On the bank of the Ganges

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Varanasi, Benares or Kashi, this is Hindu's holiest city. Whether you know it or not you've seen it before. It is one of the world's oldest continually inhabited city and was a contemporary of Sumer. It is mentioned in the Vega (Hindu holy text) as the city of temples and learning and it still seen that way nowadays. I was quite excited to be there and see for myself this bigger than life city.

The bus dropped us somewhere at around 5AM. Not a nice time to arrive in one of the worst city for touts and scammer in India. I was with the welsh guy and Eva, the czech girl, I had met on the bus. Eva had to leave for Mumbai later that day so she wasn't going to get a room but she decided to go with us as she didn't want to be alone in the dark. Plus the hostels close to the river are in a mazes of small street so we need the driver to bring us to the hostel directly - can't avoid the damn commission without a lot of pain. We figured since we can't avoid it might as well embrace it. We got a ride into town for a ridiculously low fee (meaning he's expecting comission). But the place he brought us to only had shit rooms and they wanted high price. We negotiated for more than 30 minutes and in the end he gave us what we wanted when we were about to leave but we were so pissed with the guy we told him to get lost. We eventually went to another hostel which was full and then walked to another which took us for a decent price.

We had a little nap before Eva and I headed to the train station to buy our ticket (I was planning to leave the next day). It took a few hours but in the end we were the proud owner of sleeper ticket for the time of our choice which relieved Eva as she had heard that the trains were all full. She put her luggage in the garderobe of the station and while she was doing it I witnessed monkeys attack people who were walking with bananas. Nobody fought back but one monkey stole a bunch of banana directly from the hand of a person who hadn't seen it coming. It was quite funny to watch but the banana seller was preparing for full-scale war with a big stick. But I think the monkeys learned to avoid the guy because none approached his banana stall. For some reason it took a while for Eva to get her bag checked so I had the opportunity to watch the behavior of the monkeys in the station.

After she was done we went back close to the hostel and had breakfast in a nearby restaurant that was quite decent. After we split because I wanted to have some sleep while Eva wanted to get on with the sightseeing right away. We agreed to meet for dinner at the hostel. I had a good few hours of sleep before I ventured out.

Everyone has seen pictures of Varanasi whether you know it or not. It is the Holy city on the Ganges where people go wash themselves or their clothes, even in time of droughts when the water is muddy. It is also the place where bodies are cremated on the bank of the river, although some bodies are sent in the river without burning. The places where this take places are in the ghats, which can be best described as big stairs leading into the water (you should figure it out with the pictures). All the ghats are open to the foreigners (although anywhere closing to the burning corpses you cannot take pictures). As the LP says, it is traditional India at it's most colourful.

My hostel was a few minutes from Shivali ghats. It was fairly empty when I reached it in the early afternoon but an old man was washing his water buffaloes. I walked south along the riverfront toward Assi ghat. There were a few kids starting firecrackers and a few women preparing some fruit plates. I immediately remembered that there was a festival happening today: Dev Deepavali. I wasn't too sure exactly what it entailed but I was told that it would be quite amazing at sunrise the next day by the guesthouse owner (who incidently sold me (well priced, it must be said) boat tour for sunrise).

After wandering around for a while, I decided to go eat at Haifa restaurant which had delicious middle eastern food. It was a bit too good and it made me wish I was already on this part of my trip as far as food is concerned. When I was done with my meal I returned to the waterfront but this time I was accompanied by throngs of people singing together loudly, carrying severals plates covered with leaf and fruits as well as bamboo poles. They were heading toward the river for the sunset ceremony, which was still a few hours away. I walked in a northwardly direction all the way to Panchganga ghat. The bank of the river were getting more and more crowded by people coming to celebrate the festival, and unfortunately among them were children firing firecracker.

I passed by Harishchandra ghat, which is a Burning ghat. I didn't stay long as I wanted to cover as much ground as possible before sunset. After that ghat the crowds started getting very dense and it was hard to move. I was constantly harassed by man trying to get me to do a boat tour with them but they were asking for a very high price so it took a while before I got someone who would do it for a decent price. I eventually agreed to one but when I saw the boat and the number of people on it I just decided to leave (like 8 indians in a small rowing boats). Eventually I got a deal but there was a communication problem which we found out later. When indians bargain they'll say a ridiculously high price and I say nonono and give my price. Then they'll say "ok, ok, ok" as if they were agreeing to my price but when I restate my price they say "no, no, no" and then restate their high price. Then you repeat a few time and they lower your price. Repeat the process 20-30 times, sometimes using variant. The problem is that at some point he said "ok ok ok" as if he was agreeing to my price and I again mentioned my price and he just said ok. But he hadn't agreed to my price.

But we didn't know this at first as the payment is done only at the end. He rowed me back and forth on the river, allowing me to see the ghats up front which was quite interesting. I could look at old men washing in the river, younger ones playing together (apparently unaware or not caring about the high level of pollution and corpses floating around (although I didn't see one, you know they're there somewhere)), women preparing the bamboo shafts and fruit plate for the festival ceremony and generally just the highly coloured crowd of people. They also light up little candles placed on some sort of leaf which they release on the river. It was quite beautiful to see all those little candles in the middle of the river once it got a bit darker.

