Chaitanya Guest House Varanasi

... how to have sex. Kinda like ye olde porn. How they expected that to work with so many horses i still don't know unless i paid even less attention than i thought in Biology class.

That night was my final night in Varanasi so i headed off down to the Ghats again to watch the Puja. Puja is a thanks giving prayer and dance iwth lots of music, fire and bell ringing. It put a nicer edge onto the harshness and in your face attitude of Varanasi and a cool way ...

... so many friends in India... We do now, all wanting to be our friends for CASH.

Eventualy we happened across a likeable young fellow called Lacki who was well informed and walked up the Ghats with us. He showed us the famous burning Ghats, which we have to say was very interesting and not at all morbid. Unfortuntaly we wern't permitted to photograph, so you will have to try visualise public cremations - 200 per day ...

... bags through narrow little passageways filled with people, gun toting police, dogs, cows, huge bulls, and an occasional Sadhu Holyman.

Upon our arrival at the hotel, we entered our room and slept for three hours. When we awoke, we realized the bag toters had broken my back pack. They had carried it by one shoulder strap only and it broke. We needed to take the broken bag out for repair. Our guide Mulu, took us to a luggage repair shop, where we got the ...

... memorizing. The smoke was everywhere and consuming, filling your nose and eyes. You could feel a palpable weight of the smoke in the air and it irritated the eyes and nose. Stacks of wood sat alongside the river, and they were all waiting in preparation for the pyres. At the end of course they asked for a donation to help those in the hospice who were dying to afford wood... and of course we gave... and as always it was not enough ...

... the Ghats in a matter of moments. From here you can see the true face of Varanasi. Its colours and life, and most certainly why historians still struggle to pin its earliest date of origin. That said, it is widely believed to be one of the oldest cities in the world; and strong traces of this can seen in the form of ancient fort and palace fronts that edge some of the Ghats.
A ghat is basically a long set of steps that in this case leads directly into the ...

... of stars based on both the lunar and solar calendar. The Astrologers in Varanasi are considered extremely authoritative and politicians and businessmen are known to consult them before making any critical decisions. Of course, a traditional Indian marriage can not be arranged until the astrologist matches the horoscope of the bride and groom. Jyotishcharya is based on the Hindu philosophy that one's actions and fortunes are pre-determined by a cosmic design, that design ...

... chatting for awhile with the bizarre couple. We walked around the chowk and checked out the sari shops, had a peek in at the Golden Temple and the Nepalese Karma Sutra temple and bought some Ganga water sealed up in little metal tins. We bargained for a couple of bamboo fans and chatted with children selling flowers on the ghats before aarti.

We ate at a Korean restaurant for a change then ran into pixie Marcelle and some crew from Bhagsu back at the Mona Lisa Cafe ...

... on less than a dollar a day, 200 rupees can mean quite a bit. Not that I believed for an instant that he helped the sick and dying in the area or that any of that money would go towards buying 'expensive wood'.

As I said before, Varanasi is one dirty city. I'm sick again here and have been suffering through some pretty severe diarrhea, but that just seems to be the norm in India. Dirty as it is, though, it's certainly not boring.

... flag . One artifact in the Hindu section of the museum I found absolutely fascinating was a lintel block depicting symbolic representations of the nine planets dating back to the 10 century A.D., long before similar western discoveries became known though another Canadian visitor I met said that any western manuscripts may have very well been destroyed by the Catholic Church as heresy, in another example of the early church's ignorance & ...

... invisible from within her lower back and tossed it in a disgusted manner into the corner of the room where my rucksack stood. He proceeded to grab a couple more lengths of this unseen offensive material, pulling them out of her back as though they were writhing snakes, before leaping off the bed and rushing to the sink to wash his hands. The healing was over. I paid him his rupees and he bid us goodnight, leaving us with a small bottle of Myostaal liniment (manufactured by Om Pharmaceuticals Limited).