Varanasi

Varanasi: Truly a city to be visited by anyone traveling to the subcontinent. From the spaced out hippies who still think its 1969 to the wannabe hippies who will be returning to downtown Manhattan to wave pieces of paper in the air while shouting "Buy" or, "Sell". This city accomodates them all.

The city itself has few, Ghats and Ganges aside, if any sites to see, it is a place to breathe, to feel, to experience. As with every Indian city the initial impression leaves one wincing: Noise, overcrowding, hassle and of course the car horn. For once first impressions have no foundation.

Evening shopping in Varansi

Once you spend some time getting to know the city; wondering its intricate alleys, browsing its endless bazaars, learning about its silk and gazing at the worshippers washing there infants in holy Ganges water the city digs a niche and embeds itself in your heart. It is a truly wonderful place to be with a unique ambience.

This city is why I traveled to India; To walk the river front and inhale the delightful aromas that wisp by, each one more edible than the next. Come nightfall the smell of fried spice increases as do the ceremonies that I cannot begin to understand and hence explain. Yes, Varanasi has its beggars, its touts, its vagrant cows, chickens, goats and dogs but it also has soul.

At this juncture I should state that with our 3 days in the city we only visited the old city because we had no reason to leave it. This may have slightly skewed my opinion though.

Checking in to the Ganpati Guest House was an interesting experience. I'm sure I will never be introduced to my room again with the phrase:

"Welcome, your room. And this is the monkey stick, Monkeys sometime come to room so chase them away"
And, believe it or not then did: on the final day I noticed one of them outside the room, he gave me a 'what you gonna do about it' look as he stole my sponge and jumped down to the floor below.

Our evening meal on the first night was interestingly compromised by a 67 year old fellow who embarked on a methodic explanation of why a monkey was different to any other creature in the animal world (opposable thumbs, as we all know). Then he intricately weaved together an explanation of why the mushroom has no similarity to other Flora and should be treaded as a magical occurrence, again: Its a Fungus, thats what makes it different pal. Passing this guy the next day I observed the redness of his eyes and how they flickered from one place to the next immediately recognising the signs of paranoia that swept through me during my hemp smoking days. This man was an endangered species: One of the hippies who still thinks Woodstock was last week.

The River Ganges, which flows to the east of the city, is considered by Hindus as (I better get this right or Pez will kill me), "The elixer of life, bringing purity to the living and salvation to the dead". Sorrowfully the upstream industry have decided to use it to dump chemicals and heavy metals giving it the added credit of most polluted river in India. Because of this, burning Ghats are located at several points along the river. These are where families bring dead relatives for cremation and to have their ashes tossed into the river, thus bringing them salvation. The ceremony is something to be witnessed, and it would have been nice to fully appreciate it without touts rudely interrupting us every second. I'll have to come back one day in the future I think.

On top of all this we also embarked on the obligatory, sunrise boating trip. It was so cold though that we had to return to shore very quickly after sunrise. Silk shopping also took a lot of our time up here, it is a fine art at which I am now rather well versed, I'll probably write more on this later.

Must stop writing now, we have a train to catch back to Delhi shortly and I'd like to have some food before embarking on a 16hour journey. This train ride will be using 2nd Class compartments I wonder how fancy they will be and, whether the toilet will be more than a slippy hole in the floor of the train. Yuk!

Sunrise on the Ganges.