indiaindia

so yeah, india is cool. we started in calcutta/kolkata and that was nice. there are tons of people and lots of chai stands around and restaurants. the way people drive is quite erradic but it works for them. lots of honking is the only bad part. I’m told that to see the real india one needs to travel outside of the cities so maybe we’ll do that.  however we took the night train from kolkata to varanasi where I am right now. varanasi is unlike any city i’ve been to, its proximity to the holy river ganges pronounced ganga by the locals, gives a unique character to this place. the whole riverfront is stone stairs and walkways and kind of like a huge long stone park. only instead of being all clean and steril like the places like this in the us there are tons of peopel and animals and the signs of living. guys pee into open gutters, people are dressed in religious robes or washing or just going to work in collared shirts and slacks. there’s everyone here. got into a talk about whether or not the homeless people here give it a better feeling by making it seem like home and lived in and whether india’s relationship with the homeless is more healthy than in the us or perhaps the homeless people have something different here than the do in the states…something more or just different is part of the interestingness of the topic. This place feels ancient…like it’s not much different than it was 2000 years ago. Sure you can buy dvds of the most recent ganga worship ceremony and there are some tourists and motorized things and electricity, but the people seem to be living more like people did thousands of years ago than they do in seattle. cell phones etc are here but seems different anyway. i really like this place. oh! and one big difference is a large part of the city is composed of buildings lined with pedestrian only streets because they are too narrow for vehicles. mostly…some motorcycles/scooters go around. but mostly you’re dodging cows instead of motorized honking things. very nice and one of the biggest reasons why varanasi is different than other places I’ve been. I heard europe or some places are like this too. very cool, looking forward to checking this out. makes me think about urban planning… we should design cities for pedestrians and not so much cars.