When my hour was over I had a dispute with the boatman because of the confusion over the price. There was a bit of screaming and posturing on his part but I just paid what I had said and disapeared into the crowd. He tried to chase me a bit but gave up after a while. If I had been in a country or a city where people were honest toward tourists I might have been inclined to be more lenient and maybe pay what he thought should've been right. But not in Varanasi. Not in India.

I walked back toward the Burning ghat. I was immediately approached by a guy who wanted to chat with me. Of course it all led to an attempt to scam me but I did learn some interesting information. It costs approximately 15000Rs (3000$) for the wood for the cremation, hence one has to be quite rich (the scam was that he was trying to get me to buy wood for "poor people who can't afford cremation" so that I would "help souls reach heaven". "You give what you want, no problem, you pay 1000, 2000, 20000Rs doesn't matter. It is for karma"). He explained to me the whole ceremony of how they prepare the body for the cremation. Also he told me that there are 6 classes of people who don't get cremated and are thrown in the river without any burning (pregnant women, leper, children, holy men and 2 others I can't remember). Very interesting conversation although he didn't enjoy it when I told him I didn't care about my karma, probably because it meant he wouldn't be able to leech money off me and might not be able to get his fix tonight. Bad karma for me. I stayed for more than 2 hours, until well after sunset. I was mesmerized by the ceremony. I had arrived at a time when all you could see was wood burning as all the bodies had been burning for too long for anything to remain. So I waited until the next cremation started.

The family would bring the bodies, bath it in the river. Then they would cover it in clothe that looked very expansive (golden for most of them). Then they would wait for an hour or so while the workers (who are all of the untouchable caste, they're the lowest of the low in India as they deal with dead bodies) prepared the pyre. After it was ready, they put the body on it and covered it with some more wood. Then someone would go upstairs where a continual flame was burning and put some straw on fire and come back to the pyre. There they would go around the body 7 times and then lit it. Then they sat back and watched the body burn. The feet were usually the first part to melt and the head the last. It takes about 3 hours to completely burn the body but within 20 minutes you can't see it anymore.

I was a bit uneasy about watching the ceremony but I soon realized that lots of indian people watching had nothing to do with the family and no one minded the few tourists. I was careful not too go too close and never thought about taking my camera. Some tourists passing on boats took pictures and that angered me quite a lot. Everyone tells you that it's okay to watch but not to take pictures and disrespecting people at such a hard moment is something I find so disrespectful. Nevertheless the only people who appeared to notice the people taking pictures were fellow tourists as indian people doing the ceremony didn't seem to care. It was quite interesting to see one family taking picture with the dead just before they burned it. They would take turn posing with the dead person with very happy faces for some reason.

I went back to the guesthouse to wait for Eva and the welsh guy. She arrived a bit late as she couldn't find the way to the hostel in the maze of little street but she eventually reached it. We went to eat in a nearby restaurant that was quite delicious. I was a bit sad to see her go because it took a while for me to warm up to her, at first I found her a bit too reserved but when I actually got to chat with her I enjoyed her company very much. But she was working in Mumbai and couldn't miss work so she had to catch the train. We said goodbye and promised to keep in touch. After she left I went to bed early as I had to wake up before sunrise again (that would be 3 times in the last 4 days, definately a record) for the sunrise boat tour.

The advantage of booking the tour via my hotel is that they wake you up by knocking on your door, which removes the biggest difficulty of doing the sunrise tour. We were all up way before sunrise and to my surprise, we were not alone. The ghats were full of people and the bamboo shafts/fruits plates were in proeminence. We were one of the first boat on the river but more and more of them started coming so that by the end of sunrise the river was quite jammed with tourist boats. There were also shop boats, with souvenirs for tourists. They were not too insistent but maybe it is because we all looked like cheap backpackers and they prefered to go for the big tour group boats with middle-aged people.

As soon as the sun appeared on the horizon, great shouts and cheers came from the crowd. They poured coconut milk (or at least that's what it looked like) in the river and had a little washing. I'm not too sure what the meaning of it was but it was really interesting to watch these hundred people do the same ceremony at the same time, especially at such an early hour.

The boatman tried to scam us again when we were done with the ride. The guesthouse owner had said 40Rs for the tour. It lasted 2 hours so the boatman asked for 40Rs/hour so 80Rs. Once again I made the assumption that he wasn't being genuine and walked away amid some screaming. He did managed to get what he asked from 2 people but I just paid what I had previously agreed to. So after the ride I said bye to the welsh guy and went back to the middle eastern restaurant to have a shakshuka for breakfast. Then I spent a few minutes on the internet before heading toward the train station (again spent a quarter of an hour arguing for a decent price with the rickshaw driver).

