At 4.05 in the morning stopped the train in a station while at the same time my alarm clock rang! Our reservation said we would arrive in 20 minutes and we had nothing prepared. The backpacks were still tied and we did not see each other with the possibility of collecting everything quickly to get off the train. I still remember asking a lady a thousand times: Mathura, Is this Mathura? Yes, we were actually in Mathura Junction.
At that time of night we did not dare to leave. So we went to the 'waiting room' and went to sleep on the floor in the company of thousands of women and children. I never thought I would sleep so well on a floor. At 6:30, with the daylight, we went out in search of a hotel for that night. The first steps in the city make us see that there are no tourists.
We took the guide and went searching for hotels in Mathura but the place is horrible and we were asked 900 INR for a pathetic room. We decided to keep searching and, finally, the third one is going to beat us. We found a hotel for 500 INR, although I do not remember the name. It did not really have a name either and we realized that it was a hotel for locals or at least there was not a outsider there.
The hotel was just for one night, nothing clean but stretching the sack on top of the bed is not much of a problem either. The good thing about the bathroom is that although it was not very decent, it was more or less acceptable.
We got a Rickshaw that takes us to Vrindavan and leaves us at the ISKCON temple. We had hired him to return us to Mathura but when he arrives he says no.
We arrived at Vrindavan knowing that in addition to being an important city it is the city where Krishna grew up. It also owes its importance to being the city where one of the important ISKCON temple is located. That is to say, one of the most important temples for the adepts to a certain Hare Krishna movement. And with that said we met, with many singing and dancing to the rhythm "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama".
We see hundreds of devotees dressed in white and with the whole head shaved except for the strand of hair that is allowed to grow. And among the hundreds we met many Western believers. It was easy to recognize them by skin, eyes, features and gestures. We were surprised by the large number of targets camouflaged in the set of devotees.
We visited the temple, the architecture and the luxury was exemplary. It was not a common temple. Several came to give us explanatory brochures in Hindi, to sell us books and ask for donations for the cows. It was the first time they asked us for money for a cow! Then we went looking for a place to eat something and I do not know why, we have a tense feeling in this city. I do not feel completely comfortable and there is nothing obvious that gives me a reason. We found a place to eat there and we went for a walk around the ghats of Vrindavan, towards the kali ghat, the main ghat.
We also knew Vrindavan as the city of widows. It was easy to recognize them. They are dressed in white with a metal vessel to store the food and silver they collect in the eternal tour of the city. It was a Sunday that we peered into one of the many temples of Vrindavan and discovered a ghat with many women (all in white) praying. Then we learned that maybe it was some ashram of widows where they spend the day praying and cleaning in exchange for a plate of meals. We did not think it appropriate to photograph them.
After traveling through Vrindavan with very different realities, we decided to give Mathura a new opportunity. We arrived wanting to know another sacred city (previously we had been in Haridwar), to soak up mysticism and share with the local culture. Mathura showed us how ignorant we were, how much we still need to know.
Mathura is one of the 7 sacred cities of India. It is considered a sacred city because Krishna was born there. His existence is surrounded by legends and myths that range from his childhood antics to his adolescent love affairs. He is recognized for having been a good shepherd who protected all his cows and in passing for having been with almost all the shepherds of the region. It is easy to recognize him in images. His skin is bluish and is usually in the company of cows, a bow and his transverse flute. Each of these elements is linked to the different scenes and vicissitudes of his life.
We arrived on a day of rain and unbearable humidity. The heat overwhelmed us. In this context it did not take us long to realize that we were the only two tourists that visited the town. And so our stay began there, successive and unfortunate events made us reconsider our visit in the city. But luckily they became simple anecdotes:
The first has to do with the journey that unites the cities of Mathura and Vrindavan. We took a shared rickshaw with another 6/7 people (when the capacity would be for about 4). When so many people traveled with the knee out, until another rickshaw got too close and squeezed the knee between the two vehicles. The result was a simple bruise. Luckily, nothing more.
