Varanasi

I didn’t think I could write too much about Varanasi. I was petrified when we got off that train. It was midnight, there were bodies laid flat all over railway station platform and we were inundated with pleas and requests from rickshaw drivers. They’re very in your face and they thought we were foreigners until I ruined it for them with my awesome Hindi. But I was very overwhelmed and frightened. I spent all night looking through Varanasi photoblogs with our overpriced hotel’s wifi trying to make sense of the place. But the next morning, everything changed and I did. And Varanasi ended up being one of my favourite places.

Tiny alleyways through which no vehicles could fit led us at sunrise to the ghats, to the most stunning, surreal and unexpected view. We spent the morning walking the ghats, watching the babas pray and smoke chillums, people wash themselves and their clothes in the Holy Ganges completely unfazed by the tourist filled boats that sailed past. On the main ghat Dasashwamedh, we bought bracelets with the pictures of Gods, brass agarbati stands and lamps, and the best T-shirt ever which reads – No rickshaw. No hashish. No silk. No change money. No boat. No problem! which are all the things we got asked if we wanted. Countless times over. People kept taking our hands in theirs and demanding money for services like blessing us. Oh, we’ll pass thanks.

The whole place and experience was moving and enticing and raucous, dirty and imperfect and spiritual, and commercial and chaotic and colourful all at once. I spotted a super cool baba I imagined was once an art director fed up with city life and asked to take his picture and he grinned. The Ganga Aarti every evening is very special. It’s beautiful and hard to describe, feverish and fragrant with smoke.We prayed and released our little flower lamps into the Ganga which is something I’d always wanted to do.

I loved the magical light filtering through the claustrophobic alleys.It was nothing short of unsettling though. You can never know when you’ll cross paths with a moody cow or a (covered) corpse will suddenly appear behind you, mourners chanting ‘Bhagwan satya hai’ as they carry it down to the river to the two burning ghats.

We found the German Bakery there to be our favourite spot of solace, where we met lovely travellers and ate delicious organic food while listening to some live classical santoor and tabla.We moved to a guesthouse on the ghats so we could be closer to everything and at night it was especially eerie but wonderful, the sunrise even more so. We took a boatride at dawn to see everything from a different perspective which I recommend everybody does. We spent almost two hours on the water, witnessing some incredible things – from swimming schools to burning corpses. With a little more exploration, and a lot more cycle rickshaw rides (I loved!) to buy stunning silk scarves, and a lazy lunch at El Parador, an absolute gem of a restaurant with delightful service and delicious food; we bade goodbye to Benaras.

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