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Published: August 12th 2008
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varanasi mika 007
Indians washing away their sins in the Ganges Hell there! So tonight will be our fourth night in Varanasi and I think I'm going to have a bit of trouble describing it well...but i'll do my best.
We got a train from Agra to Varanasi and that train journey really sucked for me, was feeling really ill and barely got any sleep, was o happy to get off the train. We got to Varanasi in the morning and the rickshaw driver took us to his hotel, it was decent enough, the main thing we wanted was a tv this time, because the community shield was on ina couple days lol! That day was pretty much a nothing day, was really ill and literally bedridden. The next day we went out and explored. Varanasi is definately the craziest place we have ever been to and that is saying alot. Along with being the craziest is was by far hte dirtiest aswell, some of the smells around this place are so freakin' disgusting!There are people pissing everywher, cow shit all over the place, unbelieveable! We had thought we had got used to that stuff by now, but here was even worse. The open sewers at the side of the road
were so horrible it made me laugh (maybe an insane kind of laugh). One day when the rain really was coming down monsoon style, the sewers just over flowed and were all over the road, nice!
So anyway, enough about how dirty the place is! Exploring this place in the monsoon period was incredibly difficult, usually in other seasons, the Ganges river is only about 200 meters wide, but in monsoon season the river is about 2 km wide. So that means places you can walk up and down the river in other season were totally under water now. This meant we had to naviagte our way through these claustraphobic alley ways which we got lost in sooo many times, but we had to do this to see the river and the Ghats. We finally found a way down to the river at a place called the Meer Ghat. Here we decided to take a boat ride up and down the river, so after much haggling, walking away, haggling some more, we got on a boat. The guy on the boat said he could take us to two 'burning ghats' in one and a half hours so we went
for it. For you guys that don't know, Varanasi is seen in India as an exteremly holy place to die and the Ganges river a place for your ashes to be scattered after being cremated on the river side at one of these 'burning Ghats'. It is seen as an escape to Nirvana. So in a way we were quite excited to see these burning ghat even if we didnt know what to expect..and we really didnt. The boat ride was cool, we saw almost all of the ghats in Varanasi, we saw many people washing at the ghats, which they believe washhes them of their sins, we saw interesting buildings, then we came to one of the burninf ghats. From far away we took a picture because we did not want to offend anyone ofcourse. But we couldn't see anything well and were quite dissapointed. We turned around and went the other way towards the next burning ghat, the main one - Manikarnika Ghat.
When we finally got there we wer asked to step off the boat and go with a man that was signalling to us, so we just went with the flow. Unbelievably the guy took
us right up to the top where the bodies were being burnt! It was so hot there, around me there were about four bodies being burnt, one about 2 meters away from me. One of the bodies I could see its face very clearly, another the legs and the toes curling. It was the most surreal experience of my life, I didn't expect to see anything quite like that, I guess I didnt know what to expect. The weirdest thing was that I wasn't shocked or horrified, just in pure astonishment, its very hard to explain. As we stood by the bodies burning away, our guide continued to tell us why this all goes on here and different things that happen. The strangest thing for me was when he said that children, holy men and people who get killed by cobra's dont get cremated they just get took out in a boat on the Ganges and dropped in the river with rocks to way them down..at this point I was actually pinching myself as I looked around again ha! At that point he asked us if we were satisfied by what he had shown us, I dont think satisfied was
the right word but we nodded. So after he explained that wood needed to be bought for the funerals and many families didnt have the money so we gave a donation and got back in the boat, jaws almost on the floor!
After doing the Ganges boat ride, seeing all the Ghats and especially the burning ones, there wasnt alot left in Varaanasi for Mika and Jay except for doinf everything we could to make us feel better. But that night we heard there was an Indian channel showing th community shield, we watched in our room so happy! We both agreed that usualy we wouldnt care about thhis game but we've been so starved of football here that the community shield was absolutely fantastic!
So Varanasi has been...interesting, we've been ill most of the time and therefore turned into vegetarians for the time being, but also seen some things we will never forget. Tomorrow we get a bus to the Nepal border, then we have a nights sleep there and then the next morning we get on the bus to Pokhara, Nepal. So I guess as Varanasi is our last stop in India I should give some
sort of final thought. Which again is difficult as we've had some real highs and some real lows here. The ammount of travelling around the huge country has defienely been a bit of a drag, being almost all the time atleast a bit ill sucks aswell. The constant cons and often very rude people are tiring aswell. But there also have been some amazing experiences aswell. Places like Hampi, Goa, Pushkara and our nights out in Bangalore have been amazing and will always have great memories of those places. Aswell as the family run guest houses, they were fantastic, so helpful and kind compared to the big city hotels. I guess in summary I'm glad I have come to India but I know I won't be coming back. And I just hope that the saying 'whatever doesnt kill you makes you stronger' proves to be true. Speak soon
x
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