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Published: November 10th 2007
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Varanasi - Main Ghat
Morning scene, as we arrived from the train station. There is always some kind of fog in the morning... but that makes it more mystical. The train ride from Lucknow to Varanasi was my first experience in sleeper class. Huh, I didn't get much sleep. My bed was just next to the entrance of the coach, so next to the toilet and the one place were the men would gather to talk...and the outer doors had windows that couldn't be closed. Oh well, "anipture" ;-)
The Finnish girls were on the same train (other coach), and so we spent the first days in Varanasi together. They left to Nepal yesterday (Friday). I would have gone with them, but plans have changed a little. My friend Rutger will be coming along to Nepal, but he can only be there on the 20th... so I will try to fill up the remaining 10 days in this corner.
We had expected Varanasi to be comparable to Delhi in terms of chaos and noise and so on, but it isn't. It's much much nicer... We've been staying in the Vishnu Rest House, as recommended by the Lonely Planet and the Korean guy from the Vipassana course. Rooms on the rooftop, balcony looking out on the holy Ganga. No traffic, no horns, no chaos. Just the river, the poetic
sunrises and sunsets and the spectacles that happen on the river banks day and night. The atmosphere is more mystical here than all the other places I've seen so far here in India. Also much more hippies and fake yoga teachers. The small streets just behind the river banks are full of small shops and holy cows. Rickshaw drivers can't get through there. So when walking along the river, no rickshaw drivers come up behind you, and you don't have to watch your back all the time to avoid being hit by a cycle rickshaw. This means you can actually walk around here more or less peacefully. Oh yes, the boat guys and many
kids selling puja flowers do come up and are hard to get rid of, but it's still nothing compared to the other big cities. The river also makes it much easier to orientate. If you do get lost (which is easy in the labyrinth of small streets), just get directions from the shop owners to the "Ganga river" and you know where you are.
We didn't immediately feel like doing the obligatory tourist things the first day. We were tired from the
previous day still,
and neither of us had had much sleep on the train. So after washing off a thick layer of greasiness in the shower, and comforting our stomachs with a western style breakfast, we had some rest and walked around by the river bank and spent some time internetting.
We were still in Vipassana-rythm, so our biorythms were still set to get up at a time that I would normally consider to be the middle of the night. We took a 2hrs boat trip at 5AM, saw the sun come up above the Ganges and watched the first devoted Hindu's get their purifying wash+swim in the extremely polluted river. By the way, to all you "modern men": here it's the MEN who do the laundry, and they're not even complaining :-). Yes you could possibly argue that you don't have a river where you can do that, but I'm sure you could simulate the scene in the bath tub *grin*.
The main "attraction" of course are the burning ghats, of which there are 2. One for electrical burnings (mostly used by the poor, because the wood is too expensive) and one where only wood is used. We went off the
boat to have a Brahmin guide explain the ceremony to us. It's a special kind of wood that burns very long due to its density. One kilo of wood costs 165 INR and one body requires 150 kilos. So most poor people cannot afford this. But some do come here, and get a few kilos here and a few kilos there as gifts (good karma for the givers) from other families who have come for a cremation of a relative. In a house just next to the burning ghat, around 60 old people with no relatives or money come to literally wait for their deaths, hoping that enough money will be collected so their body will get the proper ceremony. It was very interesting to hear about each step of the ceremony. We did see bodies on the fires, but it had a very serene and natural feel to it. When the body is completely burnt after 3hrs, the eldest of the family must break a stone jar filled with water on the fire. This symbolizes breaking all connections between the deceased and the family. I think that's a beautiful part of it,
which makes one think of the deceased
Varanasi - near Main Ghat
notice the pillars that support those blue platforms... in a completely different way than we do about our dead relatives.
Eevi and I (Mariko was not feeling well and needed to rest) went to Sarnath the next day, the place where Boeddha gave his first teachings after he became enlightened. Well it was peaceful there. We visited all the sights that are listed in the Lonely Planet: the temple ruins, the 2 stupa's, and the Bodhi tree under which Boeddha gave the teachings. See wikipedia for more info, I can't describe these things any better than they do. Took some pictures of the stone tablets that are set up around the Bodhi tree. I thought the Hindu alphabet was complicated, but there were several other languages here that had alphabets at least equally complicated.
There were some groups of Indians around, so we got asked to be on their pictures many times. On one of the stupa's some kids even wanted our signatures. Not good for our ego's ;-). By the time we got back to Varanasi around 6PM, we were both exhausted again. The heat really wears you out here. We had to make our way to the main traffic streets that lead to the
Main Ghat though, and we both found that to be quite a challenge (but "anipture"). There was much more traffic and people than normally because of the Diwali festival that has been going on yesterday and today (9 & 10 nov). It's similar to the days before Christmas in the west: everybody has to do their last shoppings before the festivities.
Thursday I mainly spent uploading pictures. That takes a very long time sometimes, and I'd had a lot of problems with the applications on my USB drive that I use for uploading. I had to uninstall and reinstall twice before the problem was solved. Not unusual as such, but these internet connections are not the fastest, so you lose soooo much time when problems arise. Anyhow, it's solved now, and I eventually got all my pictures uploaded.
It was Eevi and Mariko's last evening here in Varanasi, so we went for dinner in our favorite restaurant: the German Bakery near Meer ghat.
So I am on my own again since yesterday. I have been running around in the small streets a little more, got lost a few times and ended up being very tired as a result.
It wasn't very recommendable for me to be walking around by the river during the Diwali night. So I took a boat to the Main ghat to see the evening puja, and went back. The fireworks went on all night, and kids enjoy themselves throwing small bombs that make a very loud explosive noise. You really don't want to be just next to them.
A short spectacle went on in the hotel yesterday afternoon. They have a monkey as a pet. It has a chain around the neck and sits on a platform that looks out on the balcony of my room. I'd noticed that the poor animal seemed very bored and lonely. But today he suddenly managed to get out of his chains, and suddenly jumped onto the balcony (fortunately didn't approach me), then down the stairs to the restaurant and the reception desk. He seemed quite wild. He chased one of the Indian children, but nobody got hurt in the end. He found food somewhere and gone was his agression. Could have been worse.
If all goes well, I will be on a bus to Khajuraho tomorrow morning (5AM @!#$%), and after Khajuraho I'll make my
way to Agra, since I *really* should not skip the Taj Mahal, and I have time to do it now before Rutger arrives.
Sunny greetings to all you people living in cold climates (sorry, I'm in a teasing mood)
xxx
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Don Sebastian
non-member comment
Revisiting Varanasi
Your writing had a feel of the place, where I had gone last Jan. What makes Varanasi unique is the celebration of life and death. Have heard of a mountain in Japan where the old people go to die. Varanasi too absorbs the time-offed men. Didnt quite get what u meant by Hindu language. It must be Hindi you were referring to. In Saranath you can find inscriptions in the original Pali and languages from all Buddhist countries. My trip is documented in http://travelblog.org/Bloggers/Dejavu Looking forward to read your post on Khajuraho, because that is my next destination. Don Sebastian