Blogs from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, Asia - page 68

We were in the train station of Katni at 9:30 a.m., enough time to buy tickets. We split up to different queues, a strategy that has already proved quite helpful in India. Suddenly, a policeman led Stephan to a different ticket counter in a car outside the building, a man was sitting there with a computer on his lap. This was supposed to be the express counter! We did not really trust this arrangement, so Klaudia stayed queued, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Soon, the policeman turned up again, violently dragging the Indians in front of Klaudia from their places in order to make Klaudia advance faster. He treated these people in an incredibly unfriendly way, shouting at them something Klaudia could not understand, but she could imagine the meaning of his words. These ... read more

Even though I can’t stand shopping, I had a blast walking from shop after (almost identical) shop around the little Rajasthani town of Pushkar and browsing through fun jewelry and clothes. Each shop had a tailor ready to alter dresses, pants and tops within minutes, or custom make anything within a couple of days!! I also found a pottery place and WENT TO TOWN purchasing the most random things (the list is pretty extensive so I will not make this entry any longer than to say that I am glad I left Pushkar.)(It was a dangerous place to be - even for someone who hates shopping!) I escaped (with a thinner money belt) to a little town called Bundi; not many people know about this place, and that may be why it ranked high on my ... read more

Once again the current city is a totally new experience. The main attraction is the river Ganga, the mother of the hindu people. The city of Shiva rests on the west side of the river and the river bank is covered in concrete ghats (steps down to the river). The various ghats have different purposes such as bathing, cremation grounds, body drop off points, boat landings, shopping, and prayer shrines. The streets of Varanasi are either extremely crowded or extremely narrow. It is very easy to get lost in the winding alleyways, as we have done several times. The city is very fun and there seems to be a hindu shrine or temple every where we look. We also visited the nearby area of Sarnath. This is the place where the Buddha first taught the four ... read more

Sunday night was the sleeper train from Agra to Varanasi, at 8.30pm! For the record... Indian stations are almost as exciting as Indian Cinemas. Straight out of something by Rudyard Kipling, lots of noise, lots of people and general pandemonium. We swaned through it all with porters carrying out luggage on their heads, and cooled our heels for a while on the platform. I bought a bull whip off a trader on the platform, (who gave me a demonstration on it's effective crack pottential), much to the amusement of the rest of the group, and then bought another for Adrian, (which concerned them more I reckon)! Far as I'm concerned it's my best buy so far! I never expected the sleeping car to be overly luxurious, but apparently everyone else did! Recently there have been a ... read more

From Agra, and the Taj Mahal, we headed to Varanasi, the Holy City of the Hindus, formerly called Banares. It's here that people come to cleanse themselves in the River Ganga (Ganges), especially first thing in the morning. Also on the banks of the river people cremate the dead, there's a special site where there are 24 hour burnings. When we sailed past on a boat we had hired at sunset we counted about 16 fires at the one time. Understandably, We were not allowed to photograph the cremations. Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities in the world, and much of it feels like it hasn't changed in hundreds of years. For a couple of days we stayed in a guesthouse overlooking the river, with fantastic views from one end of the city to ... read more