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I've been on the road in India now for about a week, and I thought it was about time to dig up the old travel blog and inject some life back into it. Now, I've got a headache from not sleeping properly (or eating properly, for that matter), so I'll try and make this brief. I'm in Varanasi right now, on the Ganga, sacred place of Hindus and Kingdom of Cow. I hitched a ride here this morning on a farmer boy's motorbike after trading my iPod to him for a lift (it was a piece of s*** anyway, the thing only worked in one ear).
Long story (involving me missing a train, bribing my way into the baggage car of the much slower local train with the help of the young "King of Bihar" (who earnestly told me that, amongst other things, he has sang to a crowd of 15,000 in Russia, is frequently visited by the ghosts of white people and includes helicopter flying, playwriting, and golf amongst other chief interests) and ending up spending one fairly uncomfortable and somewhat awkward night in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere with the crazy young train guard and his entire extended family. (Actually I have no idea what the hell he was doing in the luggage car, and I'm pretty sure he was no train guard at all. He had a bag of army fatigues and said he was in the Indian Army (which he yelled in my face at least a dozen times). He also repeatedly demonstrated to me his elite kung-fu skillz, broke out in dance every ten minutes like a young Indian Micheal Jackson, called out the train door like an wild Indian (the American kind) every time the train stopped, and kept showing me his army badge (and in fact the entire contents of his wallet, taking care to point out every single detail, right down to his Bank Card number. God only knows why). I woke up surrounded by a village of giggling and curious children and was invited to sit by the village patricarch's side in front of the morning straw fire (it's winter in this part of India, and mighty cold once the sun goes under the northern Plains). Unfortunately I don't speak a word of Hindi and all the English vocab in the entire village wouldn't fill a straw basket, so communication mostly consisted of pointing, nodding and grunting. "Fire, yes, fire good." As incredibly hospitable as they were, the idea of spending another day surrounded by gawking and incomprehensible village Indians and pointing at cows didn't really appeal, and so I was more than happy to get a moto ride out of there and onto Mother Ganga. For a busted up iPod, I think it was a good trade. I stole into the back door of Varanasi, away from the dreaded touts, and eventually ended up here, alive and in one piece.
As for Varanasi, it's mindblowing (once you get past all the animals and their s***). Seriously, I've never seen so many farm animals running riot in the street. Having to pass a frothing bull in an alleyway too narrow to turn a bicycle around in for the first time is, to say the least, an interesting experience. There is enough s*** in this city shat out by enough cows and goats and dogs and every other farm animal you care to think of to build a life-size replica Titanic of s*** and float it on down the Ganges. In fact there's enough s***, rubbish and dead bodies and parts of dead bodies in the river already that it would simply float along the top like a Noah's Ark of s***. There's so much s*** lying around that people collect it, beat it into paddies, dry it out in the sun, and sell it. To burn for warmth, I guess, I don't know what else dried cow s*** is useful for. Ok, enough about s*** already. No, seriously, don't let me deter you, Varanasi really is a special place. One of the oldest cities in the world, and one of the most sacred. They just really love their cows here. The ghats (temples with steps leading down to the Ganges River) make for such an atmospheric, um, atmopshere. It's just a crazy place with all sorts of freaks and hippies and beggars and bums and black voodoo priests and spiritual types that everywhere you turn there's something to see. The alleys in the Old Town are a marvel to get lost in with their incredbidle smells and sounds and date back thousands of years. Ok, so I'm making that up, but it's probably true anyway. Google it.
One of the ghats is called the Burning Ghat, and this is where every morning and afternoon they cremate recently deceased Hindus, in full view of the public (as I unwittingly disvoered when I looked over the edge of the steps to see what the origin of the smell and smoke was and noticed a smouldering human leg in a pile of ash. I didn't look on long enough to see what it was joined to.)
Sure, there's your grisly stuff here like burning legs and piles of s***, but there's also so much beauty. The ghats themselves are a marvel, with their cracked paint and medieval towers and lines bathers coming down all through the day to take a dip in the Ganga, and Indian holy men, their foreheads smeared with orange ash and Hindu women in their saris beating their wet clothes against slabs of rock (presumably to dry them, unless it's some weird kind of Hindu yoga) as children flying their kites out over the river. Pics to follow.
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