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Published: August 7th 2007
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Sick of buses, our next journey saw us leap onto the night train to the holy city of Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges. Ant was particularly excited about getting on a sleeper, an enthusiasm which slowly ebbed away as the hours of discomfort, noise and sleeplessness took hold. Every journey, it seems, has at least one event to make it stand out. On this occasion, it was the poor bloke 2 bunks below who woke at around 2am to find one of his bags had been nicked. We'd grabbed the top bunks which might be safe from thieves, but not so safe though that if you sit up suddenly in the night there is a strong possibility you'll have your face shredded into teeny weeny little pieces by the ceiling fans.
Still, we made it in a fairly moderate 14 hours. Stepping out of the station, Varanasi seemed far from holy. The city has a population of just over a million (a mere village), but we reckon it has about 14 million cars, motorbikes, rickshaws and buses. The place is rammed! It was a painful shlep which eventually got us to the comparatively quiet streets of the old
Ganges at dawn
with a candle floating in it, a symbol by which the dead are remembered town, where the streets are truly medieval. There is actually a few ways of measuring the streets. They're the width of a pregnant cow; bulls require a 3 point turn to turn around; 2 mangy dogs can be placed end to end, 3 if they're scratching; 2 semi naked men can walk abreast; but only one hippy can fit down the street lest his aura be impeached. Varanasi is a bit of a hangout for the western dropout. Here, the attire seems to be sarong, ponytail stacked high upon the head and as much facial hair as can be mustered. People come here to learn instruments, Hindi, meditation, and yoga...and not to be left out, we finally gave in, and became pupils of yoga.
But before all that, we checked into the Shiva Krishna something or other guest house where we were welcomed by the delightful Deepu - a kid of about 13 who had charisma bursting out of him and really made the place worth visiting. This was our first hint that Varanasi is a town run by kids. By the time we'd made it down to the river, we realised that the adults are mostly asleep in
meditation
that's jenny at the top. the one with the beard boats or awaiting foolish punters to be lured into massages (ahem), and the hawking, touting and general harassing duties were the sole realm of the street urchins, and there were plenty of them.
So, the massages. And it's best I hand over to Jen for this.
Day 2. We spend a couple of hours doing yoga by which point Ant had reached dangerous levels of chilledness. We headed down to the river for Ant to be accosted by a young man who promised him a massage for 20 rupees. Within mere seconds Ant had laid himself down under an umbrella whilst this chap pummelled his scrawy body. Whilst I am cursing Ant, anther chap who is chanting thrusts dried flowers into my hand. I'm politely going along with this, wondering where it's going. I then get dragged down to the waterside where I have to throw them into the water as a sacrifice to mother ganga. Following this performance I am then asked to make a donation to the temple, which is a small statue of Shiva. 'Typical' donations are upwards of 150 US dollars (just to put this into context our hotel room is a bargain 7
kiddywinks
look at the heed on the one at the back! bonkers! US a night!). I offer 5 rupees which is greeted with laughter, finally settling on 20 rupees to much huffing and puffing from the crowd that have now gathered. I return to Ant sulking, and his massage is still on-going. Finally Ant is asked to pay a reasonable price, which is around 500...quite a mark up. Thankfully I have the purse, so allocate Ant 100 then walk away, so that he can negotiate.
And thence a system was borne. Ant gets us into situations, Jenny gets us out of them by walking off with the cash. We quickly made use of this system again...back to Jenny.
Anyway, one of the many fascinating things about Varanassi is that it is a major pilgrimmage spot for Hindus, with the dead cremated on the banks of the ganges. Their ashes are thrown into the river, guaranteeing the deceased passage to nirvana, rather than being reborn. It's quite an incredible thing to observe. However, even this provides an opportunity to extract money. We wandered up to the burning ghats, with a young kid in tow. They all seem to want to take you there, which I think sadly means that they are
Shiva
Shiva overlooking the main ghat at Varanasi on some sort of commission. We are then approached by another fella who proceeds to explain the ceremony to us. At the end of his speech he announces that we need to make a donation of 300 rupees towards the funerals of the poor. I'd be happy to do this, if the money was going in that direction, but the sad, honest truth is that it will just line the pockets of the touts and pests.
So, Jenny buggered off again, leaving me with a donation to give to the bloke. I think he was quite surprised actually, as was I. Still, I was blessed and for all we know, Jenny was cursed.
Right, this seems to be getting a bit over long now. So the rest in brief:
We did 5 days of yoga and now Jenny can touch her bottom with her forehead.
We got wedged in a street with an angry bull and everyone shat themselves.
Ant had a go at cycling a rickshaw a whole 5 metres, before having to give up exhausted. We met some lovely people: Scott, Deepu and the rest of the kids running the guest house. We ate some amazing
Jen
on a boat on the Ganges. What you can't see in this photo are the 40,000 other tourists also on the river. One of who approached Ant and said 'What this country needs is to shoot all the dogs and all the monkeys and eat all the cattle.'
Many words sprang to mind, t**t and moron were among them. food at the Shiva German bakery (which had attention grabbing sizzlers) . We attended numerous music concerts and learnt that not all Indian instruments are a delight to the ear - the high pitched kazoo things made our brains bleed. Then, on the way to the station, the most amazing sight...I kid you not....I saw...really, this is good...
A BULL IN A SARI SHOP
Jenny actually missed it and for some stupid reason I didn't get a photo, but honestly, this MASSIVE bull was just sat there, enjoying the air con in a pretty smart looking sari shop. The owners were just sort of standing around, behind their nice clean glass counters, presumably cacking themselves at the idea of moving the thing out. For all we know it's still there. And you know what? I hope so. I'm sure there will be many funny sights along the way, but for me, this one will take some beating.
So, Varanasi in spite of its hassles, was actually a hit. We warmed up, chilled out and got into a bit of a groove. But no resting on our lotus leaves, we're heading west to the Raj. Next stop Jaipur.
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Katharine
non-member comment
I never thought I'd be the one sitting at a desk reading OTHER PEOPLEĀ“s travel blogs.. ah well back to earth with a thump! .. It's great to see what you're up to and I love the commentary! Love from Buenos Aires.. by the time you get here you'll be expert travellers (I expect at least a few dreds and tatoos) Katharine x