1 - Arrival to Varanasi Day 1 and 2

A mother and son are traveling together in India for a month. They decided to document their trip in a podcast series. The son has been traveling for the past 18 months and wanted to start the next phase of his journey with his mom. The mom agreed because she wanted to spend time with her son and experience the spirituality of India. They had some stressful moments during their travel, but overall, they are excited and optimistic about their trip. Well, hello and welcome to the first episode of this special podcast series, me and my mum travelling around India for a month. That's a working title. So, my name's Adam and I'm your host and your special guest for a month is... Ruth. Hello. And you're my mum. I am indeed, yes. So, we're sitting in a hotel room in Varanasi on our second day of travelling India and we thought it'd be nice to have a way of reflecting on our time together and to serve as a record of what we're doing. So, this is our attempt to do that. Just for a bit of context, I've been travelling for the past 18 months and I've been to five countries in Southeast Asia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and I've just spent a month with my best friend in Dubai, staying with him. So, now we're going into my second, sort of, I suppose second 18 months and I get to do the first month of it with my mum. How lucky is he? Absolutely. Well, we'll see at the end of the month. So, the idea is that we'll publish quite a few, as many episodes as we can whilst we're travelling. Absolutely. So that our memories are fresh and untainted. I think we're going to try to be honest, aren't we? Absolutely. Honesty is the best policy. So, we're not going to sugarcoat it? No, not at all. For ourselves or for anyone else? Absolutely, Adam. Okay. So, what can we expect from this episode? Well, we've been travelling two days so far. So, we're going to recap what we've done and also recap the reasons for why we came travelling. So, let's start there. So, how have we ended up in India together, Mum? Well, it's a very good question, one I'm still asking myself. But no, joking aside, we. I think Adam told me several months ago that he was thinking about travelling to India at the beginning of January. I mentioned at that stage that India was somewhere I'd always wanted to visit and never had the opportunity. And he said, Mum, why don't you come with me? I thought about it overnight and life's short. And I thought, well, no one knows what's happening tomorrow. Why don't I just go for it? So, I rang Adam and said, I'm up for it, Adam. Count me in. Yeah, which surprised me, I suppose. But at the same time, no, I think I'm glad that you agreed to come. I mean, what did you want to get out of this trip? Why did you agree other than life is short? Well, a good opportunity to spend time with my son, obviously. When's the last time we saw each other before now? Oh, I think it must be now, Adam. Two years. Yeah. So, it's been two years. Yes, it has been two years. So, it was a great opportunity to spend some time with Adam. And I've just always been fascinated by India. I always get or got the impression that many parts of it are very spiritual. And obviously, there's a big yoga following here. I just felt I think I'll feel at home and, you know, perhaps become more zen. I think that's probably a big task to ask for me. Would you say that you're a quite highly strung person? I'm an exceptionally highly strung person. Anyone that knows me will agree. A friend of mine actually said I'd need to have a complete personality transplant to become zen in any shape or form. A bit harsh, I felt. That is quite harsh. I don't think I'd go that far and I'm your son. Yes. Okay. So, do you feel like spirituality is something that you want to develop? Yes, and embrace, really. I've felt that for a long time. Whether or not it will happen, certainly, I wasn't feeling any of that yesterday. More about that shortly. But today, I feel there is a good possibility. Okay, great. And so, for me, I wanted to do this trip with you because I thought, what an opportunity. I don't think many people get the opportunity to travel somewhere like India, which is huge and vast and new and intense, by all accounts, with one of their parents. Just for context, my dad tried to suggest that he might want to come and do this with us, but we both nixed it, didn't we? Because I think two of us is enough to handle having a third along with us at the same time. Well, I mean, given our experiences for the last two days, we might have already given up by now. Absolutely. Although, you know, we do love him, really. No, no, we do. We do. And you two are still together. We are after 38 years. Yeah, but he's been promised a special trip with me somewhere else. And I've done the same. I've also made a promise. To do what? A special trip for me afterwards, too. Okay. So, let's talk about our initial experiences then. Oh, great. Right. I can't wait for this. So, we're on day two now. Rewind a day. So, can you recap for the listeners as briefly as possible? That will be difficult, but I will try. My part of the journey. Yes, your part of the journey. Okay. I began the journey to arrive in India from Haggadah in Egypt. And I flew from Haggadah to Cairo. That was not without difficulty because not only was the flight delayed, but the baggage took about an hour and a half to come through on an internal flight. And I was feeling more than a little bit anxious that I was running out of time to catch the first leg of my onward journey to India. Fortunately, Oman air were amazing. I won't bore you with the details. And I managed to catch the flight. I changed at Muscat. And that's where... That's where we met, right? We met, yes. Although I have to say, audience, for those of you who don't know my mum, she's the Queen of Undersea. She's the Queen of understatement or under exaggeration. And when she says a little bit anxious, she called me or left me a voice note where she was close to tears, I could tell, which worried me immensely. But yes, I think she's under exaggerating how stressful that first leg was. So she landed in Muscat. I'm there. I'm shattered because I've come from... Where did I come from? Dubai. A 50-minute flight, I hasten to add. Yeah, but I did have to get up at three in the morning to get that flight. So I was shattered and I'd had a month in Dubai with my best friend, drinking and eating way too much. So I'm shattered. I've fallen asleep on one of the sofas in the airport. And then we finally meet at the gate. We have our first flight. We connect. I stress you out, though. How did I stress you out? I can't remember. You stress me out so much each day. I don't remember how. We've only been two days each day. Anyway, we then caught... Caught our flight from Oman to Mumbai, which was two and a half hours, three hours, whatever it was. Yes. Spent a long time in Mumbai getting SIM cards, which we felt was essential. OK, this is a top tip for anyone travelling to India. Firstly, try and get a SIM card at the airport you're flying into. Secondly, you need a name, mobile number and address of someone in India to get the SIM card. Otherwise, you've got no chance. And they'll want to send a text to the number to confirm it's actually a person. So anyway, we nearly missed our flight, didn't we? From Mumbai to Varanasi. We were trying to convince the bus driver to leave early with this shuttle bus that goes between terminals. We had to switch terminals from the international to domestic, and we were trying to urge the driver to leave early. Anyway, we managed to get shunted to the front of the check-in queue, thanks to mum, and check-in in time, and we just about made it, didn't we? We did, and then we caught our onward flight to Varanasi, the start of our journey in India. And we descended the plane, and actually, while descending, the smell of bonfires was everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. It was foggy, basically. It was very foggy. Foggy with smoke. But there was a lot of smoke, yes. And I did think, oh no, what have we arrived at? We were tired. We caught, it wasn't an Uber, was it? What was it? Ola, which is like Uber. Yes, and it was recommended to us from a local from Varanasi that I met on the plane. And so we caught it, we got a car to our accommodation. Which took about, what, 50 minutes driving? It did. We were tired, we didn't feel our best. We got back here, and it was fairly basic, but I have to say, it's clean and it's comfortable, and no complaints after one night. No, clean, comfortable, looks like the pictures, but there's hardly any space, aside from the big bed. Well, I mean, the bed's big. And yeah, it was just mildly stressful coming back and being so shattered. Yes. But we did manage to go for some food, didn't we? We did. We went for some food. It was really good. It was a minute, two-minute walk from where we are staying, and it was plentiful. Well, that's not even the word, Mum. There's so much food, five people could have eaten it. And it was very, very cheap. Tasty, and our stomachs remained intact this morning. So we both had a wonderful night's sleep. We really did. And we both woke up feeling far more positive than when we went to sleep, I think. Well, yeah. OK, so how were you feeling when you went to bed, Mum? Honestly. Dreadful. I'd had enough. I thought we'd made a big mistake coming to Varanasi. Nothing I'd seen on the car journey, or smelt going down the steps of the plane, made me think otherwise. And obviously, when we arrived at the guesthouse... It was pitch black, basically, right? It was. And we walked in, and I thought, wow, how many nights are we here for? It's actually three. And I was not feeling good last night in any shape or form. In fact, it even crossed my mind, how am I going to spend a month in India? Dreadful as that may sound, I like to feel I'm a fairly positive person a lot of the time. Obviously, I'm not as positive as I've given myself to believe. Yeah. Well, I felt the same. I felt horrendous. I felt like it was a massive mistake. I was coming to India. I felt overwhelmed already. I felt like, after Dubai, it was a very big shock, I have to say. I can imagine. I have to say, Dubai Marina to Varanasi is a world apart. But yeah, fortunately, after a 12-hour sleep, we must have slept. At least 12 hours, yes. I also woke up feeling good. So day two, recap then. Well, day two, we started this morning positively. We didn't get out until midday, more or less. And we had decided to head for the river, the Ganges. And for those of you that don't know, Varanasi is very famous for its gaps. Gaps? Gats? Am I pronouncing it wrong? I've already called it chaps today. Chaps. Chaps, chaps. Yeah, I