Varanasi continued C 11/12 December 11, 2007

Ganges, Varanasi

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

The funeral pyres are lit just before sunset and the bodies put on as the sun goes down. If you’re wealthy you get a big fire with sandlewood, if you’re poor your in the municipal burner just behind the main Ghats (temples). Rich or poor, you get your ashes thrown in the river on completion and this is about 200 dead a day. There are 5 reasons why you don’t get access to a burning 1. Holy Man (rock tied round feet and straight in river) 2. Baby/Child same treatment 3. Pregnant lady same treatment 4. if you are a cow same treatment but no rock 5. If you get killed by a cobra bite, it’s special privileges all round, you get tied to a banana tree/palm frond raft and floated down the river. As we were being rowed around in the dark being told these facts it became a bit eerie and took on a more spiritual feel. I’m not saying we’ve found religion but as we approached the fires and saw the singing and communal feel of death here it just felt quite serene. We certainly didn’t want to fall in the water though. After witnessing the fires we came back up river, it was getting quite cold now, to see the sunset religious ceremony at the main Ghat. This is a big event and there were crowds of people and lots of people in boats to witness it. Incense burning, chanting and music it was some spectacle! After this we rowed back to shore and had another cup of Chai with Shambhu and his dad, the old man who rowed earlier! This is the first chai we’ve had so far in India and was very nice, sweet and a flavour of Masala. Chill air drove us back to hotel, but felt like we’d had AN EXPERIENCE! The next day wasn’t quite so good, our tuk tuk driver insisted on driving us where he wanted to go, it felt to us and took alot of persuading to do as he was told. We eventually got to the University district which was an enclosed compound in the centre of the city, with clean and uncrowded roads lined with each faculty and loads of kids studying (on a Sunday, you wouldn’t get that at York Taylor!). It wasinteresting that the only dept having any extension work done was the Genetics dept, using three armed builders – suspicious!! After this and a walk around the new temple there and a quick discussion with the dean’s wife (a long story) we told Pramod we wanted to go for lunch. He ignored the name we gave him and ended up at his mate’s gaff, a place with the most inappropriate name this side of the black stump – the Sunshine Hotel. Well the sun was out but the hotel was absolutely gopping. To add insult to injury as we just had a Pepsi only safe thing on menu, our drives settled in for a cheese toastie. Cheeky git! Anyway after thathe also took us to a dodgy silk shop in the Muslim part of town, in some backstreets that looked like the set of Oliver (not the nice parts). Having second thoughts about driver at this stage! That said the next day he picked us up at 06 dubs for our trip back to the Ganges, this time for sunrise. Again as we approached through narrow lanes and back roads it looked very dull. Also freezing cold with not many other people around. As we came out onto the river side, we realised where all the people were, in boats being rowed around for the sunrise experience, they’d got there before us. It looked freezing though so we turned down the offer of a boat ride and just had a quick walk and then a cup of chai with the locals on the Ghat steps. Quite peaceful, even though the fog completely obscured sunrise. After that we arranged to be rowed to the Banares era Fort which was further up river by the pontoon bridge. Set off, this time with Shambhu’s younger brother Shankar. Halfway to the fort, myself and Soph decided to row, it was still fairly cool with some residual fog being burned off by the weak sun. That was great fun, singing ‘messing around on the river’ and trying to beat each other to the title of best rower (me, by the way). We rowed underneath the pontoon bridge and beached , for the short walk up to the fort and museum. Fairly surreal really, some good exhibits of guns and weaponry (Soph loved that as you can imagine) and some displays that looked like a car boot. Anyway back to the boat after a bit of culture and raced with tide back to the Ghat. We just sunbathing and snoozing in the heat of the day, very nice. After that we got swindled on the price and the ‘i am your very good friend talk’ lured us into schoolkids error of paying over the odds. We were annoyed with this constant pressure for money, so shortly after binned our tuktuk driver as well. In the evening we returned to the main Ghat to witness the sunset ceremony from the shore. In a perfect piece of timing, we arrived just as they were snuffing out the candles, genius! After that there was a bit of communal singing and hand clapping, a bit like a scout jamboree with incense. We had a full blown Chinese after that and it was nice to have none curried food! We are checking out today for a huge train journey down to the South East coast a place called Puri, the journey (according to a variety of sources) lasts between 23 hours and 30 hours depending on who you believe. We stocked up on sweets and crisps for the trip but this time we are without S. African red wine so it may be quite painful. We’ll send next blog from the coast. By the way if you were wondering about photos, if you double click the photo on the blog you will be taken to the FlickR web-site where all our phots are stowed, so hopefully everyone can see what we’ve been getting up to. Happy Christmas.