Day 19: VARANASI
Saturday, May 19, 2012
I woke up about 7 in the morning at night train from Khajuraho to Varanasi, but seeing that everyone was still sleeping on the train, I closed my eyes again and did the same.
The saying goes: "Wherever you go, do what you see" and I will not do otherwise.
At 8 in the morning they brought us 4 toasts, plus 2 hard boiled eggs and chai for 100 rupees each one we paid last night when they came to ask us if we wanted to have breakfast.
Giving a nod… Khajuraho night train to Varanasi in 3AC
Roger Bunk on the Khajuraho Night Train to Varanasi
After breakfast, another nod and already seeing that there was an hour left to reach Varanasi We have started to prepare things.
Roger says he has woken up many times, but I have slept like a log, yes my back has been a little touched, but nothing I can not remedy with an anti-inflammatory 🙂
Upon leaving the night train from Khajuraho to Varanasi We have met the person Mahendra sent us to find us and he will be with us the first day we are in Varanasi.
In principle this part we told Mahendra that we would do it for free, but yesterday Om told us that Mahendra had sent someone to pick us up at the station and take us to our hotel Varanasi, The Gateway Hotel Ganges.
At least it will help us this first day with transfers and the last to take us to the airport.
After traveling half a station loaded as donkeys, we have reached the parking lot and we have set off to what will be our hotel for the next 3 nights, The Gateway Hotel Ganges of the Taj chain.
Along the way the driver has told us that he will be with us every day of Varanasi.
Mahendra keeps insisting on giving us everything she can, even if she isn't here with us :))
More practical information to prepare your trip to India
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He tells us what we had already thought, that now it is best to rest because it is very hot and around 5.30 in the afternoon he will come to find us to take us to the ghats area and so today have the first contact with the city.
So we can't refuse and stay with him at that time.
We have hit some showers that have left us as new ... it seems a lie that we can feel with so much "dirt" on top !! :))
Today we decided to eat at the Hotel de Varanasi. We ordered a chicken kebab and a lamb dish.
The dishes are quite large and the quality is very good.
This plus 2 sodas and a water… 2000 rupees !! Take it now! This has been the most expensive meal in the trip to india… :) Of course, we cannot deny that we have eaten first.
The only thing is that the waiters are so attentive that they even fill the main course plate every time you finish.
Too "chic" for us ... hahaha
At 5.30 we are ready to go to the ghats area of Varanasi, so we are punctual and wait at the reception as nails.
Upon leaving the hotel we see that traffic is chaotic. I think it is the worst we have seen so far in India. There are hundreds of people crossing the streets, animals, rickshaws ... cars, motorcycles ... and especially the noise of the horns sounding ... that invades everything.
No wonder that people who start the journey by Varanasi It runs out shortly after being here.
The driver leaves us in a parking lot where we just have to follow the main street for just over 10 minutes to get to Ghat Dasaswamedh. One of the main ones and where a very special and very spiritual ceremony is held every day at 7 p.m.
The way we do it among people who want to sell us everything ... I believe that if you ask for the moon, they will sell it to you for sure !!
Just arrived… Dasaswamedh Ghat in Varanasi
Dasaswamedh Ghat
Today we do not have concrete planning, today we just want to take a first contact for tomorrow and last to devote ourselves more to photos and walks.
It is very hot and the humidity is at least 500% ... we do not stop drinking and at the same time sweat.
Although it is already mid-afternoon, the heat does not go down, it seems that it increases at times.
We look like sources. I don't remember ever having been so hot ...
And so we go through the Gaths of Varanasi, without hurry, just looking ... recognizing some profiles that we had already seen in some photos.
But it is not the same, the photos do not perceive the suffocating atmosphere, the mixture of heat, smells, noise ... all this makes an explosive cocktail, on the same stairs of the Ghats.
Varanasi
Without noticing too much, we have not looked at the names of the Ghats we are arriving at, when we suddenly see some pyres in the distance.
At the moment we do not know if we are already arriving at Manikarnika Ghat, the main crematorium of Varanasi, considered as the best place to be cremated in India.
As we move forward, we have to get rid of some men who approach us to offer us everything ... and suddenly we see it, yes, we are where we believed.
We see in the distance the doms, a caste of untouchables, which is responsible for transporting the corpses.
In just under 5 minutes, they go down to three bodies, covered with orange sheets, to those who wet in the river before setting fire.
We are there for more than half an hour, sweating, almost without looking at each other ... it is a somewhat strange experience.
In this image there are only contrasts, colors, smells, sounds and we mix again in that cocktail that surrounds us since we arrived.
While they incinerate a body, people bathe right next to them.
We are watching and people follow their lives, without even looking at us.
Life and death. All in one and at the same time so separate that it never touches itself.
And what surprises me most is that nothing has happened inside me.
I am only curious about the lack of knowledge of what I am seeing.
I do not feel anything else, there is no sorrow, there is not that feeling of "pain" that I thought I would have when witnessing this image.
Perhaps that is what death means ... the end of something to start something new. And that's why you don't have to feel pain.
And perhaps only this can be understood here, in Manikarnika Ghat, on the banks of the Ganges, in Varanasi.
After a while, we turn to go back to the Dasaswamedh Gath, without speaking, without looking at each other, but first we take a last look ... the piles of wood are huge.
Varanasi Ghats
With the body and mind still thinking about what we just saw, we arrived after 15 minutes from 7 to the Ghat of the ceremony.
Here we try to take a good place and we are ready to enjoy the ceremony.
Dasaswamedh Ghat
The Ceremony begins, Dasaswamedh Ghat
Environment on the bank of the Ganges in Dasaswamedh Ghat
Details in Dasaswamedh Ghat
It's almost 8.30 in the afternoon, so we're going to have dinner at the Dolphin Restaurant in Varanasi.
After climbing some endless stairs and finishing sweating everything we hadn't sweat, we finally arrived at the Rooftop Restaurant.
We eat a couple of pasta dishes and some chips, plus two sodas for 400 rupees.
With this meal we have amortized a little the expense of this noon ... that we have left the budget 🙂
At 10 pm we are entering The Gateway Hotel Ganges, still almost without digesting everything we have seen and lived. Now we have to rest.
Tomorrow we will meet at 4.45 a.m. with Naresh, which will take us for a boat ride on the Ganges at dawn.
Good night India!!
Day 20VARANASI