Another anecdote that we took from the visit was during walking the streets of Vrindavan. It was midday and the sun was breaking the earth. It was very hot and there were almost no people on the street, just us looking for a quiet place to eat. And in that we were when a monkey, with all the skill came running behind and without even messing up stole my sunglasses. Before we reacted, it had already climbed a tree. We saw it there, sitting, breaking the glasses.
What to do under this context? We arrived on a Friday and had train tickets for Sunday night. We did not have many options other than to lament. Or we could take it easy, knowing that on a trip not everything is rosy all the time, and enjoy as much as possible our little stay in both cities. We are inclined for the second option.
After the long day, we return to the hotel to have dinner, since they had told us they would prepare dinner. But upon arrival we realize that if we want to dine they offer us only rice with paneer for an exorbitant price. So we indignantly go to sleep with half an energy bar and a bit of mango juice for dinner. It was 10 o'clock at night and we did not find anything near the hotel where we could eat something!
The next morning we left on our train to Mathura, a city that we have already explained in a previous post and in which I have already been twice. At the hotel we were also told that there would be a rickshaw waiting but after the run-in at dinner it was clear that there would be no transport to get to the train either. We left and they were behind us for a while so that we paid the welcome Chai.
We did not want to pay after how they had treated us. They also told us that it was courtesy. So we left at 4 with our backpacks! We had no other way to get there than to take a cycle rickshaw and in 10 minutes we were there. We negotiate 15 INR and when we arrive they tell us 150! Being there I do not know what happens to me but I do not like to feel that I'm being taken for a ride. I go to sleep as soon as I get on the train. It is my favorite sleeping pill and I wake up from a brake in Mathura.
It is the day of Holi, the most popular festival in India. I have breakfast and share transportation to the train station with an Australian. The train arrives with 2 hours of delay, and I have to also change the platform. I almost lose it. Just when I see my train arriving, a kid proposes to me to fix the zipper of my fanny pack.
I agree with the error of not asking how much it would cost me. On the train I met a wonderful family, and very funny children. I even got some food. Being with this family I noticed something that I consider unjust. I noticed that the treatment towards the boy (a year bigger perhaps than the girl), was much more cordial than to the girl.
I arrived at Mathura and here Holi has already begun. It costs us to enter the hotel because they have everything closed. The one open is the most expensive and most luxurious hotel I have ever stayed in! I change, go to the street and I get lost. I go back to the hotel to ask where to go? They explain to me several places all in Mathura, because we go there.
At the exit we stumbled upon tourists who come out of a taxi with the perfect holi party color. They tell us that they have been to Vrindavan, which is the main point in the area to celebrate this festival. I take a shared autorickshaw to Vrindavan. Along the way we got lost along with our companions.
After arriving at Vrindavan they put started throwing colours from the outside. They also threw at us balloons of colored liquid from even other vehicles. I took only one 100 rupee note that is enough for round trip to Vrindavan. It became immediately useless because, when I was about to pay the driver, they sprayed me, and in the note, and the driver did not want to take the note.
Ultimately he did not charge me. I tried to use my note but nobody accepted it. I get into the crowd and follow the people, with explosion of colors, dust, water, and music. Following the crowd down Banke Bihari Bazar Street, and after navigating through a river of color, I enter a smaller alley and reach a temple in the middle of nowhere.
It was a temple of Shri Bankey Bihari dedicated to Krishna and in which from time to time waves of the faithful came en masse. Few people control the entrance to avoid disasters, I imagine. The issue is that we had to enter without shoes and the floor was a little, as I would say, filled with a kind of pink layer.
I come up for the environment and decide to enter, but there is nowhere to leave the shoes. In fact, in the outskirts of this temple are hundreds of flip flops. Once inside, I try to make a video with the gopro of the environment. Suddenly I start to feel blows and pushes. Apparently there is an area at the top of this temple in which it is allowed to take photos and videos, but in the lower area it is not allowed.
And instead of asking me to stop filming, they tried to lynch me. At that time I still did not understand anything. A young boy explained it to me, and accompanied me to the upper zone. I thanked him with the orange note I had. He was very grateful, and he sure knows how to clean it.
