Two weeks ago I flew from Kathmandu to Varanasi, one of the oldest cities in India. It is considered a holy city for Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. Hindus ritually bathe in the sacred River Ganges which flows through the town and bring their dead there to be cremated in the ghats along the water's edge.
Upon landing at the brand new airport (which incidentally has no currency exchange booths or international ATM machines... ummm, what?) I took a taxi through the crazy, traffic-congested streets to my hotel in the center of the city. I arrived late in the afternoon and was still tired from my trek and the cold I was fighting so I basically just got some food and hibernated in my room all night with a book.
The next day I slept in late and then ventured down to the river for the first time. I had to walk through the jam-packed market area to get to the main ghat and then headed north along the river toward the main burning ghat. All along the way, there were holy men and regular Hindus in various states of undress bathing in the water. It was a bit chilly and the water appeared rather dirty (the river is apparently among the five most polluted in the world) so I'm not quite sure how they could handle it. I guess to them it's a part of their religion so I have no place to judge. I just know that I couldn't imagine going for a swim in the water, though I did at one point put my hands in to satisfy a request from my friend, Jay. I also then immediately went back to the hotel and washed them.
I continued to walk along the river until I got to one of the burning ghats where I sat on a set of steps to rest for a while until a random Indian man came over and told me (and another foreign couple) that the steps were reserved for the family of the dead. The other couple didn't move, but I decided that whether or not what he said was true, I should air on the side of caution and get up so I didn't show any disrespect. As I walked up into the narrow alleyways that border the river, I was amazed at the constant stream of bodies that were being carried into the cremation area. They were all covered in fancy cloths so you couldn't see anything too revealing, though, you could make out the impression of feet sticking up at the end.
After leaving the riverfront, I found my way almost accidentally to the Brown Bread Bakery, which is an organic cafe that caters to foreigners, but also raises money for a school that the owners run for poor children in Varanasi. I had a late lunch there and then found my way back to the riverfront to walk down toward the south. I stopped at the Lotus Lounge Cafe, a nice little ex-pat oasis overlooking the water, and enjoyed a smoothie as the sun started to set. I then walked back along the river and caught most of the nightly Hindu ceremony that takes place at the main Dasaswamedh Ghat near the road to my hotel. Before going back, I dropped off some tapes to be dubbed onto DVD since I had little success with my first attempt in Kathmandu. There are frequent power cuts in Varanasi at night so I didn't try to venture out again after dark, though I did have to dart around the corner in the pitch black to drop off my video camera at the dubbing place. The streets are so dirty and filled with holy cow poo that I was lucky I didn't step in anything unfortunate (or get hit by a moto zooming down the alleyway.)
The following morning, I got up before dawn to take a sunrise boat trip along the river. It was so foggy that there didn't actually end up being an actual sunrise, but it was still cool to see the riverfront emerge into the daylight. Even at 6:00am, there were people bathing and washing clothes at the water's edge. Trust me when I say that it really was cold there at that time of day. I can't even stand to take a cold shower in that weather, but I guess that most of the locals are just used to it.
After the boat ride, I went on a tour of some of the major Hindu temples in town with one of the guys who ran my hostel. We went first to the new Kashi Vishwanath Temple, which is on the campus of Banaras Hindu University. The campus, along with most of the waterfront, seemed to be one of the few calmer places in the city. From there, we went by moto to the Durga or "Monkey" Temple, which (hence its name) is heavily populated by monkeys of all shapes and stripes. The third stop was the Tulsi Manas Temple, which is dedicated to the Lord Rama and tells the story of his life in engravings all around the walls. At the fourth and final temple, I committed two faux pas--first when I tried to put my shoes off to the side to avoid paying the stupid fee to have someone watch them (if I'm willing to take the risk of someone stealing them, why should I have to pay to put my shoes next to some random old guy?), but the random old guy chastised me and had a little boy move the shoes near him anyways--then second, when I tried to walk up onto an altar that was apparently reserved for Hindus or holy people or some other such thing that wasn't really made very clear to me. Anyways, I have to say that Hinduism is one religion that I really just don't know very much about or quite understand. Because of that lack of knowledge, I'm just not quite sure what to make of all the pomp and ritualism (though I guess that can be said of most religions.)
