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Published: January 6th 2015
Having been to India previously on my own 10 years ago, its a country which divides opinion, you either love it or hate it. l knew what to expect and l was looking forward to being there with someone else and sharing the experience as it is something like l have never experience before, l was also very much looking forward to eating, lots and lots of eating. We decided to ease our way in we would pre-arrange a taxi pickup with our hostel, which was great as we didn't have to deal with hundreds of taxi drivers all wanting our fare. The hostel is an hour from the airport and it was great for people watching from the safety of the cab, although we did make a couple of pit stops - one to pick up the local chewing leaf (paan) from what seemed like his mates shop and then to swop drivers. You can tell when the men chew paan on a regular basis, as their teeth are stained red, but they do it to get a high rush.
Varanasi is our first destination in India and it's considered one of the holiest, most spiritual city in India
and is the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The hostel we found to stop in was a mixture of old and new, the stairways and landings looking quite old and run down but the room being ultra modern! It had a rooftop restaurant with great view of the snaking Ganges and the buildings hugging its eastern shores. Weirdly it also had this indoor conference room, which was ultra modern, not sure how many board meetings a la Alan Sugar style it would see, but it must have been there for someone to use. As soon as we got there we treated ourselves to the much-anticipated Indian cuisine. We had some pakora (a fried Indian snack), to keep us going until we ate a little later, washed down with extra protein in the shape and form of the millions of fruit flies, mozzies and no see’s bugs on the rooftop terrace– welcome to India. Suffice to say, it was yummy! Been very excited for food in India and we felt ready to try it all and get stuck in, bugs an all.
The hostel was located about about 20 minutes via foot from the old city and centre
Varanasiof Varanasi. This was a great walk and a total assault on the senses; the streets are bustling and filled with life. There are families of pigs, dogs, cats, cows (cows also in huge metal pipe sections that are discarded - I think they are old sewerage pipes) all amongst the normal goings on of stalls, street sellers, rotting rubbish, bicycle taxi's, and people just getting from A to B. This was all before we reached the banks of the Ganges. Some of the smells were pretty overpowering, mainly from the half dried out Assi river with lots of stagnant water, but hey, this in India, I knew what to expect. Day to day life in most places is locked away in houses or neighborhoods which we didn't have access to but here, the river Ganges is integral to a lot of people lives. So things you wouldn't usually see are on show here. It's literally used as a bathroom, from people washing their clothes, brushing their teeth, cleaning their clohes and cleaning themselves to using it as a toilet or a pen to keep their water Buffalo in. Its quite amusing seeing a water Buffalo immersed in water up
Doing his magic
The Blue Lassi, Varanasi to their heads for the first time! So walking along its banks is an eye opening experience. That combined with the motley selection of old decrepit buildings and lively graffiti, lining the rivers it really is a great experience.
Leaving the riverside and venturing into the old city we didn't really know what to expect. I felt like we were leaving the calm and into the storm. The streets were small and dark; the buildings being so close together that it didn't let much light in. You really did feel like you were in an ancient city. Not really knowing where we were heading we followed these windy streets, again our senses being assaulted by colours and smells, until we reached a very busy market street, which was normal width in size. We were on the hunt for a place called the Blue Lassi, which we had read about in the guidebooks, after asking some directions it was back into the small dark streets. This time it took us past the Shri Vishwanath Temple, which the queue for was huge; there were hundreds of families all holding gifts to take into the temple. It was a squeeze to get
past them but people trying to get past on their motorbikes made it an even more interesting experience! These small streets were definitely a lot more lively. The Blue Lassi is a bit of a tourist trap and it was our first experience of seeing groups of westerners together since we had arrived in the town. The Lassi's were lovely; they were very thick and very filling! But with the young serving man continually staring at me (my first Indian stalker) it was slightly off putting, the place inside is quite small so at some points he was about a meter away just staring. We had a chuckle about it though; he was mesmerized for some reason!
Still not quite in tune with India on the way back l accidently stood in a huge pile of cow poo (with my flip flops on) and as a quick fix decided to dunk my foot in the ganges to clean it. Without thinking that l had a cut on my foot. 15 minutes later my foot as killing!..convinced l had caught some sort of Indian aids l doused it in savlon and anti bacterial gel as soon as we got back
and stressed my foot was going to need a total clean out at the hospital for absolutely no reason at all. Total Indian novice! I had some toughening up to do. However, l have read that the ganges pollution levels are 3000 over the 'safe' limit, so maybe l had a little to be worried about.
There's a selection of rooftop restaurants along the river and I would definitely recommend going to one, if not as many as possible, if not for getting away from the busy streets below to relax or the great views but to see Monkeys getting chased off by the owners dogs! We ate at some local ones and at more western ones; the local ones were much better with cheaper prices and local food, no hamburgers or annoying loud show off travelers to have to listen to!
