Arrival in Varanasi

Varanasi is a place I had been intending to include in our Indian itinerary from inception, but every person without exception we spoke to about it while travelling said the place is incredible, not to be missed. So we were really looking forward to going to a place in India that was so universally recommended. People were, however, quite selective in their choice of adjectives when describing the place; nobody said it was “lovely”, “nice”, or “pretty”, for example. Some people had even said that it certainly isn't a place you would describe as nice, but that it is amazing.

We were so exhausted from the little luxury of the freezing cold A/C carriage we had “treated” ourselves to that we just let the auto-rickshaw driver take us to his hotel suggestions, presumably ensuring that we paid about a quarter more to cover his baksheesh for taking us. By the second hotel we were desperate for bed and I thought the place seemed quite nice anyway, but the main reason I decided we should stay there was that the hotelier seemed very friendly and was certainly quite a character by Indian standards: he had his quiff, popular with Bollywood heroes and therefore many Indian men, bleached to quite a light orangey colour. I assumed it was something to do with promoting the place, which is called Elvis Guesthouse. It was being run by four brothers, but they each seemed to adopt a group of guests as their own; our brother was called Haroon. From the beginning he was keen to tell us all about India and Varanasi, take us to tourist sites, and generally baby-sit us. We insisted that we needed some rest first and went up to bed.

Elvis Guest House

Varanasi was very hot. The day we arrived it was 44C, but it rose to 46C over the next couple of days. I'm sure this is the highest temperature I've been in. It didn't seem to be at all humid, though, so I didn't feel all that uncomfortable. In fact I think the humidity was a bit too low for comfort: after about five minutes without drinking any water I could feel my eyes drying out and my mouth parching. Cold water is almost impossible to come by because, even if you buy it nicely chilled from a fridge, it only takes about ten minutes before the whole litre is warm. At that temperature everything is warm to the touch which is really quite unusual: the mattress on the bed feels as if it has an electric blanket on it; the wooden cupboard in the room is hot; my phone was hot; the cold water from the shower or tap comes out hot and doesn't run cool; clothes from my rucksack felt like they were fresh out of the tumble-drier; and strangest of all the marble floor, which normally keeps you cool in hot weather, was hot underfoot and quietly glowed with heat all night, ensuring the bedroom stayed warmer than the outside temperature. I'm not sure why it seems so strange; it seems you get used to the air temperature but when you touch a solid object and it's hot it just seems wrong. I assume it happens when the air temperature is above 37C, body temperature.

Since re-entering India I had been thinking about what it is I like about the place. We had been finding it so frustrating that it was easy to come up with things not to like about the place, but I didn't feel I was giving it a fair chance, after all I had not found it so difficult last time. The first thing that hit me after we re-entered is that the country inspires a sense of awe: the fact that there are so many people virtually anywhere in India (Al had said he find there are always twice as many people as there should be, no matter what you are doing in India), that the country is so massive, and yet it still works quite well. It really is an incredible place but, like Varanasi specifically, I hesitate to use words like “nice”; more fitting are “fascinating”, “awesome”, “amazing”, and “incredible”. Unlike peoples descriptions of Varanasi, however, I would not hesitate to describe (bits of) India as “beautiful” or “pretty”; in fact another aspect I love about India is the art: the stone work on the temples, the patterns on the textiles, the women's jewellery, and the henna on skin all tends to be incredibly intricate, which I like. I love the fact that everything is covered in pretty designs or perfumed with oils and incense, whether it's wooden boxes, beads, or statues of Hindu gods. It reminds me of Eurasia Craft on Great Western Road in Glasgow – and of being about sixteen. Culturally the country is fascinating as well: like the art, the rest of culture seems to be very intricate as well. The caste system may be awful, but it is fascinating and complicated. Then Hinduism alone must be by far the most intricate religion with thousands of different gods, each with several incarnations, each with several manifestations. When you add all the other religions into the mix it makes for a very interesting place, which brings up another wonderful thing about the country: tolerance. India must surely be the model for a multi-cultural state, with all these different religions and castes living side-by-side yet unified under the idea of the Indian state. Although it happens, ethnic or religious violence is rare, and people do not seem to discriminate when choosing their friends; I think that most Hindus have Sikhs or Muslims as friends.

