INDIA 1. VARANASI, SACRED CITY???

Sunday April 27, 2014

Having bade farewell to our new Nepali friends we set-out on the next leg of our journey. 8 days of vacation in India. Many years earlier we had toyed with traveling to India with our good friends Nick and Julie for the Branch dedication but it didn't eventuate. It's probably a good thing that India was not our first overseas vacation, that we have had opportunity to exeprience several foreign lands because India is no place for the novice or faint hearted. It's an oft used cliche, but India truly is an assault on all of the senses. Added to that, I had not fully recovered from a bout of food poisoning the week before so a little short on energy having barely eaten for a week.

Our first stop is Varanasi on the famous Ganges River. We could not imagine visiting India without seeing this river, even in the dry season as it is now. The Ganges is the most sacred river to Hindus. It is worshipped as the goddess Ganga. It seems as though most things are sacred and worshipped here.

This young chap certainly seems happy to be in the river. Hindus love getting into the water. Nothing scares us more than the thought of being in there with him... It was ranked as the fifth MOST POLLUTED rivers of the world in 2007, a fact that we could see with our own eyes now.

Varanasi on the bank of the Ganges in the state of Uttar Pradesh, is renowned by Hindus as "the holiest" of the seven sacred cities in India by Hindus and Jains and as we were to discover the next day it has a significant role in the history of Buddhism. This city is literally steeped in religion.

Spending 2 days here has given us a deeper appreciation for our clean worship and our God Jehovah who significantly gave clear direction in the "very" first commandment at Exodus 20; "1 Then God spoke all these words: 2 “I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 You must not have any other gods besides me. 4 “You must not make for yourself a carved image or a form like anything that is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. 5 You must not bow down to them nor be enticed to serve them, for I, Jehovah your God, am a God who requires exclusive devotion, bringing punishment for the error of fathers upon sons, upon the third generation and upon the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing loyal love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."

I cannot help speculating that the expression "house of slavery" may have referred equally to the condition of the Egyptian people who were spiritually enslaved to the worship of legions of cruel violent "gods" as to the former situation of the Jews in physical slavery.

It could literally be said that millions (even billions) of Hindus are "dying to come to Varanasi" because it's religious "industry" is based on death and cremation. Wiki says; Some Hindus believe that death at Varanasi brings salvation. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Varanasi is also known as the favourite city of the Hindu deity Lord Shiva (god of destruction).

The scene above, taken from our taxi, is played out hundreds of times each day as grieving family's dutifully bring their dead to be cremated on the river bank.

Our hotel is on the river bank in the old part of the city where the roads are too narrow for cars. So our India experience begins... The AC taxi stops at a noisy overcrowded intersection and we are directed to follow with caution a young man with red beetle nut like stained teeth who will guide us to our hotel. An uncomfortable prospect but how will we find it without his help.

It's not the first time we have followed a creepy stranger down a dingy smelly alley but we always hope it will be the last...

Oh, and it's hot... Very hot... Don't be mislead by the 25. By the early afternoon when we arrived it was nothing short of the predicted 42 degrees centigrade. The sights and smells in the narrow alleys, packed with shops, people, honking motorbikes and searly looking dogs are best left undescribed...

And so we followed him to the hotel. Perhaps there might have been a more direct route but after many twists and turns we arrive at the hotel. We give him a tip and promise to consider (for 0.05 seconds) coming to souvenirs shop tomorrow... We DO NOT want to buy souvenirs in this city...

Our hotel, the Ganpati (which we discovered is another name for the elephant head god Ganesh). A little disturbing. Anyway, this hotel proved to be a quiet and impressively clean retreat from the sensory overload of our surrounds. $20 per night well spent thanx to Alexandra's powers of prebooking...

The view of the courtyard from our room.

Me...

And from the other side of the courtyard, the view we had come here for. The mighty Ganges. It is dry season at present so the water is low. In wet season when the Himalayas give their melted ice the water level will rise from 10 to 20 meters.

That distant sandbank becomes river bed.

Wooden boats.

Indian tourists.

This old man called out to us; "boat sir?". We couldn't have an old man row us up the river...

So we went with a younger chap. We agreed to $2 each for an hour... Of course he stretched the journey to an hour and a half but who could argue.

Our hotel, the reddish building with the rooftop resturant umbrellas and the enormous blue depiction of Ganpati, the elephant headed god. Notice the brown water marks on the base of the building at the level of the elephant head. That is where the water level rise to in the wet season... Amazing river.

The steps that form the river bank are called ghats.

Amazingly the river didn't smell despite all that we saw going into it and the dead sacred cows floating in it.

More Indian tourists. We came to like the tourists. They were the ONLY Indian people with whom could share a smile and sometimes a conversation without it ending in a sales pitch.

And here is the focal point of the Varanasi Ghats. The Burning Ghat. The cremation centre. On average 2-300 bodies are cremated here each day using a couple of hundred kilograms of wood per body. Each cremation takes about 3 hours. The fires burn 24/7. A massive industry.

Technically you are not supposed to photograph the burning ghat and it is strictly policed but like most tourists we managed to sneak a few in.

Sacred cows forage among the pollution and fires. The filth is .... Indescribable.

Incredibly to us, the next day we walked to the burning ghat (where we did not dare sneak any photos) and were actually invited to walk right between the fires by what we think was a "ghat police man"!!! We kind of attached ourselves to the back of a group of American tourists who were on a guided tour. The radiant heat was so intense that we almost turned back... The man provided all sorts of explanation but inevitably it culminated in a request for a donation which we respectfully declined to give. It was an experience most unforgettable.