Agra, Varanasi - India

With the food poisoning we went on a rather unpleasant journey to Agra. A city that combines all the negative aspects and sides of major Indian cities and still attracts millions of tourists every year, why? Well, hundreds of years ago, a megalomaniac king who was head over heels in love had the Taj Mahal built for his late wife and thus established one of the new seven wonders of the world.

I just lay flat the whole time and shuttled between bed, toilet and my first aid kit. Luckily, the owner at the homestay was incredibly kind and cheered me up again. The other backpackers were also just fantastic and, despite the gastrointestinal issue, I had many long and funny conversations. After I injected myself with a few medications, I took the opportunity of the short window of improvement and went with them to the Taj Mahal, which was shrouded in a wonderful and thick fog that morning. Even though India is always reduced to the Taj Mahal and is supposed to represent the culture of the country and that is in no way true, I went with low expectations, but was still surprised. The place and the tomb simply had a presence and fascination that is difficult to describe. Looking back, the experience still played a relatively minor role in my trip to India, in contrast to Varanasi, the last place of my stay in India.

With the stomach bug still persisting, the next night trip came and my first thoughts were to go to the hospital, as it could be a parasitic infection after the long duration and I could therefore do as much damage with my first aid kit as Globolies. To my surprise, however, the whole thing disappeared from the moment I arrived in Varansi and I never imagined that I would let out a shout of joy when I had a solid bowel movement. It was fantastic :D

With new strength I was now able to throw myself into the final adventure. Varanasi, the holy city on the Ganges where the dead Hindus are burned and thrown into the river alongside the bathing Indians. When organisms decompose, certain bacteria from the Clostridia group are created, which are so toxic that the US military used them in military campaigns as bioweapons to poison enemy wells and are lethal at a concentration of just 0.01 mg. In addition, parts of India's largest industries are located on the Ganges, which dispose of their pollutants and waste products from leather, pharmaceutical and electronics production here. A bath for a foreigner often ends with serious complications and even death. Nevertheless, I am aware of the routes of infection and decided to go swimming in the river because, firstly, I didn't have any open wounds and secondly, I only went in up to my neck. Even though I was aware of the low risk of infection with my variant, I was still the only European I or one of my acquaintances saw who went in.

When I arrived in the morning I met a German and a Colombian with whom I got along really well and talked a lot until she eventually set off to explore the city and I to make phone calls and organize things. During her absence I noticed that I was constantly wondering when she would come back and a tingling feeling filled my stomach. Suddenly, emotions like fear and insecurity that I hadn't felt for a long time arose.

It's crazy, I learn so much about myself in India, I feel like I'm closer to inner peace than ever before, I don't let other influences bother me and I know what I want and need, and then comes a 24 year-old Colombian living in Paris and breaks my peace, self-esteem and security while she's not even there. Valentina tore apart my entire inner peace, man! But somehow it is the dissatisfaction and restlessness that is beautiful because it arises from strong positive and not negative emotions. At about half past eleven in the evening I was sitting in bed and sleeping a little longer when she wrote to me and asked if I would like to come up to the roof. I quickly went upstairs where she was sitting with others and they were chatting. But the group disbanded quite quickly and so only we remained on the roof, laughing and talking until two in the morning about our relationships, expectations, wishes, religion, societies, cultures and politics while we looked into each other's eyes for a long time. She asked me if I had met anyone on the trip that I had a crush on. I just replied that there was once a single girl in Jaisalmer, but that was it, and changed the subject. When the clock struck two and we both knew our alarms were going off at around 4:10 a.m. to get up for the sunrise boat trip on the Ganges, we said goodnight and headed for bed. But when she got up, I said that I wasn't being completely honest and that there was a second person that I got to know and that I really liked. "You," I said to her and she smiled at me and said that she felt the same way and could she give me a "smag". To this day I haven't figured out what exactly a smag is and she couldn't quite define it for me either. Anyway, it's something like kissing. I also don't know whether a Smag describes a more passionate form of it or whether it has to do with its Latin American roots. Then I got comfortable in bed and tried to fall asleep.

The next morning we took the beautiful boat tour and watched a festival and the morning ceremony on the Ganges, while at 5 a.m. fireworks and firecrackers were going off everywhere as if it were New Year's Day. I spent the day with the Colombian woman again and again and alone, going to the cremation ceremony and watching it eagerly. I noticed that the burns and their location were or took place in the middle of people's everyday lives. While a family carried a member from the Ganges to the woodpile, schoolchildren ran between them, a cow whinnied loudly and a man in a suit looked nervously at his watch. No barrier, no control. A perfect part of everyday life. Why are we Christian Europeans so disconnected from the process of dying and the concept of saying goodbye that we want to remove it from our "normal" lives as much as possible? The Indians see death on the Ganges as liberation from the cycle of reincarnation and celebrate it as a release from being human and are happy for those affected. But we primarily draw suffering and sadness from people's deaths and try to get as much distance from this topic as possible.

When I said goodbye to Valentina in the evening, I gave her a postcard with a few thoughts from me as a reminder and asked if I could give her a Smag too. I sat on the roof again, lost in thought, thinking about my pain at always getting to know people so quickly and having to let them go and brushed my tongue over my lip, which still hurt from a slight bite from her, but then again more like the pleasant hurt. I believe that the acquaintance was more important for me than for her because she already had significantly more experience and it was the first encounter for me on this trip with a person from another continent and a different language with whom I had something. But that's completely okay too. If you don't accept reality and believe that you would always see all the people you have met and loved here again or that a long-term thing could develop, you would drown and desperately run after people without having heard the shot. So it was a nice encounter that showed me again that I get along pretty well with Colombians and that they are my weak point.

With the emotional chaos and the extreme lack of sleep, I then set off on the 29 hour train and bus journey towards Kathmandu to Nepal. It was anything but nice and could give me just as much sleep as the night on the roof, only without a Colombian woman with a French accent.

In Kathmandu today I met with Lance, the Phillipine, and Piotrik, the Pole from the desert in Jaisalmer, as we had now been hiking the Annapurna Circuit Trek for two weeks and still had to organize and shop for everything. I'll take a break for now and give an update after the hike and just enjoy the time with the two goofballs and the mountains. See you in two weeks, you ray ^⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠^