Bottom Rung...
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2008
1
78
122
Trip End
Jan 01, 2009
Varanasi,
India
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Most Indian people travel in Sleeper Class, which is always packed, busy, and ironically hard to sleep in. Having a bunk to sleep in is nice, but with so many stops, zero privacy, so few manners, station smells, and cool nights we've been lucky to clock much more than 4-5 hours of zzzs on the several sleeper class trains we've taken. Our first class compartment had music, in room service, 2 bunks, a door, curtains, electrical plugs, AC, a closet, bedside tables, sheets and even a painting on the wall. At 8 times the price it is the least we would expect. We plugged in our trusty Acer and watched a movie we had downloaded at the Crowne Plaza
Main Street
. Arik is embarrassed to admit it, but he actually liked the movie Sex in the City. He wants to point out it wasn't the fashion or mushy stuff, he liked seeing more of what living in New York might be like... That night we had the best overnight bus or train sleep of our entire trip. We woke up rested and excited about the holy Hindu city of Varanasi; where the Varanu and Asi rivers combine and Hindus bathe, celebrate, and are cremated in hopes of a release from their cycle of rebirth.
We booked our ticket north at the train's tourist office (we only found two of these offices in India but it makes buying tickets exponentially easier) and found a rickshaw for a hotel picked out of the Lonely Planet. Scindhia Ghat was where we were headed, to Scindhia Guest House. Schyndya Guest House is where we ended up, by the time we realized it the rickshaw driver was already gone with our $1.50 fare. When we looked at the sign and realized their switcharoo we showed them the paper with the name written on it and said this is the wrong hotel. One of the guys who was in our rickshaw and obviously involved at the scam just shrugged and walked the other way. It's quite funny in India how quickly people will abort their mission when a scam is smelled. In South America or Morocco scammers held strong the entire time, always insisting their innocence. In India they realize you've caught on and just walk away, no words said
Ghats
. Then we were dropped off at the wrong Ghat (Pier) by a cycle rickshaw driver who claimed to have no change. We made him wait while we bought a post card for change, as we had to with every cycle-rickshaw driver and some auto-rickshaws while in Varanasi. While getting the post card for change the salesmen tried to short us 50 rupees! We walked past bathers, boat touts, cows, cricket games, and cremating bodies before reaching the real Scindhia Guest House. Inside the hotel, the manager was as friendly as a rabid street dog which after our experiences this morning sent Arik off a bit. Finally after putting down a $10 deposit he reserved us a room. A bit peeved himself he threw in terms while showing us the room like we were not allowed to sit on the couches, as they are just for display, if a monkey gets in our room he will charge us to build a new room, and if a monkey steals a patio chair he would charge us 5000 rupees. Unfortunately the 3 other places we checked on the way didn't have space, and we wanted to be on the river so we had to give this grumpy Indian our business. Welcome to the holy city, we thought.
We spent the day walking the Ghat's on the river. The life scenes alternated from swimming, to meditating, to cremating bodies, to washing buffalo, to dancing. We heard a rumor about a wi-fi cafe somewhere near Assi Ghat from a mysterious stranger, . We kept walking in the midday heat until we arrived at the Open Hand Cafe, an oasis on a hot Indian afternoon
Bathin
. The cafe was easily the best we had been to in India with free wifi, great smoothies, French pressed coffee, and local crafts that when sold go to help the poor people in Varanassi. We spent the next few hours eating chips and salsa, drinking coffee and smoothies, meeting other travelers, updating our online lives, and just enjoying the vibe. A few interesting things happened while we were at the cafe. The first was hearing a song that sounded familiar playing on the stereo, it ended up being a song often played at our church (Forever). The second was running into another Canadian who happened to be an Alumnus of Ivey Business School at Western University.
Side Note: For anyone who we haven't told yet, we are moving to Ontario in August when we return to Canada. Arik has been offered admission into Law School at Western and accepted in January.
We spent the next few hours talking about school, work, the economy, India, the definition of happiness, and life on the road with Jordan from Toronto.
It ends up the Open Hand Cafe, as a christian organization, also exports products from India and gives back to the local community (http://www.openhandonline.com/). Finding a holy place, and we aint just talking delicious smoothies, in this holy city 50 hours before we start our volunteer work in Nepal in addition to meeting someone to help us plan for our adventures after the trip was too much coincidence to dismiss as sheer chance
Public Shave
. After reading The Alchemist last week Arik decided he better listen to these signals from God. That night we had a Thali at the Shanti Guest House and the waiter tried to short us 100 rupees change.
The usual stop in Varanasi includes a boat ride up or down the rivers to see the Ghats. We don't think we missed anything but the hassle of negotiating with the boat drivers when we decided to walk them a few times instead. The river itself is a story. Fecal matter rates are 3,000 (yes thousand) times higher than water standards for swimming, but tell that to the Hindu people who believe the river is a crossing place between the physical and spiritual worlds and is the only place to provide Moksha, the escape from the cycle of rebirth if you are cremated at the waters edge. The crematorium ghats are one of the most interesting sights, but in respect for the families and the dead photography is forbidden, so if you want to see you will have to visit yourself...
With an early train the next morning, and wanting to get away from the Scindhia Guest House ASAP, we booked a room near the train station for an early nights sleep. But not before we were followed by a 80 year old street beggar who hit Arik's bag over and over because we wouldn't give him any rupees. Without wanting to hurt the guy, who probably tipped the scale at 70lbs, all we could do is yell at him and ask him to stop. As life is in India, a local came up and gave him a back hand before he disappeared. In his defense he was definitely a few bowls short of a full Thali (set meal of 5 or more Indian dishes), as old as the hills, and the very poor of the world. Rewarding physical abuse with rupees wasn't something we felt was right, but it is impossible to come to India and not to feel for the guy and the hundreds of millions of other poor Indian's whose lives are anything but easy
Naked Buffalo Washing
. Hard stuff... That night we decided to stay close to the hotel for dinner. Hotel India was our choice. The decor was nice and the menu was reasonably priced. We enjoyed the dinner, Aloo Tandoori (like Indian Sushi) and a Veg burger. Half of what we ordered never came out...but in true Varanasi style we were still charged for it. After telling the waiter the bill was wrong he subtracted 120 rupees...nice try, but in fact the bill should have been 160 rupees less. We gave enough to cover the food and no more. Walking back to our hotel we couldn't believe our experiences in this holy city. Would it ever end?
Then we tried to exchange some rupees for US$ which we had heard the Nepali border requests. After hearing that we needed the exchange before the morning they upped the exchage rate 2%....
Varanasi, the holy Hindu city, what can we say? The river life is amazing and extremely unique. Like the Golden Temple of the Sikh religion you can feel the importance this city holds for it's believers. The colors, the smells, the sights, and the rituals are all amazing to watch. But as far as tourism goes it has been the highest hassle city of our entire trip. Hotel switcharoo, bad service, overpriced everything, rickshaw drivers with "no change", waiters who give the wrong change, bad exchange rates, and stick wielding beggars all drop Varanasi down a few rungs on our list of favorite Indian cities, it sits somewhere far below the very bottom!