When I arrived to the station, my train's departure was delayed by an hour. I asked at the information office and was told: "1-2 hours late, no worry, just wait". This was a sentence I'd hear a lot through the day. The train was supposed to leave at 11:30. But departure was pushed back to 12:30, then 14:30 etc etc. Everytime I asked anyone in the train station I got basically the same answer: "no problem, 1-2 hours and it's leaving". This made me sit around and wait in the train station. Had I known how long it would take for the train to leave I would've gone back to the old city and do something of my day. But since indians can't tell the direct truth if their life depended on it I spent the whole day at the train station or in the immediate vicinity. Also if they had told me a straight answer I could've gotten a refund for my ticket and get a new one as there are quite a few trains leaving for Mumbai. But no, they had to tell me a lie because they didn't want to make me face reality or something.

By around 5:00 my nerves were on the verge of breakdown. The first few hours of waiting it was alright but the feeling that I was being played upon and that the train would never actually leave and that I had no idea why angered me. So I decided to go to the stationmaster and ask. I wasn't exactly polite but I figured I had to be firm because else nobody was taking me seriously. He started by saying like everyone else "1-2 hours, don't worry". But I answered "No, that's what everyone has been saying for the past 6 hours, now I just want to know a realistic timeframe and none of that optimistic bullshit". "Don't worry, just 1-2 hours" he replied. "WHEN?" I answered in desperation. He told me to come back at 6PM.

At 6PM he said it would leave around 10PM, the train had just arrived from Mumbai and was in cleaning as we spoke. I thanked him for his realistic and honest answer and went out of the station in an internet cafe.

At 10PM I got to the station and went to the platform. It still wasn't there but it was on schedule to leave soon. The platform where the train was leaving smelled heavily like human feces: I was not the only one who had to wait for the whole day around. I waited for an hour and a half around before it showed up. There was a russian guy dressed up as a hindu holy man who was trying to give me lesson in patience: "These people have been waiting also you know", "If it happens to us it is because of karma", "Anger will not solve your problem". He was as annoying as he sounds.

The train eventually left at 11:30, exactly 12 hours later than originally planned. Thankfully I had given myself a 24 hours safety day for my plane in Mumbai so I wasn't worried about missing my connecting flight (and giving myself that safety day had to be one of the smartest thing I've done in this trip) but that meant I wouldn't have much time to do sightseeing in India's cultural capital.

I had an upper berth next to the russian guy and above what I think was his mother. The other in our "compartment" were single men so I was happy not to have a family (sometimes a family will buy a single sleeper ticket, all sleeping together on the couch and then taking all the place during the day.

I slept well during the night on my berth. With poor man's air conditioning (open window) it was quite comfortable. Plus my bags were safely locked so I could sleep well. I was lucky to have the upper berth which means that it remains a berth at all times, the other 2 are converted to seats during the day so that I had my berth when I wanted to lay down, a seat when I wanted to sit and the open door when I wanted to look at the passing scenery. I made friend with an american on board in the next compartment and chatted away with him.

I initially spent quite a lot of time starring at the countryside by the open window until I realized something. Every now and then a little rain would fall on me. Not much, but enough that I could definately feel something wet on my skin. I didn't quite made the necessary connection with the correlation between toilet occupancy and rain on my skin for a while but it eventually dawned upon me that I had been happily sitting for over an hour with people literaly pissing on me. I guess the tourist industry didn't include this in their campaign: "Amazing India". I stayed far from the doors thereafter.

The russian guy spent half the conversation trying to convert me to hinduism, or at least to his way of thinking. Like anyone convinced of the truth he had no time for such things as arguments so I didn't waste too much time on him. He was about as boring as a pope when he started talking spirituality. He was an interesting fella aside from that, having lived in India for 4 years. I had a feeling that his mother came here to see her son that she had now partly lost. She didn't say much to me as she only spoke to her son in Russian but I had the feeling that she was extremely sad.

Everytime we'd stop at a station we'd get out to try to grab chai and look at the shops to see if they had decent food. Indians train stations are quite entertaining. We lost another 6 hours on the train somewhere, we'd stop in the middle of the countryside for an hour or two a few times for no apparent reason: maybe mechanical or track problem. In any case that meant another night on the train and once again I slept like a baby, albeit a urine smelling one.

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Photos

On the bank of the Ganges
Indians celebrating the sunrise

Me, Eva and the welsh guy
God, my beard was getting massive.

Ghats 5
The kid is a little bit freaky with the makeup around the eyes

Varanasi's ghats
The river is of course the Ganges.

Boats
Take tourists for a ride mostly now.

What are you looking at?
That water buffalo was taken to the Ganges for his bath.

Ghats 3
Colorful India at its best

Ghats 4
That traditional Indian dress that doesn't cover the waist is unfortunately rarely worn by young beauties and more often by flabby grannies.

From the boat
Quality isn't too high as I had to zoom and the boat wasn't extremely stable.

From the boat 2
Men washing in the holy river

From the boat 4
Festival ceremony going on

From the boat 5
The little candles are lit and after a ceremony they're put on the river to float down. Very beautiful once it gets a bit darker.

Varanasi before sunrise
The candles are lit for the festival

Varanasi before sunrise 2
Praying to the goddess.

Tourists boat
This is the kind of boat that the boat-shop were aiming for ;).

Sun rising
The appearance of the sun caused great stir among the crowd.

In the morning
Look at the white stuff being poured in the river, everyone was doing it after the sun appeared.