Before we went back to the hotel after the tour ended, my guide brought me to the factories where they make silk mainly because he wanted to get me to buy some silk from a local merchant. At first we weren't able to find anyone working "because it was too cold," but we finally found three people adding some decorations to cloth on a loom, which we watched for a total of about 30 seconds. We then went into the showroom, where the salesman tried to tempt me with all manner of pashminas and scarves. I politely looked, but steadfastly refused to be swayed into a purchase since I hate being given the hard sell on a tour for which I paid good money. After finally being convinced that I wasn't buying, my guide brought me back to the hotel and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Lotus Lounge, relaxing and taking advantage of the free wifi to work on my computer. That night I learned that the guy at the dubbing studio wasn't able to transfer the tapes because they use PAL in India instead of NTSC. There was a lot of back and forth with him over the course of two days and I know that he tried his very best to figure out a solution, but it left me back at square one with no way to digitize my footage. It was yet another setback in my efforts to finally finish editing my co-teacher Barley's music video.
On my final day in Varanasi, I had booked a two-hour group yoga class at a studio near the Brown Bread Bakery. There were about five other women in the class all of whom were also tourists. I was still battling my cold so I had brought a whole roll of tissues and frequently had to stop to blow my nose. The first hour and 40 minutes of the class went relatively well until we started to do back bends. For some reason, whenever I am upside down for an extended period of time in a yoga pose, I start to feel dizzy and nauseous. This time was no exception and when I started to not feel well I decided to take a break and lie down for a while. The hardcore Hindi yoga instructor (who had claimed at the beginning of class that it was okay if we had to modify any pose so as not to overextend ourselves) immediately started barking at me and giving me alternate poses from everyone else. After a few minutes, I wanted to try to rejoin the rest of the group, but he kept telling me to do something different. Since I wasn't feeling well and had been dealing with a bit of loneliness over the prior few days with the holidays approaching, I started to quietly cry.
Apparently Indians don't show their emotions and don't know what to do with those who do so of course the instructor's response was, "you don't need to cry," even though he had no idea about what I was actually crying over (I can tell you that it wasn't my inability to do yoga.) For some reason I couldn't stop the tears and at the end of the class my other classmates kindly showed their concern and asked if I was okay. I kind of broke down and told them that I was really homesick after five month's of travel. They tried to comfort me as we walked down toward the street and then as we were getting ready to part ways, I suddenly had another wave of nausea and had to sit down on the stoop. One of the women offered to walk me back to the hotel, but after a few minutes I felt better and was able to walk by myself, though it was nice they were so understanding.
In the afternoon I just rested at the hotel until I had to get ready to catch my night train to Agra. However, there was one catch with catching my train, which is that I didn't actually have a seat on said train. Trains in India routinely book up days ahead of time so by the time I bought my ticket I was number twelve on the waiting list. However, I had been told by multiple people (including the owner of my hotel) that if you just show up at the train station and give the ticket collector some money (Bakshish), they will find you an empty seat. I decided to take a risk because I had no other way to get to Agra at that point.
When I got to the station I met a couple from New Zealand who had waitlisted ticket for a second class car and confirmed tickets for a sleeper (lowest class) car and were also going to try to talk their way into the second class car. When the train arrived, the only conductor I could find was all the way on the front car and he didn't speak English. He looked at my ticket and gestured toward the other end of the train so I jumped onto the first second class car I could find where I was reunited with the couple from New Zealand. As the train rolled away, I made the split second decision to stay on board and just take my chances. It so happened that all of the ticket collectors were gathered in our car and as I saw them going through the train roster I realized it was too late for a bribe and I was instead going to have to play totally dumb. When they asked for my ticket, I gave them the waitlisted version and pretended I had no idea I didn't have an actual booked seat. Since none of the conductors spoke English they had to bring over an Indian tour leader to explain everything to me. He told me that there was no one in my seat until we arrived in Lucknow, but once we got there someone was going to come on board so they had nowhere to put me. There was some insinuation I might have to get off the train in Lucknow, which unfortunately would be happening at about 12:00 midnight. The tour guide tried to assure me that the conductors were doing everything they could to figure out a possible solution, but I still turned on the waterworks a bit to try to prove to them I wasn't totally bluffing. The Kiwi couple, meanwhile, also seemed to be taking the "playing dumb" angle with regards to their waitlisted tickets, but eventually they were ousted to the sleeper car. I kind of felt bad because I was able to stay where I was, but they at least knew they had confirmed seats all the way to Agra.
