The Murdher Express

Trip Start Sep 12, 2005

108

Trip End Aug 15, 2006

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Flag of India Varanasi, India
Sunday, October 2, 2005

Where do we start!! Probably with he Murdher Express. We left Agra to get the night train from a town 30km away. We thought two hours to get here would have been enough, we were wrong, we are in India after all! The sun set at 6.30pm... 15 minutes later it was pitch black. With no lights on the "motorways" cars drive with full beams, the cows on the roads dont help nor do the drivers who decide to drive on the wrong side of the road{which is nearly all of them} All this chaos can only result in one thing- death. Two trucks swerved to avoid each other and killed a few pedestrians. The trucks overturned, blocking the road in both directions. Mayhem was not the word!!! We were seriously frightened in the car and the driver told us to keep our doors locked and heads down as things could get lawless. There were hundreds of people walking about shining torches into cars. It did not look like we would make the train but that was the least of our worries. After 45 minutes suddenly the road cleared there was a complete frenzy of people running to their cars

A view of the Ghats

. After the jam cleared we were away, 100km per hour on the wrong side of the road, horn blasting, full beams on dodging oncoming trucks! Made it to the station in the nick of time, got to he platform only to be told " Oh sir yes please the train has been cancelled." SHIT! After one hour of running back and forth to he station master he told us we could get on the 11 o'clock train (called the Murdher Express) but only if there was room. We plunked our rucksacks down and made ourselves comfortable with the homeless. Time flies when you are chasing rats! It was worse than the rat temple! A few squashed cockroaches later and the Murdher Express rolled in. It was a bit of a sweat but we got on and it was such a relieve when the train rolled off with us on board. We managed a few hours kip and rolled into Varanasi early that morning.

Varanasi is the most holy city in India. At over 5,000 years old it is said to be the oldest living city in the world. People from all over India make their final journey to Varanasi to die. Their remains are cremated by the river or else wrapped in orange cloth and thrown into the Ganges. Got to our hostel and decided to take a stroll to the Ganges. Walking through the narrow alleyways of the city we felt an eeriness. Just wandering around aimlessly we walked right into he centre of the Burning Ghat. The smell was unbelievable. We stood there with our mouths open, a local man approached us and told us that the fires burn bodies 24 hours a day

Closest foto we could get of the burning Ghat

. Just as he was telling us this we heard chanting and we were pushed aside by a few men carrying the next "customer." This was too much to take so we left them to it.

At sunset we went for a boat ride along the Ganges. On the Mir Ghat where we took our boat from, there were people lying there literally hours from death. Covered in flies and already smelling of death, it was like a scene from Live Aid.

The Ganges is extremely polluted but that does not stop people washing, swimming and brushing their teeth (with their finger) in the toxic sludge. This is because they believe the waters are sacred.

On our way back up the river a few dead bodies drifted by. It was pretty hard to take all this in but we were glad we made the effort to go there.