Varanasi

June 14-16

Two nights in Varanasi was not nearly long enough.
The first day and a half was obliterated by constant rain, and by the time we got to go down on the streets and get our feet wet it was time to leave....just when we were getting in to the city.
Varanasi is from another era. Apparently it's regarded as one of the oldest continuous settlements in the world, like 2000 years old!
It's also one of the holiest cities in India, with Hindu's coming from all over the country to be cremated by the river Ganges.
The old part where we stayed near the river, was a warren of tiny alleyways that could be completely cut off by a meandering cow. You had to dodge sloppy cow pats (ask Jon about that one) and mo-peds, funeral processions and spaced out holy men. It was impossible not to get lost trying to get out of the maze.
We stayed at an awesome guesthouse thats rooftop cafe was basically a big loungeroom for everyone to hang out in, and it has probably been the best place in India we've been to hangout and talk to other travellers.

One morning we got up at 5am for a river cruise in the drizzle. We all got a little paperplate of rose petals and a a lit candle to float on the river. We watched the early morning cremations on the ghats and the locals washing and splashing about. Something that everyone we met debated about. The Ganges is meant to have some ridiculous amount of feces particles per liter of water.. something like 15 million when the safe limit is like 500 per litre, but all the locals washed themselves, their clothes, their animals everyday with out getting sick. None of us went for a dip though.

When it wasn't raining we got lost in the laneways or walked up and down the ghats. There were boys playing cricket every which way, girls hanging out washing, monkeys, cows, goats, cats, dogs....

Varanasi feels ancient, it's like no other place on earth, it draws you in, we met people who had stayed for 5 days and were staying for 5 more..people who had been there for 2 weeks. The appeal wasn't immediately clear and we thought they were slightly mental, but slowly it gets you in, and maybe if we didn't have a train ticket out of there... we would have stuck around too...







Jon getting the hard sell from a local ' Why don't you want to by my henna decoration kit?'









There were lots of murals along the ghats

We sat and watched the cheeky monkeys tease the poor goat while he tried to eat the tree leaves. The monkeys would pull his ears and jump on his back.




Night time view from our balcony overlooking the Ganges.






















Locals playing cricket on the rooftops....even when it was raining they were still up there playing.