Varanasi

Varanasi is a long way from Mumbai, situated as it is in mid-north India on the banks of the sacred River Ganges (and called the Ganga here). So I flew to Varanasi, which also meant touching down in Delhi and sitting on the tarmac for about an hour and a half. Essentially the journey took most of the day and it was dusk when I arrived at my guest house, where my room has a balcony overlooking the river and the famous Ghats. Fearing to venture too far away from the guest house through the narrow alleyways of the old city after dark (power cuts are common!) I ate dinner at the guest house's very own rooftop 'restaurant' and watched boatloads of tourists (both Indian and western) return upstream after watching the nightly puja / ceremony at the main Ghat, just downstream.

My first reason for coming to Varanasi was to rendezvous with Hannah, who had planned to meet her friend Sarah there for a couple of days. Sarah works in Orissa state on the east coast, so Varanasi seemed like an ideal halfway point for the two of them. Plus it just so happened that it fitted in well with my nascent plans, which until that point consisted of not much more than 'hit Mumbai, then either go north or south for a bit'. Not fancying a 26 hour train ride, I booked a flight. However no sooner had I done so, Sarah's employers advised her not to go to Varanasi as it would be festival time. Thus the plan was changed. In the mean time I had done some more reading on Varanasi, was still keen to go, and had found a place to stay (all this while still in Australia). So here I am!

I wasn't disappointed that I came. Although on the first evening I slipped down some steps near the guest house, so bruising and grazing my right arm (and getting covered in mud, shit, and god knows what else in the process). And then I spent half the night fending off all manner of creepy crawlies - apparently from the end of the monsoon until Diwali - basically most of October - Varanasi is flying bug city. So it's fair to say I didn't feel like I was having fun on Thursday morning. But by the evening I definitely was.

The periphery of Varanasi is a common Indian mix of shops spilling out onto half-tarmac half-dirt streets crowded with traffic morning noon and night. However the heart of the city is the maze of extremely narrow alleyways (galis) that pass for streets, leading down to the Ghats. The galis are very atmospheric and often crowded not just with people but also with cows and the more than occasional 'two wheeler' i.e. a motorbike / moped. Still the comparative lack of continually blaring horns, and the shade from the burning hot midday sun, makes the galis are a fun place to explore. I tried to get a decent photo but none do them justice!

The best way to appreciate Varanasi however is from a boat on the Ganges itself. This way, you not only get a widescreen view of all the goings-on on the Ghats, but you (generally speaking) avoid the touts and the scammers. Due to the large number of tourists, Varanasi has its fair share of these, oh yes.

My first boat ride was taken at dusk, which gave us (me and my fellow tourists) the opportunity to watch the nightly ceremony at the main Ghat, from the river. That Thursday night, it just happened to coincide with Durga puja, when the mother goddess Durga is honoured by chucking effigies of her into the river, dancing about a bit, and setting off tons of firework. Both things were going on at the same time, at the same place. Truly a bonkers spectacle, but it made for some great photos.

On Friday I visited Sarnath, which lies only about 10km from Varanasi, but takes 45 minutes to reach using an auto-rickshaw due to the city's hellish roads! While Varanasi is extremely important to Hindus, Sarnath is important to Buddhists: it was here that Buddha apparently gave his first sermon. Despite its importance the site of the city that was built after Buddha's sermon is now a ruin, albeit a neat, ordered, and well-preserved one.

The scam I rode out this particular day was my rickshaw driver's demand for 'baksheesh' despite the fact that on the way back into town he actually managed to crash the damn thing into a couple of motorcyclists (no harm done though!) and then dropped me about a 20 minute walk from where I wanted to be! Cheeky sod. I just laughed at the ridiculousness of it and walked off.

The good book says that no visit to Varanasi is complete without an early morning boat ride, and so on the Saturday morning this is what I did, getting up before dawn to make sure I got the best of it. Devout Hindus traditionally come down to the Ghats to bathe in the Ganges at dawn, and the light at this time makes for some unforgettable sights.

The other thing that has to be mentioned about Varanasi is the 'burning' Ghats. There are two in the city; these are where the dead are brought to be cremated before the remains are interred into the Ganges. This happens in the open air, in full view of anyone who cares to watch. Quite an emotional spectacle really. No photos allowed out of respect for the dead of course. Now I knew that this is the way that Hindus dispose of the dead, but what I didn't know is that some people (e.g. children, holy men - sadhus, pregnant women) are not burnt - they are just taken to the middle of the river and dropped. Apparently the fish eat the remains. I wondered if they also eat all the rubbish that the locals literally throw into the river every day too, sadly. 

Surprisingly enough, I didn't fancy a dip in the sacred river myself.

Robin