laugh because Mum misread the gaps, which are the temples, G-H-A-T. She kept reading them as chaps, C-H-A-T. Not because she can't read or they're not clear, but because she hasn't got her distance glasses with her travelling. She's only got her reading glasses. And she still hasn't made the leap to get bifocals yet. I'm travelling light, Adelaide. Yes, we'll give you that. So anyway, yes, very famous for its temples. Obviously, the cremations are here, cremating the dead. It's very atmospheric, isn't it? Yes, it seems to be a very holy place. Like the holiest place in India, isn't it? Yes, it is. And one of the oldest places, so we're given to believe. But today was, I felt today was a really, it was an experience. I learnt so much that I didn't know before I came here, even though I'd read extensively about the various places we were travelling to. And it was just, I feel now, it's the end of the day, I feel that I'm really pleased that we came to Varanasi. And then if that's all I take back with me from here, my memories of today, I won't be disappointed. But what sticks out for you from today? Today, people, the people were very nice. I really felt that the people were pleasant, that we met. And we weren't really hassled unduly, although people asked us various things. But just going and watching people, dead bodies being cremated, being burned in front of your eyes, it was just, you know, even cremations that we see regularly in England, they, it happens behind a curtain. I've never actually seen a body burnt in real life. You know, I'm not into ghoulish things, I'm not into, but it was just absolutely fascinating watching families carrying the dead. Apparently, for anyone that's interested, only males are allowed at these ceremonies. And the reason for that being that females cry too much. That's what we were told by a male guide, by the way, just caveat there. Yes, I'd be the first to defend of females. But I'm the type of person that cries at any hard luck story. And so, you know, it sounds plausible to me. Well, plausible, but you know, the reality is that wives used to, and in some places in India still do, throw themselves onto the pyres of dead husbands. So it's probably something to do with that, no? It could be, although it sounds a bit extreme to me. Don't get any ideas, Dennis. Dennis is my husband. Um, yeah, for me, I think the cows were my highlight today. I made friends with a lovely cow. She really took a liking to me and vice versa. But yeah, the temples were amazing. We walked quite a long way along the Ganges, didn't we? We did. Saw some beautiful temples, beautiful people, really friendly. Did a lovely nighttime boat journey, didn't we? We did indeed. It was lovely with the lights, lots of people, lots of noise here. The noise is everywhere. You find it difficult to escape it. And lots of people everywhere. So much colour, so much life. Sometimes it can be actually overwhelming. Yeah, it starts in earnest around mid-afternoon, doesn't it? I'd say. So it's busy from sort of morning until mid-afternoon. And then it gets busier leading towards the evening when people start coming out, maybe finishing work, people coming out, people going out to eat. So if you're walking around in the evening, you can hardly move, can you? No, you can't. And that's motorbikes, bicycles, tuk-tuks and people. Yes, you need to just be aware of where you're going and what you're doing. Because everything's coming at you from every direction. Having travelled in Southeast Asia for 18 months, I'm very, very used to this sort of mayhem, especially in Hanoi or Bangkok. But it is at a different level to that. But Mum, you're not quite so used to the throng of humanity. No, I like peace and quiet. I'm older, Adam. Yes, I'm older. And I just, you know, I'm looking for a hassle-free life. That's why I'm looking for Zen. Right. So basically, we've come to Varanasi looking for spirituality. We've found some of that. But we've also found quite a lot of busyness, a lot of noise. Yes. I think, isn't that going to be the story of India, do you think? What's your expectation going forward? Going forward? Closing out this first episode. What do we think about reflections on what might be in store? I'm very open-minded, Adam. I think there are so many places that we are going to visit that each hold something different. That's, I think we just, I'm definitely going to try my best to go with the flow. Great. You know, I said I'll try my best. I didn't say it will work. But I'm going to try and go with the flow. And, you know, I want to, when I get to the end of the month, what I'm looking for is to go back home to, and have lots and lots of memories, hopefully good memories, of the time that I've spent in India and the places that we've visited and the experiences that we've had. Yes, and I'm really, I'm feeling positive that I won't be disappointed. Perfect. Me too. And that's, you know, this podcast series is in aid of that. It is indeed. There's going to be a blog to supplement it too, with lots of pictures. Yes, we're taking pictures. And yeah, well, we hope you enjoyed the first episode. And tune in for the second, where we'll be updating you about what post nine hour train journey. Oh, yes. Can't wait for that one. So yeah, look forward to that in a few days when we record. So thank you very much. Bye for now, everyone. Bye for now.