Varanasi 24.2.10-26.2.10
Nikki

I am writing this sitting in the sparkling new Domestic Airport terminal at Delhi and it could not be a more stark contrast to Varanasi. I should have written this while I was still in India's holiest and craziest city to try to give the full flavour of the place that gives the full India culture shock in a way no other place I have visited could ever do.

As we arrived in Varanasi and neared the centre of the city in our comfy a/c car we were given a taster of what was to come. The traffic ground to a standstill and progress was in short, frantic bursts before another static spell surrounded by tuks, cattle, cyclists and all the rest of the road paraphernalia of India. Even pedestrians enveloped in the traffic could not move at all.

Eventually we arrived at our comfortable, modern hotel, a little haven of relative calm for us. During the afternoon we were taken on an orientation tour of the old streets in the market area. We struggled through the crowds; any conversation was a challenge due to the blaring horns, shouting stall holders and families calling to their children whilst constantly ensuring that one eye was fixed on the floor in order to avoid the range of hazards there!

After a little shopping we got our first sight of the ghats, steps leading down to the Ganges which stretch for around 8km. As the sun set, we boarded a small boat and a tiny, wiry man rowed the eight of us through the rising mists of dusk to view prayer ceremonies from the water and to watch the smoke rise from the cremation ghats. When dark fell, what seemed like hundreds of tiny flower offerings with candles were lit and we passed these down the boat, offering them to the Ganga, along with our wishes or prayers.

Later we joined hundreds of similar boats to watch the prayer ceremony at the main ghat. Priests dressed in silky orange and cream robes waved tea lights in Christmas Tree stands over and around their heads. Music played, bells rang and chanting was heard from many of the ghats near to ours as each ghat celebrates the prayer ceremony at a slightly different time, so the sounds and sights were even more surreal.

The next day we were up at before 5am ready for a sunrise boat trip. A procession of hundreds of pilgrims walked silently down the streets towards the river and once aboard our small boat we watched prayer rituals as people submerged themselves in the river at all the ghats.. At one, Dinesh prepared for his holy dip in the Ganga whilst we all looked on. One young man sat alone on a ridge, the epitomy of calm amidst the chaos as he meditated with incense sticks lit beside him, occasionally sprinkling Ganga water over himself.

We were given a close up view of the cremation ghats where fires burned and families stood watching. Dogs and cows nosed around in the ashes and one guy chose to clean his teeth at the river at one of these ghats. Aghori's covered in ashes sat in meditation (google these saddhus..it is grim!). All our senses were assaulted in this contradictory place; quintessential India perhaps, chaotic, peaceful, confronting and inclusive. Varanasi defies description.

Later in the day we headed out for more retail therapy amongst the heaving crowds. Then it was time for 5 of us to make our way back to the hotel. We successfully fought off a dozen tuk-tuk drivers desperate for our custom to hire just one, and we all piled in, local style (the tuks seat no more than 2 comfortably). Our journey back to the hotel was crazier than any fairground ride, we played dodgems with a myriad of other road users, squeezed through impossibly small spaces, mounted gravel heaps to find a way through the jammed roads and lurched over potholes, clinging on tightly until we arrived.

So that was Varanasi. I was quite ready to leave. One day I will go back.