Because of the Shiva festival I decided to do a short side trip to Sarnath. All the temples in Varanasi are lit up like xmas trees and have a marshall stack out the front with **** hindi music blasting out. Most also have a Buba out the front to collect the donations. The auto I took was like a mobile boom box. The driver insisted on playing **** hindi music at full volume right near my head. To be fair he stopped and changed to equally **** 'western' music when ...

Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities on earth and holy to millions. We left the train station at Varanasi and the streets were chockers with people, cows, dogs rickshaws and taxi's. It was total chaos on the road, there were people everywhere and I was trying to dodge the cow **** and negotiate with the rickshaw walla. It is great. This is the real India. I love this place. There is a big Shiva festival on today so every freak, lunatic and nutbag in India ...