></st1:country-region> is much more relaxed a place than <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region> with less frenzied urban areas, hard-sell and vicious money-grabbing norms- a breath of fresh air; there's the usual gaunt, repressive quiet of Islamic societies though, interspersed with regular prayer calls from loudspeakers. A minority of women I've seen are veiled and more only with headscarves or no headwear, though perhaps those were the Hindu minority here. There’s a sense that the place isn't at ease with itself but it's basically friendly and has a safe enough feel, despite poor street lighting in the towns and little English spoken; the cycle-rickshaws use pleasant bell rings rather than horns or manic buzzers, and everything's a little gentler. Costs are half or less of Indian prices, and the bank notes begin at a value of 2 cents.

They see very few Caucasians, I haven't seen any others yet, and like the Chinese for instance, stare and stare in some kind of dumb mixture of horror and fascination; you have to put up with various naive jokes they obviously make about your appearance. Six key phrases listed at the front of the guidebook are 'hello', 'thank you', 'yes', 'no', 'I don’t understand Bangla', and 'please stop staring at me'. There are obviously no norms at all against this and it can be very patience-testing indeed: several at a time will walk up to you and stand face-on a meter away, staring expressionlessly for minutes at a time unless you can shove them off. They find your simplest actions intensely fascinating- getting something from your bag or writing on a piece of paper seem to be among the most utterly amazing things they’ve ever seen.

I travelled from Benapol on the boarder to Jessore a couple of hours away by bus, all with uncomfortable children-sized seats for small Asians for whom it's more natural to crouch, and to Khula, hoping to go a little further east and south from here. The scenery becomes more southeast Asian and perhaps more exotic with dense palm trees and rice fields; the population is 160 million with half of the children underweight, 83% with less than $2 a day and literacy rates 50 and 30% for men and women.

The Bangladeshis are sociable, striking up conversation at any moment, even if it's a bit annoying when their English rarely goes beyond a couple of questions and they can tell I speak no local language- many though just haven’t got the idea that some people in the world speak other languages. Also as indeed in many other places, men who are friends may hold hands and put arms around shoulders with no romantic connotations. Part of the ready interaction can surely be related to the limited conception of personal space and affairs of others, and instead the culture retaining in everything a kind of Dionysian interconnectedness and innocent commonality.

I went to <st1:City><st1:place>Barisal</st1:place></st1:City>, east of the sundarban or mangrove swamp area in the southwest: views from the bus over here from <st1:City><st1:place>Khulna</st1:place></st1:City> are very pleasant, clean lush jungle with long stretches of road where trees arch over, simple villages and numerous waterways and bridges, along with one ferry getting vehicles across a larger river. Several rivers have estuaries to the south including the <st1:place>Brahmaputra</st1:place>, Padma, Jamuna and Trista, each of which merge, split and change their name several times.

One major advance on <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region> is the serving of tea in cups with handles rather than a glass to burn your fingers- often there’s even an accompanying saucer, frequently spilt in and later drunk from. And it isn’t brewed with the milk already in, a sickly if sound solution for sterilizing it, but gets a couple of spoonfuls of sugar cream paste added afterwards, along with more sugar; tea stands can be sociable. Men’s shirt and trousers are also gradually replaced here by longes, a kind of narrow skirt worn throughout <st1:country-region><st1:place>Myanmar</st1:place></st1:country-region> next door.

The traveller faces far less deception in buying and selling here than in India, and even when it’s annoying of course you need to pause and think that you might do the same faced with their situation, that in most cases it’s a normative rather than consciously immoral behaviour (as more reliable Western trade is also only normatively moral), and that it’s part of a wider system valuably contrasting with Western transparency and articulation. There's still plenty to wade past though- at one roadside shack restaurant they didn't have a menu of course, which meant they could try grossly overcharging and arguing at the end when I didn't establish prices first- which smaller food stalls wouldn't have bothered doing; I realised it was coming though and paid them only a few more near-worthless notes before walking off.

The roads in the towns go very quiet at night, and apart from <st1:place>Dhaka</st1:place> aren’t too noisy in the day either with most vehicles being cycle-rickshaws. The town to town buses have a high accident rate- not just small, with a high centre of gravity and permanently overcrowded with as many people stuffed down the aisle as possible, but the roads not usually wide enough for two large vehicles to pass, and the verges they pull onto often full of people or cycle traffic. Considering the chaos on the roads the drivers are quite good but the whole thing is definitely risky; they also don’t do handbrakes- it’s just put in gear with a roadside brick under a wheel or two. Like most things, petrol is cheap at 25 pence a litre.

