Varanasi Rickshaw Ride

Our arrival in Varanasi came with quite an air of excitement.  Varanasi (also known as Benares and Kashi) is an ancient city.  Our guide said Varanasi has a written history of over 4,000 years.  Some say it has been a city continuously for over 5,000 years.  Mark Twain said, “Benares (Varanasi) is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together”.  Legend says that Varanasi was founded by the Hindu deity, Lord Shiva.  The city draws people from all over the world.  The Beatles made a big splash when they visited Varanasi and got a local (Ravi Shankar) to play with them on an album or two.  Goldie Hawn was in Varanasi when we were there and made the front page of the newspaper.  Varanasi has long been the home of many prominent Indian philosophers, writers, musicians, and poets.  It has several important universities.

Varanasi is considered one of the most intensely religious cities in the world.  The city has hundreds of temples.  It’s a holy city for the Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains.  These religions have closely associated Varanasi with the Ganges River and it has been a religious and cultural center for thousands of years.  Gautama Buddha gave his first sermon near here.  One million Hindu pilgrims visit Varanasi every year. 

We left our hotel at 5:00 pm for an event that our guide described as “the highlight of our entire trip to India”.  But first, we had to get to the Ganges River for the event.  Part of the trip included about a 45 minute rickshaw ride through old Varanasi.  The streets we traveled were wider than in Old Delhi but that allowed vehicle traffic which made it much more dangerous.  I almost got hooked on a Brahma bull’s horn once during the ride.  With all the vehicle lights, horn honking, good and bad smells, potholes in the road, and heavy traffic, it was a wild ride.  I told Vicky that my description was as if the old Santa Cruz Boardwalk had combined the “fun house” and “bumper car” rides into one event.  Vicky agreed saying, “yea, you never know what’s going to happen next”.  That proved to be an incredible understatement.

This next commentary is from my daily journal, as written that night after returning to our hotel.

     “Next, our driver made a wicked sharp left turn heading down what looked like a dark alley.  In a few seconds we were in total darkness, moving under some type of structure, and it smelled like the place a million guys had been urinating every day for a year.  We went a short ways further and stopped.  I told Vicky, “What did we get ourselves into this time?” 

    I thought maybe the driver thinks we’re rich and famous and he’s kidnapped us.  I knew that I had trained my kids right and that they wouldn’t be sending any ransom money.  I hopped down from the rickshaw ready for the fur to fly and to protect my woman.”

Shortly afterwards, we heard some familiar voices, those of our companions and guides.  As it turned out, Varanasi had just had a city-wide power outage, just as we cut down the small alley.  Next, still in the dark, we had to make our way to the Ganges River.  Again from my journal:

     “It was all downhill over consistently uneven ground, including many steps, completely surrounded by hawkers, beggars, cripples, con artists, fake holy men, pilgrims, and enough small kids trying to ‘help’ us that I was having to physically make some room at times.  I had my headlight flashlight with me but I never used it as I was afraid everyone would flock to us like moths to a porch light.  We eventually made it to the banks of the Ganges.

The first two photos are during the rickshaw ride down towards the Ganges.  The third photo was shortly after we stopped in the dark alley at the end of our rickshaw ride.  I doubled over several times from the smells during the ride, so I put a handkerchief over my nose and mouth.  Vicky said the smells didn’t bother her that much, but they were getting to me.  Finally, she said that it was amazing that my sense of smell was better than hers since my sinuses have bothered me for many years.  After thinking about that, and my current stomach flu condition, I told Vicky, “My body picked a great time for my lower half to quit working and my upper half to start working”.

The Aarti Ceremony

This was a major part of what our guide considered the highlight of our trip to India, along with our whole evening.  This was the Aarti Ceremony at the Dashashwamedh Ghat.  (Ghat = steps leading into the river or water)  We boarded a small boat with benches and watched the ceremony from the Ganges River.  The Aarti is a loud, noisy, musical, lighted, incense-spewing, boisterous and jubilant celebration that is held every night.  At this ghat, seven priests took about thirty minutes to perform the ceremony, celebrating the setting of the sun, though long after the sun had set.  This ceremony also celebrates the worship of fire and there is also a much smaller celebration in the morning celebrating the rising of the sun.  Music plays, bells jingle, drums beat, people chant, and throngs of local people and tourists observe it all.

