Hannah’s Weblog

This entry will have to wait, I do not have time to write it yet………plus I am struggling to find the words to describe Varanasi, an amazingly unique place! Once back from Nepal I will update this section……

Two days and one night in Varanasi…….. Man, this seems a long time ago now, but I am going to give it a shot, an attempt at least to write a bit about Varanasi. We arrived in Varanasi on the 20th Feb, we had read and heard alot about the hassle that we were going to experience once we arrived here, but to our pleasant surprise it was pretty pain free. We had endured a very crowed and squashed train journey from Delhi so were relieved about this! We negotiated a price with a cycle rickshaw driver and held tight as the journey was long and pretty dangerous…considering we had to hold onto our bags and the tiny seat we were balanced on..After chatting to some Spanish girls on our train we headed for Hotel Shiva (the original, I may add…) luckily grabbed the last double room, dumped our stuff and headed out.

Varanasi was pretty high on the places I was most excited to visit, and it completely lived up to all my expectations! A crazy mix of tourists, Sadu’s (holy men who smoke a lot of ganja, liberated by asceticism and yoga) grieving relatives and holy ghats.  The burning ghats were the most extreme experience, there are two main ones, one that we past through quickly where people are cremated publicly 24 hours a day and a second smaller one where we lingered for a few hours. Piles of wood, and burning mounds of ashes litter the area near the river ( a river Ganges that is hardly recognisable against the one we swam in in Rishikesh) The river here is at its most polluted and is grim, the levels of toxic waste, metals and anything else potentially lethal is living and breeding here in Varanasi! People wash, clean their clothes and apparently drink this water…..mmmm severely strong stomachs……. So we witnessed a cremation from start to finish, funny seeing as though Kim only said earlier that she cannot bring herself to even stick the postcards we bought in her journal.  Looking back and writing about it now, it seems strange that we stood and watched for so long, but we did….so what the hey! There was a short ceremony, with a handful of relatives, a holy man circles the body a few times then they set it alight. It didn’t seem real watching the body burn, detached and removed from the fact that someones relative was being cremated….bizarre! I probably should not continue with details…..it did get pretty grim so I will save you that!

Varanasi is one of the oldest cities in the world, completely unique and precious. We took a 5pm and a morning boat ride along the ghats, which line the entire length of the city. These ghats (which are steps that rise from the river) are always full of activity, people come from all over, far and away to cleanse themselves in the river. Crowds of pilgrims and faithful worshippers blend with tourists, sellers and locals, it is a wonderfully colourful place even though it is somewhere people come to die. Kim and I had a wonderful time here, we stayed in a fantastically lively hostel, met tonnes of people (mainly Brits) chatted, ate some great food, lots of card games….good time all round! We were sad to leave, but it was great meeting up again with Will, James and Manu and we crammed alot into our short time. With our new clothes (which we bargained hard for) a handful of souvenirs and an experience of a lifetime under our belt, we once again moved on….