As we started to approach Lucknow at close to 2:00am (the train was running late), one of the conductors came over and said it was the next stop and I was going to have to leave my seat. Again, it was insinuated that I might have to get off the train, but when it stopped no one told me to leave so I just stayed where I was while everyone else got on board. No one immediately claimed my bunk, but a group of girls who were clearly on their way to a wedding asked me to switch seats with one of them so they could all be together. I was happy to oblige, but I tried to explain the seat wasn't actually mine. They said that was fine, but then the attendant in our car came over and told them in Hindi why it wasn't possible. After another few minutes, the Indian tour guide and one of the conductors came over to tell me I had lucked out because a passenger in Lucknow had neglected to show up. I had to move to a third class car, but I had a seat for the rest of the trip to Agra. I paid for the Lucknow to Agra portion and the tour guide told me the give the conductor a bit extra for the first half of the trip. I ended up paying just a tiny bit more than the face value of the ticket.
At 10:30am--four and a half hours after our scheduled arrival time--the train rolled into Agra and my stowaway Indian train adventure came to end. However, I learned my lesson and don't think I will ever try to pull a fast one like that again.
Upon landing at the brand new airport (which incidentally has no currency exchange booths or international ATM machines... ummm, what?) I took a taxi through the crazy, traffic-congested streets to my hotel in the center of the city. I arrived late in the afternoon and was still tired from my trek and the cold I was fighting so I basically just got some food and hibernated in my room all night with a book.The next day I slept in late and then ventured down to the river for the first time. I had to walk through the jam-packed market area to get to the main ghat and then headed north along the river toward the main burning ghat. All along the way, there were holy men and regular Hindus in various states of undress bathing in the water. It was a bit chilly and the water appeared rather dirty (the river is apparently among the five most polluted in the world) so I'm not quite sure how they could handle it. I guess to them it's a part of their religion so I have no place to judge. I just know that I couldn't imagine going for a swim in the water, though I did at one point put my hands in to satisfy a request from my friend, Jay. I also then immediately went back to the hotel and washed them.
After leaving the riverfront, I found my way almost accidentally to the Brown Bread Bakery, which is an organic cafe that caters to foreigners, but also raises money for a school that the owners run for poor children in Varanasi. I had a late lunch there and then found my way back to the riverfront to walk down toward the south. I stopped at the Lotus Lounge Cafe, a nice little ex-pat oasis overlooking the water, and enjoyed a smoothie as the sun started to set. I then walked back along the river and caught most of the nightly Hindu ceremony that takes place at the main Dasaswamedh Ghat near the road to my hotel. Before going back, I dropped off some tapes to be dubbed onto DVD since I had little success with my first attempt in Kathmandu. There are frequent power cuts in Varanasi at night so I didn't try to venture out again after dark, though I did have to dart around the corner in the pitch black to drop off my video camera at the dubbing place. The streets are so dirty and filled with holy cow poo that I was lucky I didn't step in anything unfortunate (or get hit by a moto zooming down the alleyway.)
The following morning, I got up before dawn to take a sunrise boat trip along the river. It was so foggy that there didn't actually end up being an actual sunrise, but it was still cool to see the riverfront emerge into the daylight. Even at 6:00am, there were people bathing and washing clothes at the water's edge. Trust me when I say that it really was cold there at that time of day. I can't even stand to take a cold shower in that weather, but I guess that most of the locals are just used to it.
After the boat ride, I went on a tour of some of the major Hindu temples in town with one of the guys who ran my hostel. We went first to the new Kashi Vishwanath Temple, which is on the campus of Banaras Hindu University. The campus, along with most of the waterfront, seemed to be one of the few calmer places in the city. From there, we went by moto to the Durga or "Monkey" Temple, which (hence its name) is heavily populated by monkeys of all shapes and stripes. The third stop was the Tulsi Manas Temple, which is dedicated to the Lord Rama and tells the story of his life in engravings all around the walls. At the fourth and final temple, I committed two faux pas--first when I tried to put my shoes off to the side to avoid paying the stupid fee to have someone watch them (if I'm willing to take the risk of someone stealing them, why should I have to pay to put my shoes next to some random old guy?), but the random old guy chastised me and had a little boy move the shoes near him anyways--then second, when I tried to walk up onto an altar that was apparently reserved for Hindus or holy people or some other such thing that wasn't really made very clear to me. Anyways, I have to say that Hinduism is one religion that I really just don't know very much about or quite understand. Because of that lack of knowledge, I'm just not quite sure what to make of all the pomp and ritualism (though I guess that can be said of most religions.)
