Blogs from Uttar Pradesh, India, Asia - page 161

Hello folks, Clare here. Oh my God, your God, everybodys' God. That was a journey that you would not want to do everyday - or ever again. 15 hours on a train from Agra to Varanasi, the ancient city of the God Shiva. We had lost one of our sleeping bags at the airport in Delhi, so we both had to share a bunk in the freezing cold of night. It was about 5 foot long and 2 wide (and no, we haven't lost any weight yet ), so saying cramped and uncomfortable would be a massive understatement. However we've made it here in one piece with about a hundred lessons learned. The city is situated along the banks of the holy river Ganges. Hindus come here from all over India to bathe, a ritual that ... read more

Ok, I am back in India now! After a massive and cold 30 hour train journey from the pleasantly warm climate of Mumbai I finally arrived in a freezing Varanasi at dawn yesterday. Varanasi is on the Ganges, a river that sources far up in the Himalayas and flows eventually out into the Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh. It is a very large city of over 1 million people with the main attraction to the countless tourists being the Ghats. The Ghats and the Ganges really are very beautiful and colourful, it is like a being in another world and is best seen along with all other visitors at sunrise from a boat. Varanasi is a very holy and spiritual place for Hindu's, they believe that by bathing in the Ganges their sins will be cleansed. ... read more

This is the place where people wash their sins away in the Ganges from the Gats on shore. Oh, they also burn their dead and do their washing on the shore amongst other things. Simple. It's also the place where they have a funny tradition of flying kites and all day there are loads of them in the sky. They use abrasive line to fight each other and cut each other down. Needless to say we had to have a go! We bought 10 kites (cost about 30p in total) plus some line and then spent an afternoon trying to learn to fly the bloody things. The only have one piece of string attached to them and the locals make it look easy to steer them but believe me it's not!... read more

Petit flash-back (OK, je sais pas faire petit !) : J'ai quitte Goa le 21/11 a midi, par le train de Thivim, pour arriver le soir aux environs de 21h a Mumbai. La, j'ai pris un taxi pour l'armee du salut, mais ils etaient complets !!! Du coup, j'ai repris le meme taxi (en tarif de nuit, c'est a dire qu'il m'a assassine) pour lui demander de me reconduire a la gare, ou je dormirai dans la salle d'attente, puisque le train partait le lendemain vers 14h. Il me demande si je vais a Goa, et je lui reponds que j'en arrive, et que je me dirige vers Varanassi. C'est la qu'il m'apprend que ce train se prend a une autre station, 23 km de la. Suspicieux (liant peut-etre ses tarifs au fait qu'il veut m'emmener ... read more

Without doubt, Varanasi is the holiest place to die in India. Should you be lucky enough to expire here, Hindus believe you transcend the normal cycle of birth and rebirth and attain instant enlightenment. Breathing your last breath on this precious soil is the celestial golden ticket, an instant get out of rebirth free card. We arrived here hot and dusty after a long train ride from Agra. The novels of Salman Rushdie and John Irving who write so vividly about the city of light, had stoked my imagination and I was determined that our stay in India would not end before we had seen Varanasi. The river Ganges represents the elixir of life to Hindus - and it is deeply woven into their daily ritual ablutions. Therefore the only way to really understand Varanasi is ... read more