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Published: December 18th 2006
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Dawn cruise down the Ganges
We rode down the Ganges for two hours as the sun rose We've been in Varanasi for two days now. After coming in by two hour train trip from Bodhgaya (the trip was nothing special this time), it took us about and hour to be almost ripped off twice. The first time was from the driver of the Autorickshaw. He greeted us as we left the platform and asked us where we were going. Usually i wouldn't even answer because the drivers who leave the pack of others offer higher prices, but this time i said 'Assi Ghat'. '60 rupees' he said. This was a fairly good price and i looked a bit surprised for a second and said ok. As he was driving us to our reliable midrange hotel- hotel haifa- he stopped and pointed to some police on the road and said that the road was blocked and we had to go the long way around, for which we would have to pay more. Smelling the fairly obvious scam, Nick and I got fairly forceful and started interogating him.
He seemed top know that the road was closed because of 'Hindu/Muslim fighting', yet only realised that it was closed when we arrived there. The obvious thing that thankfully came to
Varanasi Fort
It's called something else but as I write this I don't have the Lonely Planet guide to tell me. Varanasi Fort will do for now my mind was to ask him how he could know before we got into the car the reason that the road was closed yet, not know that it was closed at all, and offer us a price which included its use. He thought for a bit and realised that we weren't going to give him any more money than the 60 rupees he told us, so he turned some corners and took us the the haifa.
We thought that one was enough for the night... not so. Hotel Haifa was listed as a midrange place in the lonely planet guide and seemed to look it from the outside. We waited in the line, said our names and that we had a reservation for the night. The man behind the desk said simply 'no rooms'. After staring at him for a good while i said again 'We have a reservation'. He pointed in the book nest to our names to the time 6.45 (it was now 7.30). He went on to say 'You say that you come at this time, so i wait and you no come, so i give your room to someone else. But there is another room,
Varanasi Street
Unlike Kolkata, very few sugns were in english. We sat in a traffic jam here for 15 minutes only one left worth 1500 rupees'. I gave him the dirtiest greasy look that my innocent little face could muster up. When we made the reservation the person asked us how we were getting to Varanasi and what time we would arrive. I said 'by train, we'll get there between 7.30 and 8'. He asked me what time the train was itself due to arrive at the station, i said 'about 6.45'. Basically what had happened was that they had written the wrong time down and wanted us to pay 3 times the original price for the room.
This was where the fun started. Nick and I got fairly animated as we explained that as it was the hotel's fault that the incorrect time had been written down, it was their responsibility to find us a room for the price we were told. He kept on saying 'i understand sir, but the only room is worth 1,500 rupees'. I was talking fairly loud- the people in the restaraut across the hall were starting to look over. Nick even said that since we were from the place that the Lonely Planet books were made, we would write to them and
Cow at the Fort
I tried really hard not to include a sunset picture this blog... only one is ok. tell them that we were ripped off. After a while he relented and gave us the suite of the hotel for 650 rupees- our nght was starting to get a bit better.
This was quite a good combintion- a suite, a third of the price, a cricket bat and ball, and a passion to screw the owner of the hotel. So, we preceded to play cricket and talk about the night we'd had. There was some debate from nick about the legitimacy of the cricket stroke 'Chinese Cut' (which does exist; a French cut through the legs), but we retired soon after dinner as Chelsea was playing Arsenal on ESPN.
Basically, we had a travellers night. The lesson that we learned (or the lesson that we already knew that was reenforced) was that you just have to be really firm. All in all, it was pretty fun, yelling at people and saving alot of money.
The next day we woke up early and went to find a much cheaper room (we always book a midrange place when we arrive in a city late). We never tracked down where our sweedish friends were, but we found a nice
simple place on Harishchandra Ghat that only charged us 150 a night. The room is minimal to say the least (get it) but is fine. We quite like the 'restaurant' upstairs on the rooftop, basically one guy with his mullet and a dishpig. The foods not bad (for a couple of bucks- i love thinking about that), and the view's good as well. As far as restaraunts go, you find that the worse the service the more that you can ;augh at it and the more fun you have. We love our rooftop place because thismorning 20 minutes after ordering the chef got out of the shower in front of us, shouted our order to confirm and turned on the wrestling. We're usually the only ones there which is also cool.
The only thing that surprises me about Varanasi is that it's exactly what i thought it would be. The Ghats are just as they are in the pictures and the city is just a fairly hectic mini-delhi with more monkeys and cows. We went along to the burning ghat the other day. We were expecting to be confronted by the idea of dead bodies being openly cremated in
Goat on the waterfront
We saw more animals in Varanasi than any other city so far front of us, and to an extent we were. The strange thing that we were'nt expecting was the chaos around it. Nick made a good point that it was hard to accept what we were seing while animals walked around, people shouted and often laughed, there was a cacophony of noise and there were no signs whatsoever of people (the families stood there and watched) showing emotion or consolng eachother. A very indian scene.
Just a short while ago Nick and I managed to score a role in a Bollywood film that was being filmed on one of the Ghats, even if it did take an hour of walking back and forward in the heat. It was at least a fun experience walking from the 'film India' fllled with a perfectly balanced rainbow array of saris, to the 'actual india' with beggers and people trying to sell us anything. I can't wait for it to be released on DVD in my local Blockbuster.
We also managed to meet up with our sweedish friends as well- they were good, and we arangd to meet in Delhi before they go. I feel that I do like Varanasi. The difference is
Man on the street
I've become quite good at taking photos without people noticing not in its change from the preceeding cities, but rather that at this stage in the trip comming to a place like this is not the same. This is because the confrontation factor is not there. Although it's hectic and dirty, we're beginning to become fairly used to that stuff. The other thing is that we really didn't have enough time to do the city properly, only 3 days in total. As we only organised Darjeeling at the last minute, we had to cut some time here, also we're meeting Chris at Agra on the 14th. We plan to go to the Fort tomorrow and take some more photos of the place. I think overall that my favourite memories of Varanasi will be the two stories of the first night, along with the bollywood experience. I would really love to come back here some time and do it properly. Hopefully I will.
PLEASE keep commenting on this page after you read it, nothing pleases me more.
Sam
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Dad
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Hi
Sam - you are starting to sound like the experienced traveller! Be tough but fair. It's been hot - damn hot here, but in true Melbourne style, one day it's 42, the next 21! Worse, it's still dry, and getting dryer. Going onto stage 3 water restrictions on Jan 1 - no more watering system (gulp). We all appreciate the time you are spending on the blog, it must be hard to do. I was going to say keep it briefer, but you will treasure your own account in the future, so try to keep it up! The family is all missing you, but we feel close with the Blog - look forward to speaking over Christmas!