And here we are... Varanasi/Benares or what else you can call this amazing city. Amazing in it's whole sense. How can someone describe the shock and the joy of being in Varanasi?
First of all, we loved it. Well, I loved it, but Joao liked it too. And we really wanted to stay longer, but our short remaining time doesn't allow us any more changes, so we had to take it or leave it the way it is.
Arriving in Varanasi is the same as arriving in any of India's major cities: the same fuzz, the same confusion of rickshaws and hotels and not knowing where to go or who to trust, nothing special at all :) at least nothing we hadn't learned to deal with. The only problem was that we've been traveling for the past couple of days with a group of tourists we met in Lumbini, and they had different plans about where to stay, wich caused some stress: main lesson - you better keep doing your own stuff and following your instincts about people/plans instead of leting other people decide for you! We learned it, but it was somehow a bit hard, because when we finally realised we didn't want to accept their agreement, the rickshaw kind of refused to take us back to the place we wanted to stay... lesson number two: choose CAREFULLY your travel mates, or you end up hating yourself/the mates :)
Anyway we managed it somehow and ended up alone again (better alone!) in a nice place close to a temple in Assi Gath, the southest Gath (= "place near the river", in other words where the people bath). It was a nice experience only to walk for 2 hours with no real destination through the Gaths and streets of Varanasi in a Sunday afternoon (someone told us it was Sunday), sometimes talking to people, sometimes giving sweets to the kids... and sometimes seeing a burning phyres or a corpse being thrown in the river... strangely, we were not schocked about that. We could have been in other circunstances, but not there, because in Varanasi death and life are straight related and they all form the beauty of this strange city.
This doesn't mean we would come to the extreme of touching the Ganges water. Okay, this is holly water, but not holly enough for us to come closer. It's strangely not smelly, but we know how dirty it is.
In Varanasi other strange, great thing happened: we met Victoria and Johan, the Brazilian/French couple we've already met in Sikkim, just like this, as if it was the most normal thing in the universe to meet friends in a distant place. This was great! Specially because Johan took us to try the "pan" - this strange thing Indian men put oon their mouths and spit red on the floor. And we really liked it, because of the taste but also because suddenly we belonged to those who spit, instead of belonging to those who feel disgusted about it. That's India, and that's what we like here! :)
Here just some glimpses of our Varanasi experience:
- On Monday we woke up at 4:45 to do the Ganges boat trip, but since this was Shiva's Day (how lucky), we couldn't go to the Main Gath. Instead of it, we walked around while our boatman waited for us, and saw... a LOT of SNAKE CHARMERS! Yes, we finally found them, when we had already almost lost our hopes. They were everywhere, as well as their cobras, extremely beautiful and dangerous cobras... what a life!
Snake charmer
- Later while having breakfast with a group of Valencianos and a Mexican girl in a rooftop restaurant, we suddenly saw a big comotion near the river, and Joao went to see what was happening. A 20-years old guy had drown there, just in front of us, and has been rescued by some passing-by people. Well, Indian way: instead of cardiac massage and mouth to mouth, a "holy man" did a kind of a massage on his back... and the guy just died in front of us.
- In the afternoon, we came to see the main burning Gath, Manikarnika Gath, and this was surely a mistake. There's a mafia working there, catching up on tourists and taking their money. They are extremely aggressive and can be a real danger and there's no police around there. We had a really bad moment trying to escape them and didn't want to see the crematory anymore.
- In Manikarnika Gath we saw one of the most horrible images of our whole lives: a dog walking with an open skull, so that we could see his brain while he passed by, waiting to be eaten alive by the crows.
- But we also met a lot of extremely nice and welcoming people, honest people who talked to us, children that asked for money but that were nice and friendly even when they realised we wouldn't give them anything. We ate sweets sitting on the streets, had fresh juice like the locals, had a lot of laughs and strangely felt in love with this city lost in time, where you feel like 200b.C. (Joao says 2000 b.C., but I think he's exaggerating... ;)
Street of our (amazingly nice) hotel
First of all, we loved it. Well, I loved it, but Joao liked it too. And we really wanted to stay longer, but our short remaining time doesn't allow us any more changes, so we had to take it or leave it the way it is.
