India Part 6 : Varanasi

Me, with various Ghats behind.

I struggle a bit to find my train out of Lucknow - maybe the evening in a bar didn't help, but also it turns out there are two stations right next to each other and mine is not easy to find - I guess no different to London's King's Cross and St. Pancras really.  Still, my train is waiting for me, and though it takes a very long time to reach its destination, it's a night train so I sleep for much of it, back in one of the higher classes too so relative luxury.  I am in fact quite rested on reaching Varanasi, the holy city by the Ganges - I don't suppose, by any chance, the holiness of the place encourages the people here to keep the place clean?  Well no, not really... I do find a road running between my hotel and the train station that seems not to have much in the way of housing, shops, or random people with stalls selling stuff on the street, this makes for fast moving traffic but fewer people so generally good.  The rest of the city streets are the usual rubbish strewn toilet though... on the plus side, the main attraction of this place, the Ganges itself, lies many metres below street level, and the several miles of it that border the city are accessed via a series of steps and terraces.  This makes for a substantial amount of terrain that is not accessible to wheeled vehicles, making it considerably more pleasant to walk along than the roads, I could get to quite like it here.

The tower to the left is part of the city's water intake system.  Shudder.

There are even cafes along the river, catering for the many tourists that are here, it's nice to be able to sit down and watch the riverside action in peace for a while.  I get some more peace and quiet, and an even better view of the riverside, by taking a boat up and down for an hour or so, just me and an old guy rowing.  I do offer to take a turn with the oars, but he of course does not speak English.  Well, means I can concentrate on the various 'Ghats' we pass - I believe this refers to the stairs leading down to the river, in each case there is a more or less ornate temple at the top as well.  At the waterside there are people washing all manner of things - themselves, clothes, buffalo - can't help but doubt whether things washed in the river come out much cleaner than they went in, that said I do see a small boy catch a fish with a stick and some string, so I guess it can't be all that polluted.  Really don't know if I'd want to eat that fish mind you given what must be washing into the river - including, as my oarsman says when we reach our turnaround point, 'dead people'.  Sure enough, there are number of fires going on the bank here, as various bodies are cremated, and I can see a huge pile of logs, and a couple of guys with a hose sluicing ashes into the water.  From later research I gather that these cremations go on here twenty four hours a day, and as well as the ashes being washed into the river, the bodies are ceremonially washed in it beforehand as well...

Looking downstream as my boat heads for home.

An interesting place this then.  Another thing I notice is that the many little shrines here - some of them built in place, others on little trolleys - have music coming from them.  And not tinkly temple music either, or even the Bollywood love songs they play in the bars here, but rather some kind of Indian electronic dance music, loud and bass heavy.  This really ramps up in the evening, when the mobile shrines are pushed around the street, music blaring, led lights flashing and a gang of people milling along.  Is this some sort of funerary rite I wonder?  Makes for a bit of ambience as I walk from my hotel to a bar and back anyway - only one I could find is a good mile from my hotel, towards the station, worth it though, not that I am a terrible alcoholic, but more that the rare bars are the only places I find where you can spend time off the streets in the evening, barring lurking in my hotel.  Cafes don't seem to really exist in this country, if you want a cup of tea apparently you buy it in the street, drink it there, and of course dump the container there too.  And while I'd be happy to eat a restaurant meal and then drink coffee or whatever, any place that doesn't serve beer seems to bring the bill before I've finished eating even, most odd.  Mind you, it often takes long enough to eat the food - they don't seem set up to serve just one person, ordering a curry plus rice generally means a meal big enough for two, still somehow I manage to get it down - and still no serious ill effects!

Speakers blaring out dance music.  And why not.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.