Varanasi

19th – 23rd April 2015

To get to Varanasi we experienced our first sleeper train in India and we was pleasantly surprised! We booked the 2AC sleeper and we bagged the best beds! There was 6 beds in our carriage, 4 in the main sections and two on side section. We had the two on the side, these were perfect! We had our own privacy with a curtain on each bed and one big window to look out of, the beds even came with two ‘clean’ bed sheets, a pillow and a blanket,we was very impressed! Joe experienced his first train chai tea, made friend with the locals we was sharing a cabin with and even managed to get him self a Bourbon biscuit.. he was in his element! We tried our first curry flavored crisps – who’d have know walkers do magic masala flavored crisps! Strangely quite nice! Nat knocked her self out with travel sickness tablets that sent her into a sleepy state, the ride was bumpy but much better than most sleeper buses in South East Asia. We arrived to a sunrise over the tracks, the morning was just starting to come alive! We scrambled away from the station trying to avoid the stares and waited for our tuk tuk driver to pick us up, the dogs hovered round us as if they knew we was from another country – even the dogs can’t leave you alone! After spending the morning of joe using the phrase ‘my wife, not your wife, my wife’ we soon realized the men didn’t care and would stare either way!  

A short ride to our guest house and it confirmed what we through whilst in Calcutta.. The roads are deadly, Rick shaws, tuk tuks, cows, bikes, lorries and goats filled the roads, its organized kayos. Each vehicle knew which gap it was going to squeeze into next while we sat back and feared for our life’s!

We was greeted at our guest house by chai tea and an Indian breakfast – this place impressed us already! The owners were very kind and made us feel at home straight away! Our first night we booked a fan room, this was hell! Waking up for cold showers at 3am was not what we wanted! The next morning we moved straight into an AC room we can’t hack this heat! Its intense heat here! 

 

We spent the first day exploring the Gahts, this is something that will stick with us for life. India is another world and here just proves it! The Gahts blew us away.. People washing in the Ganges whilst bodies burn a few meters way from them, cows and Buffaloes swimming at the side of men washing the laundry, dogs eating the remains of human that hasn’t burnt fully and had been chucked into the river, ladies walking fully clothed into the Ganges while dead chickens float by. Welcome to the wired and wonderful India! 

 

The burning Gahts was something else, you didn’t wasn’t to watch but you couldn’t help but not. Bodies after bodies brought out to be cremated in front of people passing by. Flames could be seen all throughout the day and night, ash lingered in the air – at least 150 bodies per day, every day. 

 

The morning celebration was peaceful and beautiful, family’s bathing in the water at sunrise when the Gaht are quite and calm. A light celebration took place at Assi Gaht , yoga then followed with at least 50 people joining in  – most of them locals, then off they went for breakfast and not seen until sunset to miss the heat of the day. This soon became our routine!The night festival however was loud and much more busier, boats sailed up and down the rivers to capture the ceremonies that would take place at almost every Gaht, we much preferred the morning! 

Our tour of Varanasi was the highlight of our trip here. We spent the morning sailing down the Ganges at sunrise then 5 hours with our guide Ricky exploring all the small ally ways of the old and new town, showing us views of Varanasi that we would have never found on our own and sharing different foods with us from his local favorite alleyway ‘restraints’. We left Varsnasi feeling like we knew all the inns and out! 

Next stop Agra!