You can see three of my photos of the Aarti Ceremony but these photos really don’t begin to help you understand the whole event.  To try and do that, you can search for videos on U-Tube of it and I’m certain that you can find some. A video will help you to better understand the “noise” part and you can also see the event being performed.  Turn up your volume if you want it to sound like what we heard.  Of course, you still won’t be able to “smell” the event, but you are probably grateful for that….

River Ganges at Night

We were out on the Ganges River for over an hour tonight.  The Aarti Ceremony was the highlight but there was plenty of other action during the trip.  We paddled up and down the river and got to see quite a few other things.  We saw people bathing in the river, chanting, girls selling flowers and incense, boys selling hot tea, dead people being washed in the river and cremated, and so on.  In the first photo, you can see some people at one of the ghats that we passed.  Ghat means ‘steps leading into the water’ or river.  Varanasi has some sixty-four ghats which are mostly bathing ghats.  Many young girls were selling floating flower candles which you can see some people lighting in the first photo.

You can also see Vicky lighting one in the second photo.  We lit the candles and set it afloat in the Ganges after making a wish.  My wish was to make it back to our hotel.  During our boat ride, we could see thousands of flower candles floating and lighting up the river.  Being on the river in a boat kept us away from most of the hawkers, scammers, beggars, and cripples, but not everyone.

You can see one budding young entrepreneur in the third photo.  He pulled up alongside our boat in his own boat and sold us some hot tea.  We were joined by hundreds of other boats with thousands of people paddling along the Ganges taking it all in.  It was quite an evening.

River Ganges at Sunrise

We got off our boat in the Ganges in mid-evening yesterday, but we were right back out on the Ganges River before sunrise this morning.  We traveled the same route to get there as the night before, but there were very few people up this morning and the streets were empty.  The river banks and ghats were also much less crowded this morning.  Many, but not all, of the ghats had activities under way at them.  It was also much quieter than last night.  Still, some ghats had bells and music and chanting with priests doing a welcoming the sun ceremony.  We saw plenty of bathers (see first photo), including both individuals and groups.  Small numbers of people were swimming and a few looked to be swimming across the whole river which is quite wide in Varanasi.  One common and very loud activity along the river was clothes washing which you can see in the second photo.  Our guide said these guys don’t use soap, they just beat the clothes on flat rocks which is really loud.  We saw yoga being done (see third photo) in small and large groups. 

People were meditating singly and in small groups.  Chanters were out in good numbers which included boats full of chanters with “OM” being the most popular chant.  Hawkers were everywhere including in boats selling flowers, candles, incense, and souvenirs.  We saw lots of monkeys and dogs running all about as well as some cows and goats.  Many people were feeding the fish and seagulls, both from shore and from boats.  I believe that the thinking there was that people thought they might be a fish or seagull in their next life and figured that they would need food.  There was definitely more than a hundred boats in the river which included both locals and tourists.  The Ganges was again full of floating flower candles.  Added to all this was the sun rising on the east side of the Ganges.  There is no development on the eastern side of the Ganges, so we had an unobstructed view to watch the rising sun.

The next photo is a boat full of women who were chanting – “OM”.  They were very friendly and smiled and waved at us when we passed them.  Another great item that Vicky caught in this photo was the pink tower on the right side of the photo.  Both the night before and today, our local guide said that we could only take photos up to the pink tower.  The cremation ghat was just the other side of the pink tower and we were not allowed to take photos right in front of the cremation ghat.  The night before, our local guide had told us that, but it was dark so the tower looked dark.  In the daylight, we could see that it was in fact pink.  We could also read the writing on the tower and discovered that this is the water intake pipe structure for the water company in Varanasi.  I couldn’t believe that the water company’s intake valve was right next to the cremation ghat.  We asked about that and our local guide laughed.  Our regular guide kept offering us the “opportunity” to bathe in the Ganges.  Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges remits all their sins.  Hindus all try to bathe in the Ganges at least once in their lives.  At this point, our local guide just kept on laughing as our main guide kept trying to get us to take a bath in the Ganges.  Our local guide finally said that yes, this is the water intake valve for all the water in Varanasi, so when we took our shower in our hotel room this morning, we had in fact bathed in the Ganges.