Back in Varanasi, Haroon had told us that people just stay indoors and maybe sleep between 11 and 3 every day in hot weather. Unfortunately our across-the-hall neighbour had clearly not heard about this. While we were trying to catch up on our over-night transport lack of sleep, he was practising scales on a musical instrument. I think it was an oboe and I would guess that he bought it in India. Quite a lot of people seem to use their trip to India to explore their spiritual side, which almost invariably appears to mean making lots of noise, either on a musical instrument or simply by singing. I suppose they think that the Indians are all making lots of noise so it's OK for them to do so too. After failing to sleep for a while Joanne knocked on his door and asked him to stop playing his “flute” because we'd just come off the overnight train. To his credit he stopped for a bit, but we were already over-tired and now it was far too hot to sleep. Eventually we gave up and went downstairs to consent to Haroon's tour.

Shiva temple at the university in Varanasi

Haroon had offered us a free tour, but he was only talking about his time and we still had to pay for the auto-rickshaw. The tour wasn't actually all that great. He took us to the Shiva temple at the university, which is a huge campus on which over 40,000 students are taught. He said it was a very prestigious institution, often known as the Cambridge of the East. The temple wasn't very interesting though. Next he took us to the “monkey temple” to the man-monkey god Hanuman. Like all Hanuman temples there are hundreds of monkeys all over the grounds. I asked Haroon if they build the temples where the monkeys are or they bring the monkeys to the temple. He said that he thought the monkeys just come to where the temples are. He may be right, although I think it's less likely because of some sort of spiritual affinity, and more likely because Indians tolerate and feed the monkeys at Hanuman temples, whereas they normally throw rocks at them or hit them with sticks. No wonder they are “drawn” to these mystical places. Finally we were taken to the Mother India Temple, sponsored by Ghandi, apparently. Quite a bizarre temple, but again I didn't find it very interesting. I like my temples to me pretty and intricate, but all of these seemed quite dour. In this case, all the temple contained was a 3D relief map on India on the floor. While we were inside, Haroon had got speaking to a couple who were looking for a particular restaurant and he had offered to give them a lift. But, as always seems to be the case for a tour in India, it was time for the visit to the shops. The couple didn't seem to mind as we were shown to a silk weaving factory, but none of us bought anything and they were duly dropped off at their restaurant.

Licensed boats waiting for customers on the Ganga

Later Haroon suggested that we take a cruise on the Ganga. We were certainly intending to do this as most people we had taken advice from had said this was a highlight, but we hadn't decided whether to go at sunset or sunrise, reportedly the most beautiful times. In the end we decided to go once for each, so followed Haroon down to the river where the boats were waiting. He explained that this was one of only two government authorised places to take a cruise; elsewhere were unlicensed boats which sometimes run into trouble with the police. The light was already failing, but we could still see that the riverside is quite an impressive sight. Through the town the river is lined with ghats, which are large stone steps leading down into the river. Most are bathing ghats to give access for swimming in the river, which some people were doing, washing clothes, washing buffalos, and so on, but a few are burning ghats with platforms for cremation and religious ceremonies. The stairways ascend for quite a height so that they provide access to the river whether it is flooded during monsoon or in spate. At the top of most of the steps are large stone buildings, the bottom of which must be under water during monsoon.

Puja on the ghat

Our boatman

Just as we were pushing away from the bank a child selling floating candles boarded and we bought one each. More, he insisted – one for you and one for your father... and one for your brother and your mother, but we in turn insisted that we were only buying one, and were taken back to the bank so he could get off. We floated them in the water then were rowed slowly down the river to the main ghat, where there was a puja in progress; the ceremony is performed every evening, and another one every morning. Our boatman slid us up to the jam of boats parked in front of the ghat and tied on to our neighbour, so that we could sit and watch for a bit. Boys zipped about from boat to boat selling chai and others sold floating candles. A few candles were floating around the hulls of the boats and I wondered about the safety of floating fire next to wooden boats. People all around us were splashing the river water over themselves and, in the next boat, one of the chai wallahs leant over the side of the boat and drank several scooped handfuls of water thirstily. By contrast, Joanne was flinching every time a splash of water went near her legs; I wasn't quite so paranoid, but I certainly didn't want any on my lips or in my eyes or ears. Along this stretch of river all the sewage from the city is pumped directly into the river, most of it untreated; the water is horribly murky and there is lots of rubbish floating on it; and not just ashes, but entire dead bodies are dumped in the river.

