September 18-22: Varanassi, India (by Jeff)

Varanasi was undeniably the dirtiest city we visited so far in India, (and the rest of the world for that matter) but considered one of the more sacred and traditional cities since it is located right on the Ganges river. The owner of our guesthouse met us where the a-hole taxi driver dropped us off (tried to rip us off, then asked for a tip and asked if we wanted to go on a tour all day with him…complete loser) and saved us from the toothless beggar who did not leave us alone. Like many of the places we have stayed thus far, the guesthouse was under construction, but we were not informed of this when we originally made the booking. Our room reeked of paint fumes and all the walls and ground were concrete. The small window allowed some light to come in, but otherwise it looked much like a prison cell. The bed was placed on a plywood frame and the “mattress” was about 1/4 the width of a futon mattress. In addition, the mildew smelling towels, no air conditioning, having to pay for toilet paper, and the power going out 5 times per day made this place a real catch. I guess that is what you get when you pay $7 per night for a room, even though it was the highest ranked on hostelworld. On the plus side, our crappy room gave us good reason to be out on the street as much as possible.

On the first day we arrived we took some time walking around checking out some local shops and seeing how the local people use the Ganges River. Navigating around the old city (where we were) is very difficult because all the streets are the size of alleyways with buildings that went up a couple stories all around us. As we weaved through the streets trying to avoid the cows that block most of the path or the huge piles of garbage and cow crap we eventually found the river where we were surrounded by boat drivers wanting to take us on a boat tour. We came to an agreement with one driver, named Diamond, to go out the following evening to see the burning Ghats, the daily Ganges ceremony and other significant sites along the way. We pressed on to find a big ceremony going on by the river, which turned out to be the exact ceremony we saw the next day, until it started to monsoon rain and everyone scattered. That evening we found a music school and set up a lesson the next day for Liz to learn the sitar and myself on the tabla again.


Location of the nightly ceremony

The next day we awoke to the loud sound of a construction worker banging a hammer and pick into our wall to chip away concrete…very enjoyable way to start the day. We got out of there quickly and had a good western breakfast down the street. We walked around until our music lesson that afternoon where I struggled once more on the tabla, but Liz did great on the sitar…a natural. It looks about 10x harder to play than a guitar, but sounds beautiful when mastered. After the lesson we walked down to the river to find our driver Diamond eagerly waiting to take us out. He and his son paddled us while some other English speaking driver was the guide. It was a pretty lame tour as he explained the significance of some of the nearby buildings and then showed us a burning Ghat for about 3 seconds while the whole time was trying to sell us already on some other ride the next day. Many of the taxi, rickshaw, and boat drivers really do not understand the concept that no tourist is going to get back into their vessel after an awful tour the first time only to have it repeated again. After making it back to the dock they of course tried to charge us twice as much as we agreed and made up endless excuses until we gave them a little extra and thanked them for the half ass experience. We had dinner at a place near our guesthouse that had live music which ended about 1 minute after we arrived, but at least the food was pretty good. On our walk home in the alley before our guesthouse it is very dark and has no overhead light, and without a flashlight we had difficulty seeing the path in front of us. While walking in my sandals I slipped in a giant pile of cow diarrhea and lost my balance where I smashed my toe into a rock ledge that caused it to instantly split open gushing blood. It was a very painful and disgusting way to incur an injury at this point in the trip, and it would only get grosser as rain caused dirty runoff water to get into the wound. Liz doctored me up that night the best she could with our limited first aid supplies and we went to bed.


Liz's sitar lesson

The following day we went to visit the university in the city, which was the largest in India, and in the top 3 in all of Asia. We drove through the campus and were very surprised to see just how large it was, and comparable to a college campus in the states. Our driver stopped at the temple on campus for us to take a look and it was gorgeous. Most of the temple was built from white marble and had beautiful colorful paintings around the perimeter walls. We also liked that they had many quotes from their scripture posted on the wall and then translated into English so it gave us an idea of what Hindu faith says exactly. We left the campus and headed over to the fort on the other side of the river because we had not yet seen a fort in all of India. We paid 300 Rupees to enter the museum (Lonely Planet said it cost 7) to find that it was horribly overpriced. They had a couple very old Ford cars that were not at all maintained and a bunch of other broken and unkempt items as well. Some of the guns and knives they had were impressive including their tiger hunting weapons, but not making it worth the time and effort it was to go out there. The fort itself is situated right along the river and after walking through a tunnel, where the entire roof was lined with bats, we made our way to the side facing the river and had some great views. We were surprised that this entire complex was still standing considering one guy told us not to stand too close to the edge by the river because it was not very strong…there was no sort of sign or other indication telling us this. After seeing all the fort had to offer we hopped back in the rickshaw and headed back to the guesthouse. Our driver was a nice and young guy our age so we made arrangements for him to pick us up the next day and take us to the airport to give him the extra business.


In front of the Ganges

That evening we walked down to the river to hopefully see a sunset, but the clouds once again covered it. We stood there for some time watching as people performed ceremonies and prayed in the river, while others bathed and washed clothes beside them. This river is used for everything in India from performing daily ceremonies, bathing, drinking, cleaning, throwing garbage and waste, and even cremation ashes. We watched as water buffaloes submerged their entire bodies beside people who were cleaning their kids or making offerings to Mother Ganga. The sight was one of the most authentic Indian experiences we had because it was hassle free and for once people were not staring at us but rather we enjoyed watching them act within their element.


Water buffalo cooling off in the Ganges

On our last day before our flight we decided to pay a visit to the burning Ghats to see another part of Indian culture. Upon arrival some man came up and began to talk to us telling us how sacred and holy the Ghats were and all the information about them before asking for a donation. He led us up some temple stairs to have a good view of where all the bodies are cremated where we sat for several minutes watching as they continued to bring up body after body on wooden stretchers covered in decorated cloth. There must have been hundreds of people around as people helped make large wooden platforms for which to place the bodies and let the ashes blow right into the river below the Ghat. We watched for a few minutes before deciding that we looked a bit out of place and paid the guy who asked for some outrageous donation just 20 Rupees. We then met our driver and headed off to the airport to catch our flight back to Delhi for the final few days in India.


Surprising list of items one must not carry on the plane...