Advertisement
Ahoy there ...............!!!!!!
Well well well, They say this place is so sacred that even the gods themselves take a dip in the ganges of Varanassi once in a while.
Ok so to start things off Varanasi is notorious for tout hassel these guys can really grind you down, however we're no ordinary tourists we're the Indian backpacker elite the best of the best of the best! and so these guys don't bother us so much anymore.
Nic - Phew, it's even hotter here! And as they say "Only Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day heat" - Very true!! As usual on arrival in a new place, our first objective is to explore and see what's around and going on...short answer for during the day - Nothing!! Our fist port of call that afternoon was the Ghats, the strip of land and steps down to the river on the Western edge of the Ganges. It was deserted, only us and a few goats (oh, and some burning corpses but we'll cover that in a minute!) so we decided to head inland to the streets and alleyways of this ancient Venice-of-India and return to the ghats
when it was a bit cooler.
The streets (or gallies) are narrow and winding with tall buildings all around, twisting into maze like patterns which was easy to get lost in, but that was part of the fun - ooh, and it was loads cooler in there away from the glaring sun!
Varanasi is the most spiritual place for many Hindus and most of the ghats are used for bathing, where everyday over 60,000 people come to wash away their sins.
Dan - let me give you a bit of background info about the two burning Ghats, this is where the Hindu's bring their dead to be cremated (on full view of the public, and yes we saw fleash, arms,legs burning etc!!!) its the most auspicious place for Hindus to be cremated the bodies are handled by outcasts (Doms) wrapped in cloth on bamboo stretchers they are carried through the alleyways of the old city to the Ganges. Of which we saw many and had to stand in doorways to get out the way. The bodies are burned on the edge of the river after being dunked under water, the type of wood used varies depending on
your financial status. sandlewood is the most expensive.
Due to this pratice and the fact that a lot of sewage pipes lead into the river the river itself is so polluted that no dissolved oxygen exists in it making it septic. Did you know that for water to be safe to bath in it must contain no more than 500 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml this river contains 1.5 MILLION per 100 ml, DIP MY TOES IN YOU SAY NIC? NO THANKS.
Enough of the facts, we spent alot of time people watching, when it was cooler in the early morning and evening, people pratice yoga, meditate, bathe, prey, preach, laundry, learn to swim, get married and generally come to hang out.
HA HA almost forgot a couple of times now walking back at night we have managed to go into the wrong guest houses !! ha yes twice, the first was in Darjeeling we managed to get down the stairs and were puzzled when we could not find our room, and wondered why the manager was staring at us in a funny way!!!!! the second was here in Varanasi during a power cut, we managed
to walk up the many steps of the ghat to where we thought was the passage to our hostel but it was some family's home (people live in all kinds of places here) ha ha we walked right through stepping over one while they were asleep on the floor, when we realised it was the wrong passage we made a run for it..!!
Nic - We got up at 5am one morning for an early morning boatride to watch the ghats come to life as the sun rose. It grew more and more busy and the colours grew more vibrant, a really magiocal scene. As mentioned, the temp here was a lot higher, see pic from newspaper ... 44.7deg!!!
Dan - For Nics birthday we decided to treat ourselves to some booze (being in a sacred city this could pose a problem???) after receiving a tip off that a booze shop does exist we set out to find it!!!! we found it sitting in one of the back streets with metal shutter dimly lit, as we are in the que the men were getting there booze and shoving it down their pants and walking away casualy hoping no
one would notice. (real black market business) when it was our turn all we heard from the darkness was YES? Vodka strong, bottle comes flying out pay your money (of course bottle down my pants) and off we went.
Ok fin, stay tuned for the blog coming from Khajuraho next
See ya
Advertisement
Tot: 0.101s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0616s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb