With the night bus we went to Ahmedabad a 12 hour during event :-). The chairs where comfortable enough to have some sleep, but the claxon -with special sound- from the bus wouldn’t let us. Arrived in Ahmedabad we went straight to Kanoria Centre for Arts, where Rolina will work for a month. We found a bit shabby room, which we call home for a month, just 10 minutes by rickshaw from Kanoria.
At Nasik we went to the holy bating river. A bath in this polluted river will give liberation of the soul. People invited us to take a bath also, but I think we would be liberated from much more than only our soul after a swim. At least from our health :-). India is a beautiful country but also very dirty. I would never consider of employing an Indian housecleaner :-). It is amazing how the people life here without getting sick, they must have a very strong resistant’s. We are weak and need all kinds of vaccination and pills even to consider entering India. We get advised not to swim or drink water, to be carefully with food especially on the streets. Followed this advice strict, it only took me two days before I got ill! It must be a world record :-).
From Matheran to Puna and than to Aurangabad. Aurangabad is a good base to visit Ellora and Ajanta, two world heritage sites with temple caves; so must see places :-). Very interesting, and because off the overdoses, boring at the same time :-). I enjoyed the local village market even more, but maybe I am just more interested in living culture :-). A bit too much Indian culture we experienced in our train trip from Aurangabad to Nasik. Rolina decided, remembering the good old days as a backpacker in India, to buy a second class train ticket in a non air-conditioned compartment. It is the cheapest way to travel by train, so we where not the only one. With the help from Sunil we reach our reserved place climbing over children and elderly people and bumping into adults, just standing, hanging, lying and sitting everywhere. The train was completely overcrowded; at least it would take only 4 hours to reach Nasik :-). It is a nice thought to travel on an equal base with the locals. But we decided that it is completely not in there interest. We can effort a more ‘expensive’ ticket and leave a very little bit more space to them. After a battle to get out of the train again at Nasik, I looked at the train ticket with the big bold text ‘HAPPY JOURNEY’ and throw it in the garbage bag. Rolina lost her backpackers nostalgia :-).
Unfortunate we had to reschedule our travel plan. The embassy of India at Tehran wouldn’t give us a visa if we wanted to travel through Pakistan into India. We did not have enough time to go by land to Islamabad and apply for a visa to India over there. So we decided to go by plain to Mumbai in India and travel from there to the next artist in residence in Ahmadabad. On the other hand Pakistan is not the most save place on earth at this moment and it would be also nice to spend more time just in the north from Pakistan, so for our next year off :-). The visa procedure for our visa from India went very slow and chaotic, so we needed to extend our Iran visa also. Spend again some nice moments dealing with bureaucratic procedures; I think it’s half the fun of traveling :-). Entering India was for Rolina like ‘hello again’ and for me an overwhelming experience, especially after Iran. Besides all the colors woman are dressed in, the smell of urine, rotten meat and spices, the dirt and poverty on the streets it is unbelievable hot. It is like entering a sauna without time limit.
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After three weeks in Iran we are planning and organizing our next destination. In Iran we spend a short holiday, in my long holiday, visiting the tourist highlight, like Esfahan, Shiraz and Persepolis, Yazd, Kashan and off course Tehran. During our trip in Iran we met very nice people like Ali, Naz and Ramona, who invited us for dinner at there homes. With others we just had a nice conversation and tea. These contacts give the opportunity to see Iran in different perspectives. Besides the very friendly people, the nice mosques and old cities like Yazd, the wearing of the chador is a for us remarkable fact on the street. Even the laundry paintings from Rolina turned into woman with chador :-). Some woman wear it with proud others experience it as a limitation of there freedom. The discussion in some western countries about forbidden the chador, looks to me now the same as the duty to wear it. Anyway, besides all the people who want to practice there two sentence English on you: Hello, how are you? Where are you from?, that can get very irritating if it is hot and you are tired :-), Iran was a great place to visit.
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