The river Ganges is considered sacred to Hindus and is worshipped as the goddess Ganga. A lot of Hindus come to Varanasi to die, because to do is to be granted instant salvation. This is because their ashes are immersed in the Ganges. There are a lot of ghats dotted along the river side. And incase
you don’t know a ghat is a series of steps leading down to a body of water (or holy water). Ghats are used for cleaning, ritual bathing, and there are cremation ghats where bodies are cremated waterside allowing ashes to be washed away by the rivers. Cremation ceremonies take place along the Ganges on places called burning Ghats, Ghats are located up and down the river and the term refers to a series of steps leading down to water considered holy, but only 2 we came across were being used for cremation. They were always busy with people and burning mounds, it’s a 24 hours service so to speak. Its hard not to stop and stare but you do feel like you are intruding just by walking around. Its best to be as ‘casual’ as possible and take a seat enough away from the action so you aren’t intruding but close enough you can see and take in the unique experience in a respectful way, taking photos is a massive no no. It’s really intense watching things unfold, with obviously very upset people, burning bodies (at times you could watch the flesh being burned and the bones were visible). At
the main burning Ghat, called Manikarnika Ghat, we were collared by a local asking if we wanted to know more about the place. We knew he'd expect some money but it would be relatively little compared to what we'd find out. He took us up to a room on the 2nd floor of a derelict building over looking the Ghat, the first thing we noticed were the people laid about on the floor - our initial thought being "OMG! are these bodies waiting to be burnt?!!" but as it turns out, they were just people who helped out at the Ghat just resting, panic over. Apparently they help the families with the dying and dead bodies. The families main expense for the cremation is the type of wood used, the more money spent the better the wood burns. It sometimes means poorer families relatives aren't burnt properly and just deposited in the river in the river is a half burnt state. It's the job of the social underclass, the "untouchables" to then sieve out the remains for jewellery or fillings. Can you actually imagine doing that for a job??? It was a very interesting experience but slightly spoiled by our
donation "not being enough".
We organised a boat trip through our hostel to see the evening ceremony at the dashahwamedh ghat. This ghat is the main one in Varanasi and said to be the most spectacular, and every evening at this ghat is the Ganga Aarti. This is when a group of priests daily in the evening perform the ‘Agni Pooja’ (worship to fire) where they make their dedications to the Lord Shiva (the ganges), Surya (Sun), Agni (fire) and the whole universe. There are many stages to the ceremony and it’s a mixture of incense, fire, lights, smoke, drums and chanting. Lots of lots of people hire boats to go watch and also children (with fantastic English language·) sell you candles, which you light, and put in the ganges to float away. We got stuck in with this, and a very cheeky pair of chaps sold us some floating candles they had made with and sold us at a price that in the grand scheme of things was not too expensive but in India terms, was definitely at an inflated price!..And despite the boys working as a team one of them was quite unwilling to share his extra
profits, after some telling off he handed it over and they jumped onto another boat to play the same tricks again, not bad for two children who were 7 years old.
We had read that there was a similar boat trip up the ganges in the morning watching the sunrise so we asked our boat guy to hook us up the next day. He said that he wasn’t feeling well and was heading to the hospital after he dropped us off but would pick us up in the morning. We weren’t sure if this was a ploy for money or if he was really sick. Suffice to say, we set our alarms and were up for 5am, no sign of the boat dude. Hope he was ok!
One of our favourite things to do whilst in Varanasi was simply to sit down on the river side and people watch. It was fascinating watching the world walk past, people walking to and from work, holy men wandering past, people selling street food and souvenirs, and the other tourists having their own experiences. One set of tourists we and many other clapped eyes on were a set from Asia. They
were taking it in turns to jump into the ganges…turns out one lady had forgotten she couldn’t swim or had thought it was shallower than it actually was and started drowning after voluntarily jumping in. This turned into a huge scene with one of her friends jumping in to save her and she almost drowned him as well when finally a man in a fishing boat stuck his paddle out for her to hold onto and managed to drag her and her friends onto the boat! Oh the shame! After a minute she was much better and her and her friends took some pictures of them having been to the ganges, l can imagine the caption – I survived drowning in the ganges. Crazy people.
On our second to last day in Varanasi we had our real experience of getting agitated in India, we wanted to post some things home as our backpacks were at breaking point. 5 hours later and multiple tuk tuk journeys being led down the garden path, many lies said to how to post things home from people trying to ‘help’ and lots of busy traffic and sore feet later and we found and succumbed
to a courier services and handed over £30 putting our trust that the package would make it back. Suffice to say, there is still no sign of it and my precious parahawking pictures which were in the package! Should have listened to our guts and never handed it over when we weren’t 100% sure we could trust the guy. Lesson learnt. Bad Karma onto him.
We spent a few days here and moved onto Deli using the train – Our first experience on the Indian Train network. As it had taken me around a month to get set up on the cleartrip railways website – this enables us to buy our own tickets and not get ripped off by agents l was dubious of if it would all come together. Luckily it DID.
As it was our first over night train journey we again eased our way in and went on AC first class. Meaning we had dinner, food and our own private cabin. Total flash packers at this stage! The cabin consisted of a bunk bed, fan, light and table. A lovely way to travel overnight to Delhi, and all for around £30 each for a 12
hour train.
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Momma Toni
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THE MYSTERIES OF INDIA!
I had to laugh about the postal service in India! I am afraid it really isnt good anywhere in the world! the amount of items that never arrive!!!!!!!!and others that arrive broken is legendary! I love indian cuisine so would love to have a try at the curries you must have enjoyed yum! I recently saw a programme on tv of the cremation ghats on the ganges it was morbidly fascinating, Dave Kate,s husband has just come back from India he was in Hydrabad and he found India fascinating but challenging! hope you both had a good christmas and wish you the very best of everything for New Year! lots of love Antonia xxxxxxx