Sita Guest House Varanasi

... top terrace. It as raining, and all the tables that were not under the awning were very wet. The floors out there were wet as well. The hotel help was using s squeegee to "sweep" the water and mud and cow **** off the floor and over the wall to the ground below. I was talking to a nice guy named Steve from Sacramento. As we talked the help had finished sweeping the water, mud and cow **** we had all tracked up to the floor from the ghats ...

... were built. In saying that, we never felt threatened and found the whole Ganges experience and religious Sadhus (the men that devout there life to the gods) very uplifting and inspiring.

As the time came to leave we had another travel agent moment. He had obviously had to put us on waiting lists and gambled that tickets in Aircon class for our train to Haridwar would free up. They didn't. I made a trip to the station to see if we could do anything ...

Hello All,
After a long journey by car...where we had to pay a 'fine' in order to continue on our way, we arrived in Delhi, had a short rest, then boarded and overnight train to Varanasi. It was a delightful ride as we had are own little cabin. The only kind of surprising thing about the ride was the toilet that emptied directly onto the train ...

... They won't prepare or eat food during this time so many fast and the merits from the fasting are said to be magnified. A dip in the Ganges is considered even more beneficial during eclipse times when the rays from the sun are said to make the water even holier. We headed down to the ghats for a chai and to watch the Hindu fever grow to extreme heights and grow it did. The city of Lord Shiva was in full flight with an estimated 60000-70000 people gathering at the ...

... motorbikes, cows, cycle rickshaws and orange clad lads carrying staffs all streaming towards the river, it was more like a parade and we waved at everyone as they passed us by, you couldn't help but get swept up in the schemozzle (disorder resulting from a failure to behave predictably) of the scene. We cruised by the fruit and vegetable market where the produce was of high quality and we scored ourselves a couple of juicy, ready to devour mangoes, tis the mango season to ...

... could be agreed - apparently they can demand up to a million rupees and this process could take hours (Speaking to people at a later date it turns out the whole thing was eventually sorted out at 11pm about 14 hrs after the initial accident!!) Eventually we heard word that the husband who was in india had been informed of the tradegy and was on his way back in order to see the body and complete the compensation settlement and this would take a few hours! Realizing we weren't going to ...

... all laughed about that one. I tried to keep a count of the close calls and near misses, but I lost count at 1,128. Finally we made it safely to the Radisson and checked in, arranging to meet the 2 guides in the evening. At dusk (around 6:30) we were picked up and taken to the Ganges for the evening ceremony. We drove thru more crazy traffic to get close to the river and then walked the rest of the way to the Ghats-which are the steps on the river's edge. Walking ...

... to walk around it, with no semblance of streets or roads; simply the spaces between the buildings. These spaces were filled with people; lots of locals lived in this area, and kids ran along the alleys or played cricket in wider "courtyards". The cobblestones were covered in "muddy" water which consisted mainly of faeces, both human and animal. Buckets of water were thrown day and night, washing the muck down towards the river. The smell was horrendous ...