Advertisement
Published: January 11th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Leaving Nepal we cross the border into India. We stop at the side of the road for lunch and after a short walk down a muddy street I opt for a samosa and some dhal from a little man making them on his stall...After past "Delhi Belly" experiences I am a bit reluctant but too hungry to care right now!...They are actually delicious and cost just 5 rupees (about 6 pence!) and no bouts of illness (yet!)
After a 2 hour hold up at customs and a very long bumpy truck drive we arrive in the holy city of Varanasi. Myself & Cassie decide to break away from the group for dinner and go to a restaurant down the road - there's a few westerners in there so we figure it must be ok. We get chatting to a group of Ozzies who then take us to a lovely little outdoor cafe with fairylights and the most amazing apple pie & icecream! A little gem in this otherwise dirty, poor, squalor of a city. Of course many parts of India are poor and dirty but Varanasi seems to be to an extreme...
If they say
the streets of London are paved with gold, the streets of Varanasi are paved with shit...quite literally, of all kinds...Dog shit, goat shit, cow shit, human shit...It's not pretty but I try to see (& smell!) past this initial assault on the senses.
We randomly meet another Ozzie guy in the street named Michael who seranades us with his Guitar - I natuarally request the Home & Away theme tune and we all have a bit of a sing song; there's a lot of westerners here and they all seem to be into Ashram Yoga...all dressed in the typical Indian Traveller attire including baggy harem pants with the crotch down to their ankles and the signature bindis or orange Sanskrit graffitied across their foreheads. I wonder how long it will take until I'm cloned into this "traveller" style!...Though I am tempted to take the piss and scrawl the word "Twat" across my forehead in swirly writing...
We get up early for a sunrise boat ride on the River Ganges to see the burning of the dead - The Ganges is considered to be holy and it's a Hindu ritual to both bathe in the
river to rid your sins and also to cleanse the dead before they are cremated on the burning fires. There is no real sunrise as the fog is too thick which makes the whole thing quite eerie. An old man climbs aboard our boat and hands out candles in mini flower baskets which we lay on the surface of the water to sail down the river - I'm not sure of the significance of this but it earns him 10 rupees a go. It's hard to see what is going on at the Ghats where they burn the dead but I'm not sure that's a bad thing...
Later Cassie, Becky, Phil & I take a walk down the river - I say walk but's it's more like a hop, skip & jump to dodge the piles of poo on the pavement...Also avoiding the hawkers trying to sell us a boat ride, head massage, necklaces, postcards and loads of other shit we don't want!...Not to mention dodging the dozens of street dogs and street cows that are all hanging out on the Varanasi version of the Thames South Bank. The sun is shining now and there's a breeze in the
air so there's an abundance of children flying their kites over the river - I am also dodging kite strings!...The children oblivious to the chaos around them...
We pass more people bathing or meditating and I see a man meditating with two others. He has a face like the elephant man...it stretches right down to his waist! It's the oddest thing I've ever seen and I try not to stare. I feel awful for him but thankfully for him Hindu religion means people see deformities like this as a sign of a God so therefore he is celebrated and worshipped instead of ostracised.
We reach the last Ghat on the river which is by far the busiest. Hundereds of people are crowded round to see the bodies, wrapped in orange cloth & marigold flowers, being carried down to the river, cleansed in the holy water and put down on hot coals to burn. It is actually quite tasteful if a little eerie, but not as bad as what I'd expected. The stench however is terrible but then the whole of Varanasi smells so bad it is hard to determine one vile pong from the next. As Cassie did
point out "The only good thing about Varanasi is that you can fart and nobody notices cos the whole place smells anyway!"
Mid morning we visit some temples but our guide fails to turn up so we have no idea what we're looking at. However, to be honest I'm too concerned about my Converse trainers being pinched from outisde! Thankfully overly-enthusiastic-Phil is guarding our shoes for us so they are safe.
A short visit to a silk factory (bit of a busman's holiday for me) ends in a hard sales pitch from the owner who shows us some beautiful wall hangings...But no I'm not going to pay $250 for one when I can get the same thing in the market for a tenner. Luckily for him there are plenty that are gullible and willing in my group and we leave him with a smile on his face and a wedge in his pocket. We take a tuk tuk back, weaving in and out of the street cows & dogs, children, goats, beggars, bikes, cars, shit and more shit to arrive back at the hotel - step out and slip...Yep my precious Converse right in a pile
of poo!
Varanasi very nasty but an experience I'll never forget!
xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.045s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0231s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb