The Holy City

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  Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Wow- where do I begin? This is by far my favorite place we've visited. Varanasi is the spiritual center for Hindus- you know the pictures of people walking down the ghats (steps) to bathe in the sacred River Ganges. The religious practices and spiritual rituals don't really speak to me. Varanasi is also one of the poorest regions of India and seeing the gross discrepancies bewteen the wealthy (including plenty of Western tourists) and the mass of impoverished locals here obscures any magical, enlightened experience I might hope to be enjoying. Fortunately, the hotel where we're staying doesn't have give me that icky exalted feeling like like I had in the other cities. My towels are stiff, dingy, and obviously washed in the highly polluted Mother Ganges. The electricity goes out frequently at our hotel (it gets hot so quickly without that fan!), and the staff isn't tripping all over us (a welcome relief). I'm typing on a computer whose keyboard has white out written on the keys to indicate the different letters. Needless to say, I won't be posting pictures until I get back to a more high tech situation, maybe back in Delhi sometime the first week of August. I remember feeling so frustrated about the inefficient computers earlier in my trip- now I'm totally relaxed.

So I'm really having the "India" experience- right off the train we encountered a small classroom's worth of dirty, skinny kids begging and collecting bottles at the train station. By the way, there's nothing like the Varanasi train station- cows were sleeping in the waiting area when we arrived! In town the ubiquitous cows block traffic on the dirt roads and even the narrowest alleys . Actually, we hadn't seen too much of India's infamous freely roaming cows until we got to this holy place. I checked my e-mail driectly after arriving yesterday- I was at an "interent stall" where only a canopy hungover four or five computers (which were otherwise totally exposed to the internet). I enjoyed this magical moment of reading over an e-mail from my husband and looking up to watch a cow eat garbage in the street.

The scene here is fantastic- plenty of Westerners walking around- which means plenty of internet cafes (none too high tech), telephones, shops, and small restaurants. However, the look is perfectly Indian- you can't spit and not hit some-hole-in-the-wall (literally) temple. The ghats are amazing to behold, and people are bathing and enjoying the river (the guide said people use the water only for sacred purposes, but I have plenty of photographic evidence showing serious "cannonball" action).

I'm also getting to know locals here- which is practically a first after nearly a month in India. Many children work on commission for shops around town attracting shoppers- I know they just want me to come in their shops (and I do), but in exchange I get to interact with them and hear their stories. One 10-year old in particular speaks English far too well- he is a smooth operator when it comes to luring tourists. It's heartbreaking, but it's such a nice break from shuttling around other cities isolated in our bus or walled off in a super fancy hotel compound at night. More to come when I get time (happily, however, I'm much busier here and distracted from my internet addiction).

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traffic on narrow lanes

bathing

fun in the Ganges

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