On my final day in Varanasi, I had booked a two-hour group yoga class at a studio near the Brown Bread Bakery. There were about five other women in the class all of whom were also tourists. I was still battling my cold so I had brought a whole roll of tissues and frequently had to stop to blow my nose. The first hour and 40 minutes of the class went relatively well until we started to do back bends. For some reason, whenever I am upside down for an extended period of time in a yoga pose, I start to feel dizzy and nauseous. This time was no exception and when I started to not feel well I decided to take a break and lie down for a while. The hardcore Hindi yoga instructor (who had claimed at the beginning of class that it was okay if we had to modify any pose so as not to overextend ourselves) immediately started barking at me and giving me alternate poses from everyone else. After a few minutes, I wanted to try to rejoin the rest of the group, but he kept telling me to do something different. Since I wasn't feeling well and had been dealing with a bit of loneliness over the prior few days with the holidays approaching, I started to quietly cry.
Apparently Indians don't show their emotions and don't know what to do with those who do so of course the instructor's response was, "you don't need to cry," even though he had no idea about what I was actually crying over (I can tell you that it wasn't my inability to do yoga.) For some reason I couldn't stop the tears and at the end of the class my other classmates kindly showed their concern and asked if I was okay. I kind of broke down and told them that I was really homesick after five month's of travel. They tried to comfort me as we walked down toward the street and then as we were getting ready to part ways, I suddenly had another wave of nausea and had to sit down on the stoop. One of the women offered to walk me back to the hotel, but after a few minutes I felt better and was able to walk by myself, though it was nice they were so understanding.
In the afternoon I just rested at the hotel until I had to get ready to catch my night train to Agra. However, there was one catch with catching my train, which is that I didn't actually have a seat on said train. Trains in India routinely book up days ahead of time so by the time I bought my ticket I was number twelve on the waiting list. However, I had been told by multiple people (including the owner of my hotel) that if you just show up at the train station and give the ticket collector some money (Bakshish), they will find you an empty seat. I decided to take a risk because I had no other way to get to Agra at that point.
When I got to the station I met a couple from New Zealand who had waitlisted ticket for a second class car and confirmed tickets for a sleeper (lowest class) car and were also going to try to talk their way into the second class car. When the train arrived, the only conductor I could find was all the way on the front car and he didn't speak English. He looked at my ticket and gestured toward the other end of the train so I jumped onto the first second class car I could find where I was reunited with the couple from New Zealand. As the train rolled away, I made the split second decision to stay on board and just take my chances. It so happened that all of the ticket collectors were gathered in our car and as I saw them going through the train roster I realized it was too late for a bribe and I was instead going to have to play totally dumb. When they asked for my ticket, I gave them the waitlisted version and pretended I had no idea I didn't have an actual booked seat. Since none of the conductors spoke English they had to bring over an Indian tour leader to explain everything to me. He told me that there was no one in my seat until we arrived in Lucknow, but once we got there someone was going to come on board so they had nowhere to put me. There was some insinuation I might have to get off the train in Lucknow, which unfortunately would be happening at about 12:00 midnight. The tour guide tried to assure me that the conductors were doing everything they could to figure out a possible solution, but I still turned on the waterworks a bit to try to prove to them I wasn't totally bluffing. The Kiwi couple, meanwhile, also seemed to be taking the "playing dumb" angle with regards to their waitlisted tickets, but eventually they were ousted to the sleeper car. I kind of felt bad because I was able to stay where I was, but they at least knew they had confirmed seats all the way to Agra.As we started to approach Lucknow at close to 2:00am (the train was running late), one of the conductors came over and said it was the next stop and I was going to have to leave my seat. Again, it was insinuated that I might have to get off the train, but when it stopped no one told me to leave so I just stayed where I was while everyone else got on board. No one immediately claimed my bunk, but a group of girls who were clearly on their way to a wedding asked me to switch seats with one of them so they could all be together. I was happy to oblige, but I tried to explain the seat wasn't actually mine. They said that was fine, but then the attendant in our car came over and told them in Hindi why it wasn't possible. After another few minutes, the Indian tour guide and one of the conductors came over to tell me I had lucked out because a passenger in Lucknow had neglected to show up. I had to move to a third class car, but I had a seat for the rest of the trip to Agra. I paid for the Lucknow to Agra portion and the tour guide told me the give the conductor a bit extra for the first half of the trip. I ended up paying just a tiny bit more than the face value of the ticket.
At 10:30am--four and a half hours after our scheduled arrival time--the train rolled into Agra and my stowaway Indian train adventure came to end. However, I learned my lesson and don't think I will ever try to pull a fast one like that again.
Thanks for the post. You really have had some adventures!
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