Arriving in Varanasi is the same as arriving in any of India's major cities: the same fuzz, the same confusion of rickshaws and hotels and not knowing where to go or who to trust, nothing special at all :) at least nothing we hadn't learned to deal with. The only problem was that we've been traveling for the past couple of days with a group of tourists we met in Lumbini, and they had different plans about where to stay, wich caused some stress: main lesson - you better keep doing your own stuff and following your instincts about people/plans instead of leting other people decide for you! We learned it, but it was somehow a bit hard, because when we finally realised we didn't want to accept their agreement, the rickshaw kind of refused to take us back to the place we wanted to stay... lesson number two: choose CAREFULLY your travel mates, or you end up hating yourself/the mates :)
Anyway we managed it somehow and ended up alone again (better alone!) in a nice place close to a temple in Assi Gath, the southest Gath (= "place near the river", in other words where the people bath). It was a nice experience only to walk for 2 hours with no real destination through the Gaths and streets of Varanasi in a Sunday afternoon (someone told us it was Sunday), sometimes talking to people, sometimes giving sweets to the kids... and sometimes seeing a burning phyres or a corpse being thrown in the river... strangely, we were not schocked about that. We could have been in other circunstances, but not there, because in Varanasi death and life are straight related and they all form the beauty of this strange city.
People in a Gath
This doesn't mean we would come to the extreme of touching the Ganges water. Okay, this is holly water, but not holly enough for us to come closer. It's strangely not smelly, but we know how dirty it is.
Man washing clothes in the Ganges
In Varanasi other strange, great thing happened: we met Victoria and Johan, the Brazilian/French couple we've already met in Sikkim, just like this, as if it was the most normal thing in the universe to meet friends in a distant place. This was great! Specially because Johan took us to try the "pan" - this strange thing Indian men put oon their mouths and spit red on the floor. And we really liked it, because of the taste but also because suddenly we belonged to those who spit, instead of belonging to those who feel disgusted about it. That's India, and that's what we like here! :)
Here just some glimpses of our Varanasi experience:
- On Monday we woke up at 4:45 to do the Ganges boat trip, but since this was Shiva's Day (how lucky), we couldn't go to the Main Gath. Instead of it, we walked around while our boatman waited for us, and saw... a LOT of SNAKE CHARMERS! Yes, we finally found them, when we had already almost lost our hopes. They were everywhere, as well as their cobras, extremely beautiful and dangerous cobras... what a life!
Snake charmer
- Later while having breakfast with a group of Valencianos and a Mexican girl in a rooftop restaurant, we suddenly saw a big comotion near the river, and Joao went to see what was happening. A 20-years old guy had drown there, just in front of us, and has been rescued by some passing-by people. Well, Indian way: instead of cardiac massage and mouth to mouth, a "holy man" did a kind of a massage on his back... and the guy just died in front of us.
- In the afternoon, we came to see the main burning Gath, Manikarnika Gath, and this was surely a mistake. There's a mafia working there, catching up on tourists and taking their money. They are extremely aggressive and can be a real danger and there's no police around there. We had a really bad moment trying to escape them and didn't want to see the crematory anymore.
- In Manikarnika Gath we saw one of the most horrible images of our whole lives: a dog walking with an open skull, so that we could see his brain while he passed by, waiting to be eaten alive by the crows.
- But we also met a lot of extremely nice and welcoming people, honest people who talked to us, children that asked for money but that were nice and friendly even when they realised we wouldn't give them anything. We ate sweets sitting on the streets, had fresh juice like the locals, had a lot of laughs and strangely felt in love with this city lost in time, where you feel like 200b.C. (Joao says 2000 b.C., but I think he's exaggerating... ;)
Que sortudos!! conseguiram ver um encantor de cobras!! =D
RépondreSupprimerGente...cuspir na frente das pessoas não é direito.
Mas, com a saudade que estou da Índia, se visse um indiano agora, com aqueles típicos dentes pretos e cuspindo pan, tascava-lhe um beijo na boca!! rss..
Parabéns pelo blog queridos!! As fotos estão lindas!
Grandes Beijos.
Elisa