Holy Shit!

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To leave Gorakhpur (what a dump) we hitched a ride in a second class train carriage to Varanasi. 2AC essentially means that you share a small ‘cabin’ between 4 people, each of whom has their own bunk bed. As with all our other experiences of Indian trains this one was good as well. The bottom beds convert into a chair during the day and within a few minutes of leaving we were each provided with clean sheets, blankets and pillows even though it was a day trip. After a five hour journey we met up with our two friends from New Zulland and took a tuk tuk to our hotel. It was fortunate that we had been picked up by someone from the hotel because traffic in Varanasi is prevented from getting within a certain distance of the river and in between lies a total rat nest of tiny streets and alleyways that were obviously laid out by a drunken (or very humorous) town planner. Our room in our hotel was nothing special (except for its high pressure HOT water) but its location was excellent - right along the river with a view of the Ghats (stairs leading down to the river) in either direction.

For our first day in Varanasi we met up again with Matt and Birgit who were to become our companions for the whole time and spent the day walking around the interesting alleys, people watching along the Ganges and eating. There isn’t really a lot to ‘do’ in Varanasi but the ghat’s along the river are great to simply watch people. As Varanasi is one of the holiest places for Hindu’s pilgrims, holy men and tourists come from all over India to drink from, make offerings to, bathe in and even to be burnt next to the Ganges.

Constant human activity combined with the fact that none of the 160+ villages, towns and cities along the shores of the Ganges treat their sewerage means that the river is very very polluted and is even septic in places. Despite this every day we would see hundreds of people completely submerging themselves in the water and many people would even drink from it as the waters are considered so sacred. Honestly we were surprised that people who went in the water weren’t vaporized, but that said there was no smell.

At the end of the first day we arranged a sunset boat ride for an hour to take photos and to spend more time people watching. From our vantage point we saw the burning ghat’s for the first time. Essentially Hindu’s aim to die in Varanasi and/or be cremated here as this enables them to stop the cycle of rebirth and the burning ghat’s are essentially open air crematoriums. Rather than being placed in a coffin and cremated indoors, a Hindu family purchases wood which is then piled next to the river and the body is placed on top and then burnt. It is not uncommon for 400 or more bodies to be burnt everyday (it operates 24/7) and there are usually 5 or 6 fires burning simultaneously.

For our second day we again hired our boat driver and went for a sunrise trip. Sunrise is good not just for the light, but because a lot of pilgrims get up early to bathe along the Ganges. Young and old sit along the steps and chat, pray, do yoga and wash. Further down men ‘wash’ bed sheets. Wash is a bit of an understatement, what they really do is beat the absolute crap out of bed sheets against rocks and with huge sticks! I think that many a bed sheet must have had a reduced life span from being beaten one too many times. That night we headed a couple of ghat’s down from our hotel to where a ritual is performed each night. Basically 6 or so men get up on platforms and rotate in circles holding various burning implements. We weren’t exactly sure what the point of it was but there were several thousand people there so presumably it has some importance for Hindu’s.

On our last day the four of us headed out for breakfast to a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Ganges at the far end of the ghats. From breakfast we stayed for morning tea, which turned into lunch, which turned into late afternoon. It was nice to spend a day relaxing instead of rushing around seeing the sites and we were all feeling pretty chilled by the end of it, except for Bianca who had spent much of the afternoon cowering in fear from the family of monkeys that had occupied the rooftop above.
The following day we checked out and caught a cab to the airport, passing at least 6 jeeps with bodies on the roof on the way to be cremated. Our flight was of course delayed by an hour and a half for no apparent reason but eventually we made it back to Delhi where we were picked up by our driver Vipan who would be taking us through Rajasthan for the next two weeks.

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Photos

Train from Gorakhpur to Varanasi
2AC - very clean and comfortable

Backyard Cricket
only your backyard is actually a ghat along the Ganges

Sunrise
That's not a wonky camera hand but a sinking temple

Drinking
Yes...people really do drink from the Ganges