Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Where Religion Rules
Up and out early to find our ticket out of hell, thankfully we managed to get on an early bus to Varanasi. Normally, Ryan and I eat breakfast as soon as our eyes open, but with no cafes on the way and I don't think they even have supermarkets, we were starving and the only food availiable was from grubby street food vendors. We thought eating dirty street food and sitting on a bus without a toilet for 7 hours wasn't a good combination, though the food did smell great, we didn't wanna risk getting 'the aztecs' as Ryans calls it. So we went to the only shop by the bus stop to see what 'safe' pre-packaged food we could find. All we managed to get were crisps and these pastry type waffer things. I picked the masala flavoured crisps, at 6am, for breakfast, of course what other flavour would anyone choose over all others, what was I thinking? Safely on our bus and happy to be heading out of Gorakpur, with our measley supplies we headed off, starving and tucking into our unorthadox breakfast, I tried my first masala flavoured crisp. I checked the front of the bag, yes it said masala, there must be a mistake, as these ones seemed to be eggy fart flavour, gross, they tasted exactly like the smell of an eggy fart!! One was most definately enough and looking at Ryan's expression as he tried swallowing his puff pastry waffers that had turned into sawdust with one bite, his wasn't much better. Hungry and a fed up, I was then cheered up no end when the bus stopped in traffic for a minute and two young boys came over to the window, staring starstruck up at Ryan one asked him for his autograph!!!! Can you believe it? Ryan, totally chuffed that his celebrity status had followed him from Nepal, asked the boys if they had a pen, while I was buzzing off the whole scene, the bus pulled away and the poor boys missed their golden opportunity to get the signature of the famous Mr Goodbody. We had already done so many bus journeys, all equally as uncomfortable in their own way, this time it was ridiculously bumpy all the way and we even managed to get airborn off our seats a few times, and somehow ended up filthy dirty just from sitting on the bus?. Only an hour into our journey and Ryan pipes up again 'Oh..... I've just seen my fifth Indian penis', Unfortunately, I had yet to see one, but now I know why Ryan always takes the window seat!
Varanasi, the spiritual capital of the Hindu world, was a mesmerising place, exactly how I imagined it, not even a little disappointing. It is a feast for your eyes, ears and especially your nose. A maze of narrow streets filled with food, spices, people, rubbish, dogs, cows, monkeys, s*** and temples, its amazing. Then theres the Ghats, which is the name for the steps down to The River Ganges, the most sacred water on earth, pilgrims flock from miles around to bathe in this water, they believe it will wash away their sins. The Ganges must also be the dirtiest water on the planet, Dawa in Nepal told us that if you were to leave a bottle of mineral water and a bottle of Ganges water for one year, there would be more bacteria in the mineral water bottle beacuase there is that many different types of bacteria in the Ganges water that they would all attack each other and it would end up cleaning itself. We found a fantastic guesthouse right by the burning ghat called Mishra Guesthouse and it had a wonderful view of the Ganges from the rooftop restaurant. They gave us a list of unmissable things to do and see whilst in Varanasi and the first was to take a boat trip on the river at 5:30 to watch the sunrise. So excitedly, we got up early and met the boatman at our reception and he took us to his boat, I was surprised how many people were about for that time in the morning. The atmosphere is hard to describe, like nothing I've ever experieneced, its like a spiritual aura oozes out of the place. As we gently floated past all the different ghats we could see loads of people bathing in the river, meditating, praying, washing their clothes and doing rituals, it's fascinating to see. When the sun came up you could see how dirty the water really is and we even saw a couple of dead dogs floating around, people wash themselves and their clothes in this, it's crazy. A boat came up to us with a guy selling candles to put in the river so we both got one and put it onto the water, not sure what it was for he never said, propbably good luck or something, or probably just another way to make money off tourists. Ryan placed his candle on the water, then when I did mine I wasn't thinking and put my hand in the toxic water, ahhhhgg the dirtiest water in the world, mental note do not touch anything till it has been thouroughly disinfected. One of the ghats is the burning ghat and 24 hours a day they burn dead bodies there, as we passed we saw them loading the next corpse onto the wooden logs ready for cremation, it was the first time I'd ever seen a dead body and I'm glad it was at a distance. Once the body is on they cover it and then all you can see is the bare feet sticking out the end as the flames take over. We had been told that they don't burn children, pregnant women, people with leprocy or randomly people who've been bitten by a cobra, those people just get left to rot at the side of the river, so we were lucky we didn't see any decaying bodies hanging around, the dead dogs floating in the water will do me just fine.
