Varanasi

Varanasi

We were extremely glad for our pre-organised train station pick up  (and he was still there waiting for us even though our train was close to 3 hours late) as Varanasi is incredibly hectic! Arriving at our guest house we had our second brief encounter with Juan the Argentinian bumping into him as he left.

Varanasi is claimed to be the oldest city in the world. It is a very spiritually significant place for the Hindus. This is where we met the Ganges again after first coming across it in Rishikesh.Everything here in Varanasi is centered around the Ganges for the tourists and the locals. The locals make their way daily to the bathing ghats (steps) to bathe in the Ganges and do their laundry. Along the Ganges they also have various burning ghats where families come to cremate their dead on the river banks. Needless to say the Ganges was looking a little worse for wear than the last time we had encountered it!!

As arriving in any of the cities and towns in India, we very quickly learnt the touristy things to do around town with the many persistent offers of boat rides and views of burning ghats. It was slightly disturbing to find that the burning ghats and funerals on the river were somewhat of a tourist attraction however, the idea of a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges amongst the morning hustle and bustle on the river sounded pretty good. 

(Insert pictures of sunrise on the Ganges!)

The sunrise boat ride was awesome, very relaxing and a great photo taking opportunity! There is so much going on on the river even at sunrise with people of all ages bathing, doing yoga and performing their prayers (as the Ganges are cleansing to the spirit). We even saw some very adventurous foreigners taking an early morning dip!! We were a little warier of the water and kept our fingers and toes securely inside the boat! The morbid attraction of the river became more and more apparent along our journey as our boatman (I say man but he was actually only 14) insisted on continually pointing out the 'attractions', 'a dead snake, a dead fish, a dead dog stuck under a boat.' Though we did learn some interesting facts from him, like a man's chest and a woman's hips do not burn fully and therefore they throw them into the river after the cremation. A very interesting boat ride!

One thing we really struggled with in Varanasi more so than anywhere else was the poor animals. Throughout India there are 3 legged 4 legged dogs, these being dogs that have 4 legs but only 3 of which function. There are so many dogs on the streets of India in various states of mal-nourishment and many just wanting a bit of company. They are a very different site to dog at home and many lie sleeping all over the streets with no energy. Not only do the dogs compete with the humans and rats for the scraps and rubbish on the streets but they also compete with the many malnourished cows wandering around. We have seen cows eat the most incredible things (I thought cows only eat grass)! Unfortunately for the cows here anything goes and you see many a cow eating plastic bags and newspaper. It was so shocking to see a cow with a hole in it's rump right through to its spine and another with no hoof to walk on, there were many times we would have happily put a bullet into so many of the poor animals we saw. 

The relationship of the Hindus with the sacred cow is quite a hard one to get your head around when you see these cows on the streets, we wondered if the cows were not better off eaten? We saw people touch the cows and press their hands to their heads, place food out for the cows (chapatis not grass), traffic stand still for just one cow and even a man run from his shop to catch some cow pee on his hand to sprinkle on the steps of his shop!!! We even had a great picture of a huge cow in a fabric shop full of people. It's a complex and very hard one to understand and around India we had many a conversation about how we would help the animals or how we would do it different, but that's just it, it is different, not quite what I would imagine as sacred...

Other than the boat ride we spent our time relaxing and doing some shopping before our journey to the border and into Nepal ...