From above everything looked very good. There were three gates with large curtains that covered the deities. The crowd entered in masses, singing and throwing colored powders into the air. They stopped while the curtains were opened. A kind of prayer was held, and as soon as it was over, the curtains closed again and there was another explosion of colors and songs.
I decided to stay in the temple. I had a hard time, and I was already working on how to get back without money. I was there a short time in Vrindavan. So I turn into a shared autorickshaw. It is clear that it is rush hour and the vehicles fill to the fullest. Once again I sit in the front next to the driver.
After come back I take a shower to remove some of the colours and put on the same clothes to look in the festive mode. I eat at the same hotel and go out to enjoy Holi once again. I walk to the temple of Kesava Deo (Shri Krishna Janmasthan). I could see the streets full of color, but nobody was already painted.
It seems that the Holi was only in the morning. It had his schedules depending on the areas . As in many sacred temples in India they do not let enter with cameras. I stay outside, as there were too many people queuing to leave cameras. The temple was huge. More than a temple it was a kind of complex with several temples inside.
Some kids come up with me to talk to me and I take some pictures of them, but suddenly they are repelled by one of the police officers. As night fell, I walked back to the hotel. At night from the hotel I went to the train station to find two friends who arrived that night in Mathura. We returned to our hotel because they were staying in our hotel, and we looked for where to eat, not without problems, because everything was full.
Day 2
I get up still colored. How complicated is it to remove this paint. I do not see much of Holi atmosphere anymore, at least in Mathura. I ask at the reception of the hotel where can I go to celebrate Holi today. They say they do not know. It is clear that the previous day they have had enough and it was not convenient for them to give this information, or so I imagine.
I approach again walking to the Kesava Deo temple and then I take a walk in the area. In between arrive my other friends who will also accompany me because they do not dare to go out alone. Once we all got together we caught an autorickshaw to Vrindavan again, to see if they celebrate Holi today. On the outward journey our transport suffers a breakdown, but after a while the driver manages to fix it.
To take advantage of the trip we visit its main temples and stroll through the market. In one of the temples, I get attacked by a monkey, and my glasses were almost stolen, but the monkey only manages to throw them on the ground. Later, we see how a monkey steals the glasses of a driver inside his car through his window while he was standing to perform a maneuver with his van.
The poor man buys some bananas to try to recover his pretty blue glasses. We were waiting there to see if he could get them back. At least until we left he did not succeed. In some of the temples that we entered, we had to pay for our shoes, because they told us that if we left them outside, as we used to do, the monkeys could take them away.
It cost us to find the Krishna temple of the previous day. It was not marked anywhere, not even in google maps. It was closed and we left since it was infested with monkeys. While catching a transport to return to Mathura, we stopped at a stand and bought some bananas. While we hand out the bananas, a monkey starts screaming like a madman and chasing us through the rooftops.
I grabbed the handle of bananas that remained. I went near it and gave it a banana. We were then able to eat ours peacefully. We then returned to our hotel to eat, in an auto rickshaw bigger than the earlier one. During the meal we see several tourists with very colored clothes. One of them explains that today there was Holi Huranga until 4pm in a city 30 km from Mathura at Dauji Temple! I get up to try to take what I have left of paint and go to sleep soon.
Day 3
After breakfast we look at the state of our train and it is 1 hour behind schedule. We decided to go to the station and try to catch the first one to leave for Delhi. There is the typical train that does not even have the number of the train that we have to take. The girl who was very unpleasant says us to go to platform 2.
Well there we go, with a ticket without much information. We walk super clueless and once on platform 2, we see a train to Delhi. We decided to ride in that same. We walk from coach to coach. Nobody lets us sit down. We get a position for our backpacks next to the exit hall and there we leave them.
The truth is that the train is crowded. While sitting on the floor, a young boy does not stop looking at me. He approaches me and asks me something? I do not understand it. Right next to us in the car there is a Jain family, although we thought at first that they were Sikh. We became good friends with them, and they have a thousand photos with us. In fact, they have sent us some via whatsapp. We arrived with some delay in Delhi.
