Everything I expected, and more, and less...
Trip Start
Nov 21, 2007
1
7
18
Trip End
Dec 30, 2007
Varanasi,
India
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Cool!
So, Varanasi! This place is amazing. There is so much going on, basically. All of it. The Ganges is fascinating... Well, the water is probably a fascinating biological study, but all the life (and death) right around it is what's really mind-blowing. Name it, it's happening down there. People are simply bathing, or meditating, or lighting candles off and sending them as prayers, or washing their clothes, or their buffalo, or their dishes (hopefully not where I've been eating, but...) Playing cricket, flying little paper kites, sleeping, eating, even monkeys gettin' it on on top of the buildings. There are people selling offerings and boat rides and themselves as tour guides- everything and anything for a fee!- and little kids who stare and jump and come around just because you are an oddity, and if you catch them in a photo pretty soon you will have fifty kids coming to get their photo taken and see it on the LED.
I was very happy to get off the train, but a little apprehensive (everywhere new is always a little daunting, even if I am really excited to see this place!) I had made a reservation at the first place and had a driver there to pick me up, but it felt kind of weird from the get-go and when I got there..
Before sunrise on the Ganges
Yuk. I didn't like the place, and the guy at the counter totally felt like a scam artist, or something, there was just a used-car sales guy feel to the place. So I split, and headed towards the river to the place where I've landed- Hotel Akra, it's great. The deck overlooks the Ganges and some of the activity... It isn't too smoky from the main burning ghat at night (although ash does swirl around occasionally..) and the room is plain, clean, warm enough, and there is the potential of hot water- though I still haven't figured out how to make it actually work. When I'm about to take a shower, I just don't feel like going through the work it would take to get someone in to show me. It would be a process, and when you want a shower, you just want a shower, and when you don't, you just want to go check out some gnarly shit, not spend an afternoon with some tea and head nodding and waiting for whatever planet has to pass Venus before we can just figure it out. Which is FINE~! Love it. Just don't care enough about a hot shower, that's all.
Anyway... Yes! Here in Varanasi. Wild.
So, I got here yesterday, and after getting back from the late (duh) train and escaping the original plan, and then hiking around sweating with my big pack through the crazy, twisting, narrow alleys that compose the old town bit of the city here (next to the river and the majority of the ghats), I found the hotel.. Awesome. Checked in, took a cold shower, got my deal together, and then headed down to the Ganges to walk along and just check it out.
Ghats at sunset
It's so awesome. What wasn't awesome was just getting attacked on all fronts by people (boat, madam? boat? Boat? Where are you staying... I can be your guide... I sell silk, come to my shop... on and on and on..) I realized that my patience for touts was going to be minimal. I'm better at dealing with it in the morning and then gradually wear down by the end of the day- now that it's happening again, I sort of remember this from Cambodia. Anyway, I spent probably 45 minutes or so walking around and then couldn't take it any more, headed back to the solace of the terrace at the hotel, ate, wrote, read, talked to (uh, listened to) some Canadian couple who have done and seen everything and know everything and know it more thoroughly and better and with more detail and expertise than anyone else... Aarrghh... Then I went to sleep and pretty much fell asleep when my head hit the pillow.This morning, I got up early, as I didn't really know how long I'd be and figured I'd get the obligatory boat ride out of the way.. But I took too long getting out of my room (what's the DEAL? ...Pattern to break Actually, I sort of do the same thing at home..) and so missed sunrise. So, I was still out super early (around 7) and checked out the very tame scene by the river (compared to the afternoon) for a bit, and then came up for tea and breakfast, and happened upon this laughing, funny woman that the whole staff seemed to know. We started talking, and she's a 54 year old Venezuelan - slash - Parisian expat who has fallen in love with an Indian man this last month and so has decided to stay here.
Mountain Goats
She's hilarious. We had breakfast together and she mentioned something about her (ended) 25 year marriage to a musician in France being "like a burning Ghat." I choked. Ah, a woman that can make cremation jokes. We're in!So we had a great morning together- we went running errands, basically, which becomes an adventure in a place such as Varanasi, and also we went to see the Hanuman temple, where she hadn't been yet. She's been here a month and a half, and her new beau, luckily for me, is out of town until Monday, so she showed me around. It was a hoot. We went to the bank where I got royal treatment- I had a 500 rupee note that someone had given me as change that was ripped, should have known better, and I had to get to a bank to exchange it... So she had to go anyway, perfect. I went in there and this armed guard (I mean a gun that ran from his knee to six inches above his head, the barrel was cold steel and at least an inch and a half in diameter, and he wasn't short, either) escorted me in and to the front of the line of gaping Indian men and my 500 rupee note was taken from me and a snapping new one put in it's place in sixty seconds. Royalty, I was, for just a moment. Marcela (new Venezuelan friend) said that Shiva must be watching out for me! I'll take it!
Anyway- yes, running around... Temple.. Got my ticket to Amritsar (plane) and then back to Delhi (train)- this is going to be a bit of backtracking but I am really stoked to see Kunar again. I'll book away south from Delhi when I get there- hopefully I won't need to wait longer than two days or so to get a good fare.
More later- Marcela and I are headed for the German Bakery for some dinner and chat! Oh-- I'll write tomorrow about us joking about bathing in (and drinking from) the Ganges.. Too much. You have to pay a lot to be cremated here, apparently, and the cost of wood can keep you from being completely incinerated, and that's an issue, spiritually.. Anyway, there are plenty of good jokes there and we explored many of them.
Off to the bakery! You guys have a great day out there!
