Uttar Pradesh

Having completed our circuit of Rajasthan we headed off to the state of Uttar Pradesh, deep in the interior of India. Although the states share a border, they are vast and our journey covered several thousand kms using bus and train and took 23 hours. The part on the bus was very hot as it was through the day, but we were encouraged by the knowledge that our connecting overnight train was going to be lovely. The more expensive beds on the overnight trains have air conditioned coaches, beds with clean linen and food and drink services. We had several reports from travellers we had met on how wonderful they are and the smashing chatty interesting middle class Indians you meet. On the whole the train turned out to be okay, the linen was nearly clean, the bed pretty decent for a train, the air-con excellent and the chai was hot and sweet as usual. Unfortunately we didn't get to meet the smashing Indians (well we may have, but as they didn't speak English, nor us Hindi, it was tricky to tell) and there were rather a few mice scuttling around the floors, but you can't have everything.

We arrived in Varanasi at 11am and on leaving the train, suddenly appreciated just how good the air-con was. Despite leaving a desert in Rajasthan and heading no nearer the equator, the temperature seemed to have tripled overnight and it was pretty flaming toasty in the first place, let me tell you.

Anyway, enough of this moaning, let's get on. Varanasi is a pretty big city based on the banks of the River Ganges. The River is Varanasi to a large extent, it is the city's reason for being, is integral to its life and the reason for the swarms of Hindus and tourists that visit. The Ganges is the holiest of the sacred Hindu Rivers and the 7km stretch through Varanasi is especially powerful. It is estimated that everyday 60,000 people bathe in the river to cleanse themselves of sins. Hence the riverbank is lined with steps that run into the water allowing easy access. These steps are divided into about 80 sections along the bank, with each section considered a seperate Ghat (Bath) and having it's own characteristics. Some are owned by Maharajas, some dedicated to specific gods, some for certain tasks or groups of people, but anyone is free to wander and people watch wherever they like. There are also a couple of Burning Ghats, where the deceased can be cremated on a raft of logs as they float down the river.

It may seem a bit wrong to float dead bodies down a river where 60,000 people bathe, but trust me......it gets much worse. There are also a mass of sewers that empty into the river at Varanasi and tests have shown that the water levels are shocking. Despite action being taken, levels of very unpleasant substances remain thousands and millions of times over the safety limits. In our opinion, you'd have to have some pretty serious sins that needed washing away to get in that river!

The easy way to not get wet, we found, was to get in a rowboat, which we did in the evening to watch the sunset and at 5:30 in the morning to watch it rise. Before we came to India I had few ideas in my mind about what we might see, but had a distant memory of a TV documentary showing the River Ganges with its sacred bathers that had quite amazed me and stuck in my mind. Drifting slowly along the banks and people watching was fascinating (although it did feel a little voyeuristic).

For the middle sections of the days we mostly hid from the intense heat. On our last day we did gee ourselves up to get out and see the rest of Varanasi - it turns out there isn't really anything there! That said, in a small village about 10kms away we did visit one of the 4 holy sites in the Buddhist world - being where Buddha himself gave his first sermon. The temples were pretty nice, but it lacked the people or the spirituality to have the presence of the river.

Next up was Allahabad where there was nothing except aggressive tuk-tuk drivers, a miserable hotel and rude restaurant staff. Fortunately we were only there overnight to pick up a connecting train to Khajuraho the next day.

Khajuraho, as well as being a blighter to spell, is home to a collection of temples built between the years of AD 950 and 1050. There were originally 85, but now only 25 remain standing. A mixture of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain in construction, though mostly Hindu, the temples escaped desecration by Muslim invaders over the years due to their remoteness and it remains a mystery as to why they were built in the middle of nowhere. Nonetheless it is to our benefit as they provided us with a couple of excellent days as we wandered in and around them. The level of detail is extraordinary and to have found the labour to build 85 of them in a hundred years is astonishing. Hopefully the photos do them some justice. Oh, as an aside, they are also covered in erotic carvings - The Chandelas (who built them) were clearly not shy!

The town of Khajuraho has sprung from nothing to provide food and shelter for the tourists who wish to see the temples. For now it is still pretty small and has a relaxed feel to it, which after the hustle and bustle of Varanasi was perfect for us. We relaxed for several days, leisurely browsing the temples, watching the sunset over them and even sampling the Indian whisky one night which is not as rough as you might imagine.

Having restored our batteries in Khajuraho we headed further south-westwards to Aurangabad. We were there to visit the Ellora Cave Temples about 30kms away. These are another set of temples, again of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain origin, but nonetheless very different to those previous. The name Cave Temples describes them adequately I guess, but I will add a little more detail. The caves were not pre-existing, rather the architechts / sculptors started with a sheer cliff face and carved into the rock to create the temples within the cliff. There are 34 'caves' ranging from the small to the enormous, each with delicate carvings and sculptures. They range from 1,000 to 1,400 years in age and are remarkably preserved, due to their natural protection and the original colours are still visible in some small areas. Of the 34, 'The Daddy' is certainly the Kailasa Temple. This is the world's largest monolithic structure, meaning it is made from only one piece of stone. When you consider that it contains a multi-storey palace and temple, living quarters and innumerable sculptures, it is amazing to think of the planning involved to create such a thing from one piece of rock.

In the end we spent several more nights in Aurangabad than expected as our run of good luck 'bellywise' came to an end and we were finally struck by the lergy! I will not say who was affected to preserve a ladie's dignity, oh err whoops, anyway, that is the last you shall hear of it. All is well now.

The delay meant we had to bypass Mumbai, seeing only its domestic flights terminal (which if you're interested was very nice), but life was still pretty good - next up was Goa, not at all a bad place for recuperation.

Until then.....


Chrissie and Matt
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