In the next photo, you can see Vicky in our boat on the Ganges while several boats around us were feeding the sea gulls and other birds.

 The last photo was the same ghat where we watched the Aarti Ceremony the night before.  It was on the left side of the photo.  We came down both last night and this morning and got into a boat in the area right about in the center of this photo.

Cremation Ghat

We start this post while still on the Ganges River.  Towards the downstream end of our journey both last night and today was the cremation ghat.  Our local guide said that they cremate around 250 people a day, every day of the year in Varanasi.  It’s my understanding that Hindus believe that dying in Varanasi and getting cremated there releases a person’s soul from the cycle of transmigrations.  There was quite a pungent odor lingering in the air.  Our guide said that each cremation takes about three to four hours and costs around $40 - $45 U.S.  No women are allowed to attend the ceremony, a rule which dates back to the time of the British rule.  That was because the Hindus expected the wife to kill herself at her husband’s cremation and get cremated along with her husband.  So the British banned women’s presence to stop that practice. 

We saw some ten to twelve cremations under way last night.  Our local guide said that Varanasi is the only city in the world where cremations are done at night.  That’s because they are not supposed to be done at night, but that the demand at Varanasi is so great, they had to make an exception.  No cremations had started yet this morning though a couple of fires had been started.  We also saw them washing a dead body in the Ganges which is one step which precedes the cremation.  The first two photos are the Varanasi cremation ghat.

We got off our boat right next to the cremation ghat and walked into old town Varanasi.  One of the first stores that we saw is in the last photo.  These are cremation kits with everything you need for a proper cremation including sandalwood, a shroud, etc. 

Old Varanasi

Old Varanasi was much like Old Delhi and other old sections of ancient towns.  The labyrinthine streets and alleys were narrow and winding which made it difficult for invaders to find their way and gave the locals time to escape.  You can see a street in old Varanasi in the first photo.  I chose this photo since is curves back and forth allowing us to see further than on many other streets.  The second photo was taken on one of the bigger streets in old Varanasi.  I had never seen a rickshaw school bus before but we saw quite a few that morning in old Varanasi.

Marijuana is legal in India, or at least it is in Varanasi.  The government sells it.  They call it “bhang” which our local guide pronounced “bong”.  They sell it in various forms.  You can see some of the containers on the counter in the third photo.  They also sell marijuana cookies.  We had our local guide buy us one which you can see him holding up and pointing to in the photo.  And in case you are curious, remember, we were still trying to detach ourselves from the experience of eating a cow urine vitamin supplement.  The cookie was very good, something along the lines of an oatmeal cookie only denser and darker with a taste something like a good, high quality vegetable oil.  Vicky thought it tasted like alfalfa.

Summing up India

As we prepared to leave Khajuraho, I started to think about our trip to India.  I started to try and sum it up in my mind.  I wondered what I would say when people asked me about my trip to India.  India was an interesting and fascinating place to visit.  It was a wild array of experiences.  From Khajuraho to Varanasi, which included airport time, the flight, and so on, I discussed this with Vicky and some of my fellow travelers.  Varanasi was our last stop on our trip, so I started re-reading my journal and getting lost in deep thoughts.  After we arrived in Varanasi, we boarded a bus for the ride to our hotel.  Our main guide, Ajay, always gave us a talk as we came to new cities and he did this on the bus ride from the Varanasi Airport to our hotel.  His talk lasted about fifteen minutes.  As always, I was taking notes in my notebook.  I made notes about three items during Ajay’s talk.  I will cover each of them now.

First, Ajay made a number of statements.  I will repeat those statements, only with one or two sentences spoken in the middle taken out where you will just see “…”.

Ajay said, “Varanasi is the holiest Hindu city in the world.  Varanasi is a very holy place……but always lock up all your valuables in the safe before leaving your hotel.  Never take any valuables with you when going out in Varanasi”.