Next thing was to take a guided tour around the alleys, so we met our guide, and elderly slim Indian chap in white trousers and a long white shirt dress type thing, (why you would wear white here I'll never know) at the reception at 10:30, along with another couple. He took us around the small streets and alleys for two and a half hours, in and out of hindu temples that we would never of known where hidden there, and spent most of our time with our shoes off for the temples which I wasn't best pleased about as it was so filthy, people walk around everywhere without shoes, it's madness. We found out Varanasi is the oldest inhabited city in the world and learnt about the hindu religion and the gods etc but to be honest I've forgotten it already, I was just fascinated by all the old buildings and watching the people and the animals. We have no idea how people find their way around, it is literally a maze, even Ryans gps wasn't up to the job. It was fun weaving around the streets not knowing what you'll see round the next bend, but I must say though at times I almost choked as I breathed in, the smells were intense to say the least. Towards the end he took us to a huge muslim temple or something, it wasn't very interseting and the buliding wasn't either but we went in to look and the muslim guy who showed us around, he decided he wanted Ryan to take a picture of him, then he wanted to pose for a picture with me, as he pulled me in tight I thought I felt him trying to get a grope in, but I thought no surely not. He obviously didn't get a good enough feel the first time so chucked a little basket on his head as a hat and one on mine as an excuse for another photo, this time he firmly pulled my arm over his shoulder and reached his other arm right around and got a good feel this time, it happened quick and we checked out the pic afterwards and you can see his hand is blatently on my right boob or should I say bee sting, cheeky b******. I hardly felt a thing as I'm mostly padding in that department so he would of been disappointed anyway. He must think we're stupid, hey take a picture of me while I grope your girlfriend and we all smile, unbelievable. We finshed the day at our roofop restaurant (I'm using the word resaurant very loosely here) with a chai tea and a chicken chapti roll which took about two hours to come but was so delious it was worth the wait.
The next day we didn't want to venture too far into the maze as we would certainly get lost we, so we took a stroll down to the burning ghat, another must see thing on our itinerary. We had been warned to expect harrasment here for money, saying it's for the families and for wood, when it's not it just gets pocketed. So we were peeking in at a distance, we could see the head with cloth over it burning away, the cremation guy adding more of this flamable powder to help it along, it actually didn't smell as bad as I thought it would. Then some skanky looking guy with brown teeth (everyone seems to chew this reddish brown stuff, it makes their teeth brown and they spit it on the floor, it's horrible you see splatters of it everywhere, no clue what it is like) He started with the speil and then asked for a donation, Ryan told him he didn't have his wallet, then the guy said he would come back to our hotel with us, Ryan said no we were going for breakfast first, then the guy said he didn't believe he didn't have his wallet, how would we pay for breakfast? Damn we were busted. He started chanting 'No lie in a holy place', 'You lie in a holy place', then people started looking, so we began to leave, then more people piped up 'Nooo lies in a holy place', 'Nooooo lies in a holy place' we were getting surrounded so made a sharp exit.
Our last night in Varansi was spent watching the evening ceremony at the main ghats, this happens every night at 6:30 for one hour, hundreds of people, watching on from the steps of the ghats and many more looking in from boats at the riverside. It's a wonderful display of fire acts, music and costumes, people sending candles out onto the river, I loved it, was the perfect finale to a unique and memorable trip.
- comments
Maggie Sounds awful katie but the way you write it sounds so finny !! Great LOL Maggie xxx
w. nelson Good blog sounds like hell to me good lock on the rest of you trip
w. nelson Good blog sounds like hell to me good lock on the rest of you trip
w. nelson Good blog sounds like hell to me good lock on the rest of you trip
soph hansen love it Katie, you are so good at writing these blogs, extremely entertaining!! xx
Loretta Forrester love these blogs of your's. That bit bout gettin filthy dirty on bus made me laff. 1st time i went to India i travelled all in white, OMG i was chocolate brown when i got off
Sharon Nelson-Gill Kate...Think Dad liked your blog haha!! Love reading your blogs so funny. Stay safe.....Looking forward to the next one. Big hugs to you and Ryan xxx