VARANASI (Day 12)

Varanasi (or Benares) is one of the oldest living cities in the world. It has been a pilgrimage spot for Hindus for centuries, and the Ganges River is believed to have the power to wash away the sins of mortals. It is also a center of learning... the home to knowledge, philosophy, culture, spiritualism, mysticism, yoga, language, dance and music.

Since the best way to experience the Ganges is by boat at sunrise, we arranged for a tuktuk to bring us to the ghats (docks) at 5:30 am, since one can't get there by car. The city was still lit up from the festival.

There we only saw one boat with a very old rower. We tried to negotiate a price but he wanted no part of it. We started walking down to another ghat when suddenly he agreed to give us a half hour tour.

It was still before dawn, and water and sky still blended together in a dark dusky grey. The water was very still and covered under a layer of mist. It was hard to tell how deep it was, but we never went too far from shore... a good thing because the small boat did not seem too sturdy. The loose wooden floor boards were covered in a thin layer of water, and the chipped white paint brught to mind the word 'antique'. The long wooden oars were slung in metal U-hooks, and they gently creaked with each stroke. It was a very rhythmic and steady sound, almost hypnotic, and the whole atmosphere reminded me of an old movie. In the far distance, emanating from one of the larger ghats, was that typical very loud crackly music, even at this hour.

The oarsman rows past the ghats as night slowly gives way to day.

The stillness was also broken by the loud motorboats of vendors as they buzzed about to the numerous tourist boats hoping for a sale. They didn't waste their time with us though and went straight for the boats loaded up with more tourists. Plenty of people bought floating candles and set them alight and adrift on the water.

Our oarsman started smoking and was almost as busy coughing up a lung as he was at moving us through the tranquil water. He also exhibited the country's rampant spiting behavior... right into the 'holy' water. Perhaps he equated it with the candles as it gleamed and floated off along the water's surface.

The city seemed to be only on one side of the river; the other side was just a bare sand bank. Our oarsman rowed slowly past the many ghats where the people washed clothing by beating them mercilessly on a rock, ceremoniously chanted as they bathed, or burned the dead in huge wood bonfires. Since the Ganges is considered so holy, it is visited and used by MANY people. As a result, it is one of the dirtiest rivers as well, but this does not seem to stop folks from drinking large handfuls of the special water.

By this time, the sun was up, although there wasn't really a real sunrise. Basically the sky just kept growing lighter as we rowed steadily toward the blaring music in the distance.

The row of ghats

The crowded morning activities along the river... Even a rat popped down for a quick bath.

At the clothes washing ghats, people really beat the stuffing out of things. Men were usually seen swinging larger items (like jeans) over their head and pounding them down into a rock in the water. The rocks were not just random, but rather arranged in a V-shape that sat partially under water. The washers would wet the article of clothing in the river, then beat it a few times on the rocks, then repeat the process. Afterwards, they would toss the item to a large pile somewhere on the shore nearby. Apparently India has the BEST marking system in the world. If you give your clothing to your hotel to be cleaned, they separate it by color and send it to the appropriate ghat. It is washed/beaten very clean then sent to huge ironing rooms where it is magically returned to the correct hotel. The system is so fool-proof that they have even used it to catch criminals.

Washing and praying. The men and women weren't separated but there was no nudity. The people would scrub themselves into a thick lather, then dunk into the water and repeat the process several times. Some bathers went into the river wearing their entire outfit (sari, etc). Not everyone was very religious and solemn. Many played in the water, splashing and laughing. One man was actually seriously swimming a bit further out.

One of main tourist ghats... A sunken temple at Manikarnika ghat

Floating candles on the water

We turned around and started back. Most of the other tourists had already left. On our way, our oarsman just randomly pulled over, tied our boat to another boat... and left. We watched him walk up to a wall and relieve himself. He then returned, untied us and rowed slowly off, having tossed his second cigarette into the river.

The water was more visible in the light now... a murky dark green with occasional small bubbles coming up from below. We could still only see a couple inches in though. The entire surface was covered with a dusty slime and there was plenty of floating trash and flowers. Many little gnats and dragonflies darted about, and something kept splashing out of the water. Then suddenly, the constant drone of music stopped and we could hear all the sounds of the river... the birds, the people, the water as it swept past the boat, the gentle creak of the oars. But it only lasted a minute or so before starting up again.

When we pulled up to our ghat, Mukesh was waiting for us and we followed him up to a temple next door. We sat on the stairs leading up to the temple, talking with some of the locals and eating some food before moving on.

We hopped back in a tuktuk and visited several small local temples as well as a tiny museum whose entire floor was covered with a giant relief map of India. Upon returning to the tuktuk, we discovered a bunch of men just hanging out chatting with Mukesh. At first I thought there had been a fight because one of the men lay sprawled back in the seat of the tuktuk, with his shirt and mouth stained red. It took me a moment to realize that he wasn't hurt, he was probably high. He kept spitting out this bizarre orange stuff that the people chew, making a goopy red mess on ground. Apparently its some kind of mild drug that you hold in your mouth and it absorbs in though the gums. Men often hold a mouth full of the stuff and still try to talk (so that it drips on their shirts etc). This stuff is readily available from any store, chai stand or traveling snack stand. Supposedly it is staining and terrible for one's teeth. Earlier we had seen a 'dentist' working out of a roadside stand and with lots of fake teeth to choose from.

Pushing our way through the narrow streets

Eventually the men dissipated and we carried on. At a silk shop, we ran through a maze of small passageways and buildings, trying to follow a guide as he explained how everything was made. In a large grass field, we saw how the silk was stretched, and in a small narrow building, we then saw how the various patterns were made using punch cards and weaving machines.

We returned to hotel and jumped back in the car. Our destination was Sarnath, a city about 6 miles away, where the Buddha preached his first sermon in the 6th century BC. 300 years later, the Emperor Ashoka came to meditate here. He built a few stupas and monasteries in Buddha's honor. In the following centuries, the place was visited by thousands of Buddhist monks. But in the 11th century, Muslim armies destroyed the area. It was excavated in 1836 by the British.

We visited the Archeological Survey of India Museum. Inside were many statues (including four-lion statue which is printed on their money). Outside was the actual archeological site. All that remains now are some monastery ruins. On some of the pillars were bits of gold leaf that people had pounded on to honor the spot. The most noticeable monument was the 110-foot tall Dhamekh stupa (dome-shapedBuddhist shrine), built in the 5th or 6th century, supposedly on the exact spot where Buddha stood to give his speech. The stupa is completely solid, so the most people can do is simply walk around it (clockwise), saying prayers and rubbing their special bead necklaces. There was also a small deer park nearby but we were unable to get to it due to extremely accosting hoards of deer food vendors.

The Dhamekh stupa

On the way back, we first stopped to get some sugar cane juice pressed right there on the street, a highly risky venture for the intestines. The green sugar cane is run through a very loud, belt driven press, which crushes the cane. The liquid that is released, is gathered in a bucket below, mixed with Ganges river water from another big bucket just sitting there (we were unaware of this fact until AFTER we had consumed it!). The juice is then topped with a ginger. It is quite delicious once one gets used to the oddly sweet taste combined with a very unripe-banana tartness. Fortunately this little venture didn't come back to violently haunt us later.

Making the sugarcane juice

In the evening, we took a bike tuktuk to the ghats. The old man worked very hard to get us there. The bell on his bike was connected to his front wheel so that he had a constant sound instead of having to ring the bell himself to avoid being hit by the extreme amount traffic, auto tuktuks, bike tuktuks, pedestrians, etc. The air was extremely dense with gaseous fumes.

Once at the ghats, we tried to simply sit on the stairs and enjoy the tranquility that we thought would come from being here. But the area was anything but peaceful. Crackling music spewed forth at almost deafening volumes from enormous speakers at one of the major ghats. Street vendors bustled about relentlessly trying to sell something... bindi paint, henna, massages, postcards, drugs. Dogs and cows abounded. Begging children tugged at our hands and clothes for money. They approached acting very sick and weak, swaying and mumbling weakly, but once they realized we weren't going to give them anything, they bounded off energetically after their next target. We even got accosted by a goat who just stood and kept staring at us... gradually moving closer, eyeing the paper of our notebooks.

We decided to make our way to one of the burning ghats. The river looked so beautiful that one could almost think it was clean. Some kids were flying very simple kites extremely high above it. We had to watch our step as there were plenty of cows. But the mess never remained too long... there was always some woman gathering the large wet cow patties with her hands and arms and putting them into a basket. We later passed a wall where it was all caked on, left to dry and to be burned for fuel later.

When we arrived at the ghat, there were three fires burning. Tourists weren't actually allowed on the ghat itself but we could stand on an overlooking platform about 10 feet away, and no photography. The fire was quite warm on my face and many cows and a few dogs lay nestled in among the fires, sleeping by the warmth (not that it was cold out). The fires seemed to be at different stages of progression. One had just been started; there was several pieces of large wood placed on the bottom, then the body, then more smaller pieces of wood on top. The fire hadn't really started to consume anything yet so we could see a human shape wrapped in material. The second fire was much further along, and I could see a leg sticking out, with flesh still on the foot but just bone left for the leg. The man tending the fires came by with a long stick and tried to push the leg back into the bright orange flames. Eventually he managed to fold the whole leg back over body. I watched as the foot start to turn white and black as the flesh burnt away, but it still kept its form (toes etc). Then the head started to go and the disintegrating material began to reveal facial structures. For some reason I had expected everything would burn much faster. Thankfully there were no strong smells. Once the body has been burned, the ashes (or remaining parts, if the family couldn’t afford enough wood) were released into the river. We got a bit concerned when we saw a dog eating some large piece of meat on a bone nearby the stone alter.

We retreated to some back steps to wait for the sunset... not without frequent interruption, of course.

With the loud music blaring in the distance, we watched the water change from being streaked with pastel pink to a dusky blue grey. The entire landscape, water, sky and land, began to blend together in the fog. And as the colors faded, we could easily see the flickering candles still floating on the water in the distance. There were still plenty of boats on water. Eventually when we could no longer see the kites that flew so incredibly high and when the birds disappeared and were replaced by gnats, we decided it was time to go.

A guru (spiritual teacher in Hinduism and Buddhism) takes a meditative moment... while the last rays of the day fade away.

We took a bike tuktuk back. It seemed like there was even more traffic and people. At one point, there was a complete power black out. Only car headlights and a few shops with perhaps their own generators remained lit. Traffic moved very slowly. Our driver was a very young kid who kept getting lost and bumping into things... but eventually we made it.

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