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Published: February 7th 2015
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We took the overnight train from New Delhi to Varanasi. The platform was crowded with people....whole families sitting on rugs laid out, or straight down on the platform to await the train. We are very very lucky to be wealthy westerners able to travel in the comfort of a first class lockable sleeping cabin for 2, which even has an electric socket for recharging phones etc! (but by international standards this luxury comes cheap at £300 for a months 1st class unlimited travel including sleepers). Woke in the morning to the sights of rural North East India.....green fields with both men and women working in them by hand, women making bricks of cow dung for burning to dry in the sun, washing being hung out, women sweeping the fronts of their houses, loads of rubbish everywhere (mainly shredded plastic), and cattle wandering about everywhere. At every level crossing there were crowds of people on bicycles waiting for the train to pass. We arrived in Varanassi 2 hours late , having left New Delhi on time.
We took a motor rickshaw cab from the station to our guesthouse after breakfast. Another thrilling cab ride weaving between cattle, pedestrians and various vehicles
along crowded streets. Our driver explained that the guesthouse being in the old quarter beside the Ganges, it is only accesible by foot, so he would walk us the last 1.3km. Fortunately we had very little luggage to carry, as we had left most in storage in Delhi. We walked through the cramped alleyways of the city, passing the occasional cow(!) before he brought us safely to our accomodation. Once inside, it is nicely decorated in bright colours and the location is perfect. There is a rooftop restuarant with a fine view over the Ganges and a staircase leads you down to the walk along the riverfront. The riverfront scene is just as seen on several TV shows....people washing themselves and their clothes in the river, kids playing, people selling stuff, beggars and holymen asking for money, kids asking for money, boatmen asking to take you on their boat, masseuses and barbers offering their services etc etc. All very colourful and quite bewildering....and exhausting. We are so lucky that we can slink back to the quiet of our room or the rooftop restuarant.
In the evening there is a ceremony at the main ghat in honour of the river
Ganges. There are lights, bells, indian music, loads of people and loads of colour. Absolutely amazing spectacle! Lots of people had gone out on boats to watch the proceedings from the river, and there were loads of lights from candles set to float slowly down the river. We have been warned not to give money to beggars, nor to buy street food; but we feel mean walking around with cameras on a foreign holiday when they have so little......so we bought the little candle floats and set them off, and paid to take a kids photo, and for a holyman to put a red dot on our forhead. Seeing so much poverty face to face (even though we all know it exists, even when we are not seeing it) makes anyone feel uncomfortable. There is also a ceremony for sunrise, but we gave that a miss. In the mornings there is a rather nice mist over the Ganges, giving it a mystical air. One evening we went to eat at a restuarant run by a charity that provides a school and doctor to the poor of Varanasi. It was advertised as having 'classical music every evening at 7.30', which turned
out to be one aging guy with a drum! (but to be sure he was a fine drummer). You had to sit cross-legged at low tables, and everyone there was less than half our age. (They were selling cheese there rom Auroville, which is the ecovillage in south India where Helen worked last summer).
On our last day in Varanassi we took a boat ride. This was excellent. The boatman was nice and told us a lot. (He asked that we take his picture and reccommend him to other travellers....so I will be sure that it has pride of place in this blog). He explained the significance of various parts of the evening ceremony, and what Hindu Gods each represented, but I cannot actually remember! He said, as we had guessed, that the Ganges is low at this time of year and running slowly. After the rain the opposite sandy/muddy bank, where people go to have picnics, fly kites and have horse rides, is covered by the river. The river also comes right high up the steps then and into the lower floors of some buildings. It runs fast at these times and he says he can not work
then for 2 or 3 months because it is impossible to take boats out. He said some people do fish in the river...but the reason that the flocks of seagulls are following some boats is not for fish, but because the Indian tourists like to feed them. Boats are selling seagull food for this purpose. (The seagulls have migrated from Australia for the rich pickings). We saw the laundry area where the men (yes..men as a business....women for the family) were washing laundry. Saw the burning ghats in the distance. We have not walked down to these, partly because we have been warned about muggers in that area, and also partly because it seems like a bit of a macabre tourist site, which we think we can cope without. We prefer sitting about in the roof restuarant watching the monkeys, the boys flying kites from other rooftops, and of course the view.
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