Varanasi has been known in history at various times by the name of Kashi, meaning the city of life, local Indians also call it Benares. Upon arrival at the train station, I checked into the tourist office and booked my future tickets for Agra and Jaipur.Train tickets are harder to come by due to high demand and I didn't want to get stuck in a 12 hour bus ride again. The agents were nice and made the reservation a breeze.
I took a prepaid taxi to Godwila, and had to walk the last 15 minutes since auto's are not allowed near the Ghats. Ganpati Guest house was right above Mir Ghat and I selected a wonderful room facing the Holy Ganga. This was also the most I had spent on accommodation since coming to India 2 weeks ago. I soon bumped into 2 German travelers I had met at the Lucky's restaurant in Agra. It was a low key day for me so we all had dinner and I spent most of the day browsing the net using the free wi-fi. The most interesting and life shocking moment occurred when we witnessed a dead man floating in the river. A small boat was bringing the body to ghat steps right below our hotel. The body was of a men, bloated up and at the verge of bursting open any minute. A few onlookers gathered around and after a few minutes of discussion the boat man started paddling and took the dead body back to the middle of the river and let it loose. Is this the value if human life??
Frankie and Thomas had arranged for a sunrise boat trip that I was welcomed to join. We met the guide and the boatmen at 5 am and the ride began. The sun was slightly up but still behind a thick layer of clouds. Its was a little cool and the guide was good at giving us the facts about the different ghats.One of most fascinating ones that I will remember will be the Harishchandra Ghat which is a cremation Ghat.It is one of the oldest ghats in Varanasi where bodies are cremated in public. I still can not get why a affair like burning someone be done in public, boats specially will slow down to give tourist a run down on the process. Do I want it? No. No pictures or females are allowed near the ghat itself. I was glad that Frankie and Thomas agreed with me to keep paddling and not wonder around the ghat. A little further down and we came across the floating body!!! Shit.....it was like 5 feet from me. The guide explained that there are 5 sorts of bodies they don't burn. Pregnant women, priest, people with snake bites, children and people suffering from leprosy. They are thrown into the holy river instead tied with huge slaps of brick so that the body does not float.This floating body is most likely dumped by someone.
We returned to the hotel for some breakfast and spent the rest of the day shopping. Frankie had bought a sari and needed the blouse made,I was going to take advantage of having company and decided to do some saree shopping. The tailor who seemed to be a really nice person recommended a fixed price saree store which was very close by. Frankie and I spent 3 hours going through several sarees till I picked a few. We later all met for dinner at a south Indian restaurant and I had masala dosa for the first time with Mango lassi.A very good end to the day.
The next morning we arranged a 6 hour tour through the hotel to visit a few very significant temples, the Benares Hindu University and the small city of Sarnath. It is said that Buddha came to Sarnath to preach his message of Nirvana and gave his famous first sermon here. Old ruins, pillars can be found here. A new Buddha temple is currently in the works.We completed the tour with a visit to the Benares silk factory where slik sarees were made by hand. It is the most fascinating this I have seen. The saree makers sit for long hours in front of the hand/leg operated machine to produce products worth over 150,000 rupees. Working conditions aren't the greatest and it is sad to see such great talents. But is is part of the Indian life.
I was traveling to Khajuraho by the 5.10pm train so had to bid goodbye to Frankie and Thomas. I arrived to the station and decided to look into booking tickets from Agra to Jaipur and then to Bombay.This was a swift transaction and I had to catch my train at platform five as directed by one of the reps.
I arrived to platform 5 and boarded a train standing. I didn't know how to read my ticket so I asked the first person I saw. He told me that I was on the wrong train and next thing I know the train was moving. I had to get off and the only way possible was to jump off, and that what I did. I landed on my butt with a huge cut on my left ankle. Blood was spilling,but I was more worried about missing my train. I asked a million people if they knew which train was going to Khajuraho and nobody knew. I was bleeding and sweating like a pig, for the last resort I checked the arrivals and departure board to find out that my train was late by 30 mins.With a sigh of relief I arrived to the right platform. I was still bleeding and made attempts to locate the first aid kit in my pack. With no success I torn open a panty liner and tried to stop the building using that.
After finding my bunk and taking a sip of my water, I opened my pack and cleaned my cut and put bandages on. I will have to find a bigger bandage after I get to my next stop. I was glad to be in the train and making my way to the next destination.
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