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I flew from Port Blair to Calcutta, thus ending 8 and a half months of solid over-landing. Arrival was a bit of a shock at first - after the peace of the Andamans, the chaos of Sudder Street was overwhelming. With my flight home booked for 17 days, I had no intention of hanging around Calcutta, and had bought my train ticket to Varanasi already, set to leave that night. So, I dropped my camera in to be repaired, and spent the day in the parks watching, trying, and failing to understand cricket. I guess after 6 months in Pakistan and India, there's no hope for this Irishman. The guy did a real DIY job on the camera, somehow managing to fix it with a shirt button and pin. And then I was off to Varanasi.

Last hurrah in the city of the dead

Conor Meleady
2006-08-21 18:49:12

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straight into the river. Sadhus, pregnant women and snake-bite victims are also spared a burning. This practice has lead to that most infamous of travellers tales about Varanasi - the dead bodies that can be seen floating in the Ganges as you take your boat cruise. Well, I didn't
Sadhu, Varanasi Full Image
Varanasi's full of 'em!see any on mine, sorry to disapoint.

At dawn, and again at dusk, the ghats swell with people coming down to bath in the Ganges, an extraordinary sight in itself. You can watch Hindus drink, wash, even brush their teeth with water from the worlds most polluted river. At Varanasi, 30 sewers are continuously discharging into the river. Samples show that the water has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 100ml of water, when the level for safe bathing is regarded as 500!!! Such statistics keep the tourists out of the river, but as you can see from the pictures, the devout Hindus jump straight in, and hey, there's over 800 million of them, so the water can't be all that bad!!!

My one gripe with Varanasi, and indeed, my gripe with Hindu sights as a whole, is that they have been spoiled by money. I often think back to the Golden Temple at Amritsar, holiest of the Sikh temples - boarding and food for free. Donation optional. Then I think of Pushkar, Omkareshwar, Madurai, and here, Varanasi, and at every one of these places, you get hustled for money by fake priests, guides, etc. The local pilgrims turn the blind eye, and the tourist either pays up, or (as in my case) storms off for some chai and 'cooling down' time.

Varanasi is India at it's most exotic, most annoying, mosr colourful, most fascinating, most dirty, most ancient, and most overwhelming. In short, it is India, all the best and worst parts, thrown together in one chaotic city. It's not to be missed, or even skimmed over. Give this place some time, and you will be rewarded.
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