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Published: January 31st 2008
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Hey Guys! Im falling behind on my blog already! This one is about my stay in Varanasi! Need to apologise in advance of any spelling errors my blogs may have as I only have a short time on these damn computers!
Varanasi - Mughal Sarai station So, after are very eventful train journey to Varanasi and fighting with the taxi drivers, we arrives at Shanti Guest House. It was a bit of a walk wiith our rucksacks to the hostel from where the taxi dropped us but cars cannt go down the many winding streets. SAhanti guest house was great only becuase there were so many backpackers there and we hadn't see an any backpackers before here! It was a relief to see them and start talkin tp others about there experiences so far. The rooms were minging - no other way to describe it! It was a space with 4 walls, 2 beds and a bathroom, with so much mildew, dust . .ah well. Im a backpackers so shouldn't complain. But I will say I'm struggling having a cold bucket shower when its already cold outside. U could ask for hot buckets from the restaurant and they would
bring one down , which I did ( naturally).
The menu was great as it had chips eggs and beans - It was awesome!
The Burning Ghats - cremations For the next couple of days we walked around the winding streets to the Ghats, had a sunrise and sunset boat trip (free from the guest house). The sunrise one was rather dissapointing as the whole place had heavy fog that day so couldn't see much. We then took an exporatory walk and came across the busrning ghats. This sis the place where people are cremated in front of your eyes, using wood and incence. The ghat is cremating popel 24hours a day, and norma;lly takes 3 hours to burn the human body. The skull is the hardest to burn, so when the rest of the body is gone, they will small the skull to make it cremate faster.
Morbid I know. But this place sirred up mixed feelings for me. The idea of watching this seemed so wrong yet there was a big part of me that was facinated by the what I was seeing. Ther were many locals there watching and taking part
as if this is a normal routine for them. It is. They do this all the time.
We would see some bodies, dressed up with fabric etc, being taken through the dteet with people dancing or using drums to make noise. Normally when this happens, it's when an old peson has finally passed away so it is more of a rejoice occasion.
There was one point where we saw a body being laid on the logs, with more places on top pf them, and burnt. Yet there was a foot sticking out and saw the whole body burn apart from the foot. One of the cremators took a log to stick the foot back into the flame.
As you can imagine, the heat was horrendus and ash was flying everywhere, mostly from the flames. They use an eternal flame to light all of the crmeations, so they day. We saw the eternal flame which is just a fire but has been burning for 3000 years.
The Sunset Boat ride Going back to the sunset boat tour we had, we stopped off at the ghats where there were pujas (prayers) at 6.30pm everyday asked the boat
man to take us there to witness it from the boat. I did not expect waht i was about to see. From past experiences of going to holy sites such as Rishikesh ( also at the ganges) you would get hassled by many pundits and saddhus wanting money in exchange for doing a prayer for the health and wealth of your loved ones and would not leave u alone. My experience of the prayers at Varansi were different. We saw about 6 pundits, dressed and white and red with theyre own little prayer station by the river. They started the prayers with spectaculer fires, bells and conches! It was great to see this!
On the last day wespend the day walking around the main market, eating fresh fruit and generally taking on the atmosphere. Varanasi is a must see, the atmosphere is a lot more chilled, especially coming from Delhi, but be preapred for some morbid sights, a lot of mossies near the ganges, and the occasional floating body!
Bye for now!
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Preeya
non-member comment
deeeee
You are losing weight woman! Make sure u are eating! Or try to eat whatever u can!