A long bus journey and five ferry crossings south of <st1:City><st1:place>Barisal</st1:place></st1:City> (ferries sink every couple of months) is Kuataka, a village of two or three roads on the coast east of the sundarban swamp. In such very small places in developing countries it can be hard much decent food: everyone there basically buys and cooks their own and what restaurants there are serve bits of bony chicken and plain rice with perhaps a little cold vegetable, very dubious. Stalls sell biscuits more than anything else, being long lasting, with a few potato chips, soda drinks or some bread if you’re lucky; even bananas were hard to find.

There’s a pleasant beach where even the brainlessly curious locals don’t bother you too frequently; it’s rather surreal and dreamlike with bright sunlight and haze emphasizing either the white of the sand or the darker colours of objects and their shadows. The few umbrellas seem like they don’t belong there or as though they date from the distant past- it’s like a scene from an enigmatic sci-fi film or a hallucinatory Seurat painting. Despite being the <st1:place>Indian Ocean</st1:place> with a breeze in the air and the coast subject to cyclones, the sea is very still with small gentle waves, the water muddy from the nearby estuaries; southeast of here is what is said to be the world’s longest uninterrupted beach at around 120km.<?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /><v:shapetype id=_x0000_t75 stroked="f" filled="f" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" coordsize="21600,21600"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"></v:stroke><v:formulas><v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></v:f></v:formulas><v:path o:connecttype="rect" gradientshapeok="t" o:extrusionok="f"></v:path><o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></o:lock></v:shapetype><v:shape id=modify_button_381863 style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; Z-INDEX: 1; MARGIN-LEFT: -16pt; WIDTH: 24pt; POSITION: absolute; HEIGHT: 24pt; mso-wrap-distance-left: 0; mso-wrap-distance-right: 0; mso-position-horizontal: right; mso-position-horizontal-relative: text; mso-position-vertical-relative: line" o:allowoverlap="f" alt="" type="#_x0000_t75" o:spid="_x0000_s1026"><?xml:namespace prefix = w ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" /><w:wrap type="square"></w:wrap></v:shape>

[Sean McHugh]

Fortunately back in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1:place>Barisal</st1:place></st1:City> to get north to the capital <st1:place>Dhaka</st1:place> there’s a pleasant overnight large ferry boat with a cabin, all for a pittance. I found a KFC restaurant in Dhaka and thought I'd go inside for something familiar and relax for a while- a mistake: a fast food restaurant is an artefact imported from a foreign culture and the kind of driven linear rationality and organisation underlying its operation is quite alien to most non-Westerners; you can see them trying hard to think along these lines and make it work, but it doesn't come naturally at all and there's this unsure and concerned expression on their faces. The food made me quite badly sick, vomit at first plus a temperature for a couple of days, though it may have been just down the ice-cream I had at the end: it was selling well but you shouldn't really eat anything not seen prepared and cooked before you, and ice cream is notorious for having been thawed and refrozen, freezing not killing bacteria anyway. You can never afford to be off your guard in developing countries.

Lastly couple of thoughts that come to mind here are the surprising quality of the English speaking <st1:country-region><st1:place>Bangladesh</st1:place></st1:country-region> newspaper and, despite being well disposed to <st1:country-region><st1:place>America</st1:place></st1:country-region> for an Islamic country, its very critical, even conspiratorial columns on American foreign policy, way beyond what gets passed for printing in the conditioned British papers. Finally the pollution in <st1:place>Dhaka</st1:place>, like Kolkata, is an experience, a murky haze of partially burned hydrocarbons and construction dust you can feel as you breathe: in the day you can wonder if your glasses have fogged up and at night it's visible in headlights, when vehicles have these, as though there's a thick snowstorm on.

On my return flight to Kolkata (from Thailand) I sat next to a lady in the Hare Krishna movement who was going with a group of mostly white Australians to a festival at a small town a few hours from the city; she suggested I come take a look with them and I provisionally agreed. They seemed really into it, most had Indian attire and had apparently all changed their names to ones in the Vedic tradition; they were also a little defensive when I explained I practiced TM, based on a slightly different interpretation of the Vedic texts.

Of course something like this needs good organisation and the fun started soon enough: the head of the group wore long pink robes, spoke Bengali and could cite the Bhagavad Gita at will to me in Sanskrit: it was 1am and he went to get two taxis to take us to a cheap hotel not far from the airport- they'd come from Brisbane with a stopover in Bangkok of a couple of hours, exhausted and jet lagged, 6am for them.

The taxi drivers didn't care either way for his language skills and smilingly saw the situation in an instant: they soon got out of him the group's travel plans to drive to the festival town in the morning, and were then on going to do all they possibly could to take us there that night- they could see the passengers were disorientated, meek unworldly foreigners and there was no way they were going to let them regroup, get better taxis with roof racks for their over packed baggage, consider taking the train, or of course sort the right price the next day.

I realised later, when I got the bus to the city the next day, they’d ignored from the start the instructions to go to the hotel he had in mind and immediately began droving out of town: as the buildings thinned out and the roads darkened the chances of hotels passing would lessen and it'd seem the drivers were indeed right that there weren't many, or were all full or closed- the standard two excuses. The sight of dusty quiet roads lit by little fires in urban India looks more than a little sinister and scary if you're unused to it; they took us to two places, the first of which indeed shut or too dilapidated, and the second in collusion with the drivers to lie at length to the leader, saying they didn't have the required three rooms.

Throughout this I explained to him exactly what was happening and got out at the hotels to bounce around, look down the street for others and tell people, to the drivers' faces, that we were deliberately being taken to useless hotels and it was ridiculous suggesting there was no accommodation in the city- there would have been dozens of places between the airport and the centre, where there are then always rooms at the travellers area around Sudder street, and indeed where I'd stayed at on two separate occasions in recent weeks. We could have told the drivers they had to take us or they wouldn't be paid, but the leader just said he'd talk to them.

I'm not sure how much they asked for to drive to the town but it was enough to leave the leader pretty shocked and unsure, yet after the second hotel he asked the others again if they wanted to drive through the night. They decided on this, and of course at this point I parted company and stayed at the hotel, which had at least a dozen rooms inside; I had to pay R600 (about 7 pounds) despite protestations and threats to walk off, instead of R200 what it was worth- but it could have been worse, and I hadn't paid the drivers anything.

The other passengers were also reticent and of course lamely sided with the majority and what seemed superficially to be right: it's quite interesting that on several occasions before that this sort of thing's arisen with others, they've also ignored me, even when they know I'm experienced and know what's going on, and telling them explicitly- and instead they go with the outward flow and propriety of things: they certainly have a great propensity to stay in a sheep-like majority-led position and to think it's me who's crazy.

They'd have been in some trouble. Firstly driving at night is never to be attempted unless essential because of the accident rate with the road surface, hazardous traffic conditions and poor or non-existent street and other vehicle lighting. There's also risk of robbery, especially coming direct from the airport with baggage, computers (ridiculous) and cash, and of course possible collusion of the drivers in this, being 'surprised' of course running into an ambush. The two women were being poorly looked after- they'd had enough and like the rest had no refreshments or washroom break: they didn't need the leader to ask them if they wanted to find a hotel.

And it wouldn't stop when they got to their destination, they'd be faced with every possible piece of deception the drivers could think of to get them to another hotel for a commission, which would charge them as much as they'd be stupid and dazed enough to pay: it’s hard to imagine the drivers agreeing to take them to their intended destination, in the middle of the night in an unknown environment where they have little choice and a lot of pressure can be applied, or even admit they knew where it was, and goodness knows what extra night charges, bogus travel agents, shops, and other scams there'd be.

There's an idea that if you can deceive a fool out of what they have then it becomes yours, and the Indians are 120% on this side of the argument. By the way the bus to the city was R7, 9 pence, which I hailed after asking several bus doormen for their destinations all while taxi drivers next to me lied about there being no bus and wanting to charge R250.

Varanasi is said to be the holiest Hindu city and a place where people come to live their last days- cremations on the Ganges are held throughout the day and night here; it’s built along one side of the river with ghats or steps down to the water where the faithful bathe and wash clothes and their buffaloes, and the atmosphere is intense. The river at present is only a third or less of its width after the rains- last time I came it was hard to see the opposite shore but now hundreds of meters of sanded plain stretch out before jungle on the far side. The architecture stacked down the river front is chaotic and dilapidated of course but has immense passion, complimented by the beautiful haze, array of light colours and magical detail stretching off into the distance; I took a short boat trip to see it better with a couple of other travellers.

The dead are carried through the streets on stretchers in the air, wrapped in gold, pink and red shrouds, then through the tangle of alleyways to one of two burning ghats, all accompanied by chanting. Huge piles of logs supply several bonfires, only large enough to consume the body on top, and which can be overlooked nearby, though photography of course is to be avoided; the skull is always broken by a pole, and bones not reduced to ash thrown into the river. It’s certainly one of the most alien of places, providing some good culture shock.

The sacred cows are in great numbers and are strewn down the streets in the traffic, the alleys, inside open fronted shops, sleeping and eating whatever they can find on the street (how they eat enough I’m not sure): dung is everywhere. There are also a great many monkeys, sometimes aggressive and crawling all over the hotels no matter how high they are, along with dogs, one sick and rabid-looking one being chased past me by a group of men with sticks trying to kill it.

The town is perhaps marginally less filthy than I remember, with the occasional sweepers around, but there are surely even more people- India is truly clogged and overflowing with them, and needs to take some action to slow the population growth and thence raise living standards. There are frequent accidents on the street and a high level of awareness is needed just to walk along, though there are fewer large vehicles in the central area and mostly cycle and auto-rickshaws.

