Varanasi

We arrived in Varanasi exhausted as we didn’t sleep well in our ‘sleeper class’ beds on the train. There were 15 people sharing the 9 beds in our area- including crying babies on and under the beds! This was when we eventually got into our berths after spending 20 minutes moving all the people out!

The train station was full of touts and presumably thieves (we say this due to the fact that we were tracked by a number of shady people from the train to the tourist office). On arrival we promptly booked our tickets out of there for three nights later, opting for a nicer AC cabin this time.

Varanasi looks much the same as every other Indian city until you enter the old city- only possible by rickshaw- drab. That isn’t to say the old city isn’t dirty, it’s right up there with Agra, but has a certain charm, being one of the oldest cities in the world. The narrow alleys reminded us of Venice, a Venice where cows and motorcycles compete with you over the three foot of passable space while spraying you with some holy shit.

For Varanasi is a holy spiritual place for all Hindu’s. This centeres around the river Ganges, and it’s bathing ghats. From these ghats, or stairs to the river, Hindu pilgrims wash away their sins, preferably at dawn. There are lots of ghats in Varanasi and some are used to cremate the dead in a spiritual ceremony, where we were told up to four thousand bodies are burned a day. This reminded us of a conversation we had earlier in Khajuraho with a restaurateur who matter of factly told us that everyone there gets Malaria, it’s no problem, if you get it you go to the doctor. He helps you or you may die. But so many people die everyday in India that ‘we mourn for an hour and then move on’. He was also referring to the recent bombs in Dehli and elsewhere around the country.

Security was high around the old town- hopefully ensuring that all the deaths were natural- because of tension between the Muslims and the Hindu’s. There are two temples within the Golden Temple complex one from each religion, thus around each entrance there are upwards of four armed guards. As it was an Indian Hindu festival that weekend the area was thronged.

We stayed in a mediocre hotel in Meer Ghat, with a wonderful view of the river. From the hotel we were able to walk straight down to the ghats and commission a boat the following dawn to ride along the river for an hour to watch the spiritual washing ritual. It was worth the early rise. The pilgrims were fully involved in their bathing, ignoring or oblivious to the passing boats full of busily snapping awe struck tourists. While watching an old man whip of his undies to use as a face cloth is interesting, the burning ghats were definitely more of a focal point. The previous day, while we were walking along the ghats, we passed a ‘funeral’. The body was carried through the town and down the steps to the river by some outcasts- the lowest castes in India- where they proceeded to dip it into the river for one last spiritual bath. There were already two fires fully ablaze feeding of previous bodies, we didn’t want to stick around and see this one enter the flames. We walked away, had some lunch and eventually worked our way back and the funerals were still in full swing, this time the body was uncovered, with the wife and children lamenting around it, but we quickly passed through, now that we had seem the dead mans face we definitely didn’t want to see him burn. Around this ghat there were huge piles of logs for the fires, the higher the wood quality the more expensive the cremation. Each pile is carefully weighed out for the size of the particular body and the cost is calculated accordingly. The touts were cashing in here offering to give tourists a better view, a family history and asking for a hefty fee to help pay for the funeral- which you know will never get to the families.

On our final day in Varanasi we took a two hour yoga lesson with the five foot flute playing Yogi Rajkumar Vajpai or Raju to his friends- which we were after five seconds. It was a wonderful session, he was a great teacher, very encouraging ‘‘Look me, ah, yes, yes, you’ve got it, I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’’ he said, as we flexed our toes. When we completed a pose somewhat correctly, he flipped into a handstand and ran around the room in delight. The session wound down with some deeply relaxing mediation and right back up again with some quick hissing star jumps to increase lung capacity- or perhaps punishment for the snore that was let slip during meditation. On our leaving he enthusiastically thanked us for thanking him for the session. And, as he is Indian after all, enquired would we be back the next day as we handed our money over. We would indeed have been back the next day and many more if we didn’t have to leave Varanasi that night. We thoroughly enjoyed the session and will seek out another as soon as we can.

From Varanasi we caught our night train to Gorakpur, where we met two Israeli guys- kfir and Amir, a Spanish and French couple- Raffa and Eliza and a Korean- Ha dong kyong. With our unlikely band we eventually hired a jeep-thanks to Kfir’s hard bargaining- to take us to the border town of Sunauli, where we walked across the border into Nepal.

Sights: 10/10 Tourist facilities: 6/10 City: 4.5/10