Boat park in front of the puja

The purpose of the cremation is to purify the body before committing it to the Ganga, from where the dead will be taken to heaven; however there are five cases where cremation is not necessary and the body can be put straight into the river. The first case is children under eight, who are considered too pure to have accumulated any bad karma; try telling that to the tabloid press in Britain! The second case is pregnant women, whose pure unborn child makes them pure too. Third are lepers, who are believed to have already suffered all of their bad karma during their lives, so have no need of the purifying flames. The fourth case is those who have died from snake bites; I think a similar bad karma argument applies as to lepers, but the logic of it escapes me: what about people who have lived through cancer, or a disability, or any manner of horrible ways to die? The final case is monks, who are already at the top of the reincarnation ladder and poised to achieve moksha, release from the endless cycle of death and rebirth, the state of perfect nothingness; a state that a friend once remarked to me is sought after and achieved by Hindus only after living through countless increasingly pure lives, but which atheists reach the first time they die.

The puja was vaguely entertaining and the atmosphere among the boats was fairly reverend, but I failed to see or feel what it was that people we had spoken to had found so profound and moving about Varanasi. As we were untied and rowed back towards the ghat we boarded from Joanne lifted her camera to take a photo of the pyres on the burning ghat, not realising what they were, but the boatman shouted “no photo”. I'm not sure why this specifically is disallowed; is this supposed to be the moment that the soul leaves the body or something? It can't be when the body dies, otherwise there would be no point going through all these purifying rituals, as it would be too late and the soul would already have been reincarnated in some womb down the purity ladder. And what is the point in having all these complicated rules about dharma and karma if your family can just burn away all of your bad karma anyway? Religion really is odd. Varanasi is considered such a holy place that anyone dying there achieves moksha, skipping countless less than pure lives, and moving directly to Go, as far as I can understand it regardless of how they have lived that life. That would make it a fairly popular retirement destination you would think but there didn't seem to be any sign of large piles of Peoples Friend for sale in the newsagents.

Puja

I remembered that everyone who had recommended the place had seen a dead body floating in the water. At the time I had not found the thought very appealing at all, not being much of a fan of ghoulish or horrific experiences, but I now realised that I had unconsciously been hoping to see something similar so I too could be shocked into feeling like it was a profound experience. However we saw nothing gory and we returned to our hotel feeling a little disappointed. The puja was OK, but nothing special, and another expectation I'd had about Varanasi was that it would be absolutely teaming with people so that it would be almost impossible to push through the crowds on the ghats; in fact it seemed to be the emptiest Indian town we had been in.

When we got back to shore, the guy who Haroon arranged the cruise with told us it had been over two hours so asked for double what we had agreed. I checked the time stamp on the photos I took from the shore just before getting in the boat and it was only about 65 minutes ago. I told him that he was talking rubbish and besides we only asked for one hour, so if it had lasted for longer it was his problem, not ours. The cheating never stops in India! He didn't seem upset, just realised he'd been caught out, and accepted the Rs300 each which is apparently the government set rate. Thankfully, he sent someone to take us back to our guesthouse, which Haroon had arranged as well. There had been one of the very frequent Varanasi power-cuts in our section of the city and we had no idea how to get back. We went to bed, looking forward to catching up on sleep, and hoped that the morning cruise would be more interesting. We went to bed early, but we were going to have to get up very early for the sunrise cruise. In fact it was still so hot – about 39C at night – that we struggled to get any sleep at all, so when we got up at 4:30am we only had to look in the mirror to see a dead body.

written by

The Happy Couple on June 16, 2009 from Varanasi, India

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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Very witty - as well as informative. I see your feminine side is coming out....or are you just balancing all th moaning about India so far?

written by Rosalyn on July 8, 2009

It's simply that I said I would try to put my finger on what was compelling about the country when we returned: see end of this post http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?CommentID=70926

If it was my female side coming out, I'd likely be less positive after all the groping and gawping it would get!

written by

The Happy Couple on July 8, 2009

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