Varanasi

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21-30 September

One day it's the holiest place in Buddhism and the next the holiest place in Hinduism. And what a change - from a quiet peaceful park with a temple to a raucous city with shouting, singing, smiling pilgrims. And a change from two goofy Vietnamese monks to goofy Italian girls.

Varanasi bills itself as the oldest living city in the world and, although all of the really old structures have long since been destroyed it does boast some formidable antiquity. I had been reading a book titled "The Historical Buddha" in advance of visiting the pilgrimage sites and when Buddha visited Varanasi 2550 years ago it was already a thriving center of what was to coalesce into modern Hinduism. Interestingly, Buddha spent very very little time in this important city because, as a spiritual leader of thousands who rejected the formal rituals of Brahmanism, he was far from welcome in a city that derived much income from these rituals.

If one was to wake at 4:00 a.m. and walk along the Ganges until midnight these same rituals would be witnessed nonstop, as pilgrims and locals alike perform pujas (ritual ceremonies) of all types in and along the water, from nightly fire pujas to never-ending cremations at two of the ghats. Groups of men gather together every morning to bathe and gossip and joke before going to work, boys jump of stone pillars into the filthy water, people bathe and brush their teeth and holy men squat to wash their clothes - all so contented to be so connected to the mighty Ganga. The river factors so much into the national psyche that it is believed that if you die on the west bank in Varanasi you go straight to heaven, but if you die on the annually flooded east bank you will be reincarnated as a donkey!!

I had been planning on visiting Burma for the month of October and sitting another Vipassana course but during my time in Varanasi all hell broke loose in Burma with peaceful protests and a violent government response. I monitored the situation everyday on the internet and in the papers and decided to at least postpone the trip fro several reasons - travel and communications would be difficult to impossible, I didn't want to contribute any money to the government-controlled tourism industry, and it's just good manners that when a family is having a big fight you don't drop in at the house just to say hello. So I opted for Plan B - hop the border to Nepal, meet the girls in Pokhara and wait a few more days there to see if there is any chance of going to Burma. Everybody needs a Plan B in their life and I felt pretty happy about this one.

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