a scaresome moment

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yikes, we had a scary night last night. We werent quite ready to eat so we thought we'd take a stroll for an hour or so into the market. We had things to buy anyway, so off we popped.
To begin with it was all fine, we were wandering down the lanes, window shopping so to speak, we were enjoying being a little bit away from the tourist trail, and the stalls seemed much friendlier a little way out. you could buy everything, clothes, tin pans, pirated dvds, embroidery, saris, kids toys, and people seemed to be a bit nicer around there too. Kids were saying 'hallo' to us and NOT following it with an offer of posatcards or request for a photo, shopkeepers were saying 'namaste' as a hello and not as an introduction to their beautiful silk saris, cheapest price for you madam. Lovely lovely, all very nice. Until suddenly, a man was in front of me, with a harsh look in his eyes, mildly gesturing what I think was probably that I should give him money, but I didnt fully understand, and he was so in my face that it was a bit intimidating. He then turned to bob who shook his head similarly to me, but all was a bit busy, and we were hemmed in. Suddenly the man struck out at bob, and it was all a bit heated. Stern words were issued by the shopkeepers, presumably to the scary man and he went off. Bob said he'd pinched his cheek. It was all a bit baffling, particularly as when we turned to thank the shopkeepers, they didnt seem particularly friendly anymore. We just didnt really know what was going on and it left us confused.
Shortly afterwards we decided to make our way back home, but we found that we were pretty blooming lost. Every lane we turned down seemed to lead us to a quieter alley, with less people, and less light, until eventually there was nobody but looming men on motorbikes around every corner. I was starting to get pretty scared. I had no idea where we were, I;ve realised being here that my sense of direction is truly attrocious. I was trying not to panic, but we could have been anywhere, we'd been wandering around for about 2 hours and as far as I knew we could have been parallel to where we wanted to be or on the totally opposite side of town. Bob was pretty sure we were adjacent to the ghat though (the river) so all we really needed to do was to turn left somewhere that would lead us to it. There was just a dodgy feeling about the area though, and I dont know if I was working myself up unnessasarily or what but I had no idea what the nature of any potential danger was. Perhaps I have been reading too much about the Noida killings which came to light 2 weeks ago (a well respected man and his servant have been systematically kidnapping children, raping, murdering and sometimes eating them, while their parents missing pleas to the police have been largely ignored due to them generally being from poor families).
But things just seemed to be getting more maze like, and suddenly, a man came running out of a house to our left and urged us to follow him to the ghat. We started to but it just didnt feel right to me, what was he doing running out of his house like that, had he received a tip off? most likely he was just on his way somewhere but how could we possibly know? As he headed off down the steep long steps, telling us it was safe, I persuaded bob not to follow him, but to take our chances with the men at the top in leather jackets. I had it in my head that the ghat was so far down, so far from anywhere, from anyone;s ears, maybe they were luring us there to rob us or worse. Stories like this exist all over Varanasi (not least in the lonely planet) and although most of the time this seems to be untrue, you just never never know.
Anyway, I'm glad we didnt follow him, just in case. We kept coming across scarey boys, and we continued to have no idea how far from home we were, but somehow, eventually, after my fragmented prayers, we started to see recognisable things. Suddenly there was the open shop with the 3 boys playing computer games on an old tv, still the same as yesterday, and there was the same fabric hanging up inside a stall, and there was the sound of traffic and glory hallelujah, there was the beautiful overcrowded market, with the drug tout towering over me and urging me to take his space cake. And mercy of mercys, finally we were at the music shop, Munna asking if we were alright and surely we would like to come in and take chai with him? Phewwwweeeeeee.

We took a boat ride today with our local boatman Rajesh. He took us down the ghat as we asked, and there, maybe 2km down the river was the ghat opening we'd come down in a panic - 2KM!!!! christ we were lost. He said he wouldnt go walking at that time, "its dangerous, people tell you they'll show you the way and then rob you, and pull a gun on you! will they kill you? who knows? so you give them your camera" and a double pheeeeewwwwwweeee and you can bet your life we'll be tucked up in bed early tonight!

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