West of Jaipur on the way to <st1:City><st1:place>Jodhpur</st1:place></st1:City> and Jaiselmer, the landscape from the train window changes from green agricultural fields to the dry brown <st1:place>Thar Desert</st1:place>, alternating periodically from little weird bare trees to little weird bushes, evenly spaced going off to the distance, also featuring gigantic flooded areas bordered with pink purple sand. To my great surprise the train becomes almost empty, a rarity where locals have to book up most routes months in advance.

Some thoughts on the travellers out here- there are plenty in their twenties, a bit unsure about themselves and the world and come to <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region> for an escape from materialistic thought and for some kind of spiritual guidance. There are many who take up entirely traditional Indian clothes- Gandhi-style flowing peasant robes, sandals or no footwear, long hair, stick and Shiva/Vishnu makeup, but most exude an air of lost identity and naivety. On the train from <st1:City><st1:place>Varanasi</st1:place></st1:City> for instance there was a couple of Japanese travellers, both with the usual contradictory and fearfully acquisitive gigantic backpacks that hindered them even walking down the aisle of the train, a sight in itself: one was learning Hindi and the other had great long hair and beard. He told me he’d got so sick in Varanasi he had to stay there for a month recovering, then got off the train at a local station to buy some food and drink, as I did, then got back on to find his passport and camera etc stolen, causing huge problems. This is completely crazy- of course you take your bag with you if you depart the train and have vigilance on it at all times, especially when it stops and there’s a movement of people, and chaining the bag up next to you when you sleep.

Also in an internet cafe in <st1:City><st1:place>Varanasi</st1:place></st1:City> a young Japanese or Korean at the computer to my left passed out, falling into the street. I helped him along with others, but they sat him back up which I knew was wrong and he soon passed out again, banging his head and knees badly, very nasty- I should have put him in the recovery position. He’d been taking too much bhang or whatever the stupid stuff’s called and was coming out of him in all directions: but I had sympathy for him, young and clueless, he comes to <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region> for something in his life.

Photography is a moral and sensitive issue in developing countries, especially concerning things related to different living standards: you don't want to walk up to families living in little filthy tents on the street for instance, standing there composing your picture with your expensive camera, treating them as objects of curiosity to amuse others back in the land of plenty. Many photos should only be taken quickly, from a distance or not at all.

The developed world has not only norms of goal-directed rationality and articulation, providing division of labour, customer service and so on, all essential for profit, investment and raising of material standards, but along with this good norms of social interaction. Other peoples think nothing of squashing up to the next person, endlessly engaging and interfering with them, pointing out the obvious, repeating themselves and assuming no structured knowledge in them: society provides less support in terms of rules and organised ways in which to make sense of the world that people can rely on others having internalised.

There’s little queuing for instance, just a mass of people around ticket counters, and even when there is the few people at the front of the line don’t have the control to keep to their place and instead form a little bunch to either side of the person trying to get served: a moment’s hesitation in the conversation between them and the counter and they’ll interrupt to try to get what they want from the official- who will serve them. Throughout the whole process there’s incessant straining, barging, mistrust of others and intense and anxious staring ahead to see what’s happening, even though it’s nothing to do with anyone else. It’s stressful and exhausting just trying to keep your place- instead of accepted procedures it’s an every-man-for-himself society. Also all stall vendors when busy serve several customers at once.

Where there’s a line and you leave more than a person’s body width so that someone pushes in front, they don’t really understand if you complain, because there are no rules they’re breaking and they just feel happy about you being stupid enough not physically keeping them out. Of course though, most Westerners similarly don’t keep to their position because of a moral awareness of fairness towards others, but because of rules or norms and the peer pressure from them.

Touts, beggars and creeps rarely take no for an answer: even with the strongest put-down that no Westerner would bother with again they return a few moments later, senselessly asking you again to their shop, rickshaw, shine shoes, to follow you or whatever. You have to say no several times then really shout, then restate it all again, then just think about getting away from them: their idea seems to be that you might always change your mind, a thought perhaps not without interest and contrasting with linear American thinking, where an answer may be listened to closely and accepted immediately. The cohesion between people and the constant freshness of the moment is a tonic, especially coming from socially backward little England, but of course it’s used unfairly to gain advantage over many travellers and one becomes increasingly harsh with them in response, anticipating their lies and shifts: you need a chip of ice in your heart to survive the place yourself.

However the cheerfully chaotic interrelations between people in <st1:country-region><st1:place>India</st1:place></st1:country-region> are a reminder of how repressed and alienated Western societies can be: ‘modernisation’ processes in the West have become one-sided as Apollonian individuation replaces Dionysian community: the unity of life underneath smoothly operating joints making us materially rich is forgotten and barriers and disjunctions arise where really there are none.