Second, we were driving through Varanasi and passing loads of garbage, litter, cow pies, etc. and watching people urinate, crap, etc.  It wasn’t any worse than most of the rest of India, but typically as bad.  Ajay said, “Varanasi is very beautiful (and he paused) on the inside”.

Third, Ajay described the Ganges River in great detail, physically, historically, and regarding its significant religious importance.  At the end, Ajay made the statement, “The Ganges River is very pure”.  I asked Ajay how clean or dirty the Ganges was, but he only responded that it was pure.  I told him that I understood and withdrew the question.  After Ajay was finished with his talk, he came back to where I was sitting, near the back of the bus.  I told Ajay that I expected that the Ganges was an open running sewer.  Ajay said that we would be going out in the Ganges twice in small boats.  He said that I would see sewer pipes empty right into the river and that I would see people bathing only a few feet away and even see people washing out their mouth with the Ganges water.  Ajay paused and then looked me right in the eye and calmly said, “The Ganges is pure IF YOU BELIEVE”.

Vicky ready to go out on the town - in Varanasi

Out on a boat in the River Ganges

Sunset on the River Ganges

Q & A follow up on India

Hi all,

I’ve heard back from quite a few folks on my email list.  The most often heard comments were: thanks for taking us to India; we really enjoyed the trip; but that’s as close are we are going to get to India, and thanks for saving us the money to travel to India.  Maybe I should start charging and become a full-time traveler.  Perhaps my favorite comment came from a former fellow traveler, Bill Brookes, who likened me to Will Rogers saying that he thinks that “I never took a trip I didn’t like”.  Bill should know since he was with me in the Amazon jungle where I got the sickest I’ve ever been in my life and then Bill’s wife Doris out fished me when we went fishing for Piranha.  Of course, she out fished Bill and everyone else on the trip too.

Q.  Did I really enjoy India?  A.  YES.  Vicky and I had a great time in India.  The sights you saw in my emails speak for themselves and were fantastic.  The culture was so very different from any other and it was fascinating to experience firsthand.  The Hindus and others letting animals wander at will.  I’ve read that the city of Delhi alone has some 40,000 cows wandering around inside the city limits, and that doesn’t count the buffalo, pigs, goats, sheep, dogs, chickens, etc.  They have some 1.1 billion people in India.  Over 95% of all marriages are arranged.  I was amazed by a culture that puts so much stock in “karma” and the gods and fate and reincarnation in their daily lives.  The public cremations, urination, cooking on the streets, the constant smell of incense, hand pulled rickshaws (Calcutta only), rickshaw school buses, the Old areas of the ancient cities were as wild, fun, and exciting as anything I’ve experienced, the British influence, the colorful saris which women wore everywhere, the Taj Mahal, all the ancient forts and palaces, the step wells, Mother Ganges, friendly people – even if sometimes too friendly, experiencing the caste system, and their great greeting: “Namaste” (with hands folded together and a slight bow - while not having to touch anyone).

Q.  Would I still go, knowing what I know today?  A.  YES.  It was hard at times but I still would want to experience it for myself. India is a fascinating place and an incredibly different culture.

Q.  Would I go back to India?   A.  Vicky says, “we haven’t seen southern India yet?”  Vicky insists that we need to go to southern India and when she has a trip put together, I’ll join her.  NOW you know who the tough one is in this family.

Q.  Did I get sick?   A.  Is the Pope a Catholic?  YES, but I survived.  Vicky got sick first and it wasn’t too bad.  I got sick a second time before I was fully recovered from the first time and that second time was a real bugger.  But my sinuses have never been clearer in twenty years and I wasn’t even doing anything to help them.

Q  What were the highlights?   Going through Old Delhi and Old Varanasi in rickshaws;  experiencing the Indian culture;  the Taj Mahal and other ancient palaces and forts;  being in the land of Tigers, Elephants, and Camels;  being in a Hindu majority society;  boat rides on the Mother Ganges;  the friendly people and especially the friendly kids with big smiles, sometimes living in utterly horrendous conditions. 

Bill

PS   Maybe the most asked question was “how are the tantric yoga classes going?”  Just fine.  My instructor has now had time to fully analyze my flexibility and said that with dedication and genuine effort, I should be able to attain my desired positions in about eight to ten years.