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Published: January 15th 2007
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Well we arrived in Varanassi after a 15 hour overnight train ride that was actually on time. We met lots of great people on the train to drink chai with and talk. The people always ask us so many questions about religion, marriage, children, income and employment. They don't understand that the western way of life is very different from the Indian way of life so we have been told to tell them what they want to hear. We always have to say we are married and always practice religion unless we get some very disapproving looks. It is hard to explain to them the difference between our cultures. One couple we had met on the train said that they would take us to the hotel that they were staying at because we had not made prior reservations. We agreed to go with them. They were definatly a saviour for us. When we walked out of the train station it was instant chaos. There are always soo many people where ever you go. In Kolkata there was 13 million people. In Varanassi the population is only about 2 million but it feels like a billion. The streets are very small because
Cows in Traffic!
Pictures cant even show how congested it is in Varanasi when they were built over 2000 years ago there were no cars and they still havent done much upgrading. Imagine completly congested streets with tons of cars, bikes, rickshaws, goats, cows, chickens, monkeys, human waste, animal wastes and lots of garbage..oh and dont forget the smog. That is the streets of Varanassi for you. The town itself is not pleasant. Luckily the hotel we stayed at was very nice and some what quiet. We had to eat by ordering room service because we could never find any restaurants around that looked even close to sanitary. Apparently Varanasi is the place where everyone gets sick..so we were very careful but so far so good.
After getting settled into our hotel and having lunch we set out to explore. We decided to hire an auto rickshaw for the day because the streets were to insane to walk in. We went to a cool area called Sarnath. It is basically a super religious place where alot of buddhists come to pray. It is known as the place where Buddha gave his first sermon. Therefore there are many temples there representing all the different countries that practise buddhism. It was really cool to
see a Chinese, Japanese, Nepali, Thai, and Sri Lankan temple all in walking distance from each other. After visiting Sarnath we headed back into the city and went to the temples around the city. The spirtual side of this country especailly Varanasi is amazing to see. We were extremely sick of temples when we were in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia etc. but in India there is so much going on inside the temples it is hard to be bored with them. There is unfortunatly no pictures or videos in these temples unlike the ones in Thailand. Its too bad because it is unreal. It was an early night for us in Varanasi because we were exhausted from the train and India itself is a very exhausting place. Varanasi is also unsafe at night and it has power outages every half hour so not much more to do then sit in our room.
The next day we woke up to go explore the main reason why people come to Varanasi...the ghats on the Ganges River. Varanasi is believed to be one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world and the people are still doing the same things they were
doing many years ago. It is also known as the holiest city in the world. I can't even explain this place it was so intense and crazy. I guess intense is the way i explain everything but there are no other words for it. We hired a boat to take us down the river for two hours seeing all the different ghats. Each ghat something different is being done. The first one we went to was the massage and vendor ghat. People selling are selling you things and hassling you. We were worried it was going to be like that all the way done but it was only the main ghat that had alot of hassle. As we continued down the river there was laundry being done, cooking, bathing, praying anything and anything you would do in your everyday life. A little further down the river we reached the burning ghat. It is a place where bodies are publically cremated. It is quite a surreal atmosphere. They first put the body into the ganges for its last holy dip. It is wrapped in orange cloth and golden ribbons. After the last dip they bring the body up on to a
pile of wood and pour some sort of flamable stuff on it and light it on fire. It is crazy all this is done in public. There are so many bodies wrapped in the orange cloth along this ghat on the river and it goes on continually 24 hours a day. Right beside the burning ghat you will see young children sifting through the water and all the ashes looking for anything of value. It is quite sad seeing how poor these people really are and so many of them all in one place. On the other side of the burning ghat you will see children flying kites and playing in garbage, while beside them people are putting bodies into the water and weighing them down with rock so that they stay at the bottom of the river. A little further down the river you will see people using the river as a toilet and then drinking the water. It seems to not bother them or they dont realize that there are dead bodies beneath them or gallons and gallons of sewage dumped into the river everyday. It is crazy to see how many people actually live this way. This
is how the majority of the world lives.
The Ganges river is the most populated and polluted river in the world. 1 in 12 people in the world life on the banks of the ganges..I know it's almost unbelievable. There is over 1 billion litres a day of raw sewage dumped into the river every day! How do these people live like this!? Anyways all that being said it was not a disgusting place to visit. It didnt smell or look disgusting..it was actually quite peaceful and pleasant compared to the city itself. It is amazing to see how these people live.
After a day spent on the river we returned to our hotel to get our train tickets and get ready for our next leg of the journey. We were very worried because we asked our hotel to get them for us a day and a half before we actually got them. Everything runs on India time around here and it is just something we have to get used to. Our tickets didnt arrive until 2 hours before our trip when they were promised 28 hours earlier. GRR.. and they were wondering why we were so worried!
Publishing a few blogs at once because internet is far and few between!
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Lauren
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i love goats !
Looks like you guys are having quite the adventure. I'm glad you've decided to practice religion everyday liek good like deciples(s?) hehe. Try and bring me home a goat if you can. My last goat died at xmas and it's just not the same without a goat in my backyard. glad your well, be safe and say hi to Dave !!! XOX Laur