After negotiating the chaos of Varanasi by ourselves the previous day, we had signed up for a tour around the city with the guide from our hotel. Normally this tour would start with a dawn boat-ride alongside the ghats. We were only slightly disappointed, however, to learn that the tour would instead start at 10.30, due to the mist that reduced morning visibility to around two metres in front of one's face.
Finding breakfast was a mini adventure. The first place we tried, which was nearby and had been recommended by a (different) guy from the hotel, was unbearably unpleasant. We raced back down the stairs from the rooftop restaurant before the owner could even wheeze his way up. The next place we tried, where we had eaten the previous night, was closed. In the end our search led us all the way back up north to the Dolphin restaurant.
After returning to the hotel and having some fun trying to book a train from Varanasi to Gaya for the following day, we were led out to our comfortably warm car. Our guide sat in the front seat and told us a little about the city (dedicated to Shiva, god of destruction) as we bounced off towards our first stop.
After ten minutes of navigating Varanasi traffic we drove through the large gates of Banaras Hindu University, the largest in Asia with around 30,000 students. The campus was similar to universities outside U.S. cities, with broad boulevards linking the large buildings that house each of the different faculties. Varanasi-based students cycle in from home while those from the rest of India (and the world) live in dorms on campus.
At the centre of campus lay our first stop, the New Vishwanath Temple, a huge temple to Shiva. We left the car and our shoes at the entrance and padded in our socks into the temple. The temple was only built in the 1960's , but was nevertheless impressive. Since it was Monday (Shiva's holy day), the temple was buzzing with devotees making their offering to the god. At the heart of the temple was a figure (a lingam) symbolising the joining of Shiva's male and female aspects.
Main entrance to the New Vishwanath Temple
Worshippers pour milk or water (gathered from the Ganges that morning) over Shiva's "penis", as our guide repeated as many times as he could. This drains down over the figure and is collected in a cup by a Brahmin priest seated at the foot of the figure. The offeror then drinks from the cup.
Outside the temple our guide showed us some old women whispering prayers into the ear of Shiva's bull, (Nandi), for him to convey to his master. Nandi faces into the temple through an archway, looking directly at the lingam.
Women worshiping Nandi
We shuffled back to collect our shoes, tipping the man who had watched over them, and rejoined our driver. Our next stop was the temple dedicated to Hanuman, the monkey god. Appropriately enough his subjects were patrolling the grounds, although not quite in the numbers we had seen in Kathmandu. Here we had to leave our bags in a locker, thanks to a bombing in 2006 that killed more than 20 (but apparently did not damage the temple).
Slipping off our boots again, we walked amongst the monkeys to the temple. We had managed to arrive just in time to glimpse the orange face of Hanuman through the temple doorway before it was closed. As we walked clockwise around the temple our guide pointed out the pool of stagnant water collecting at the back of the temple. The water was taken from the Ganges and poured over Hanuman, and would be drunk from the stagnant pool by devotees when the temple was closed. Our guide also explained that worshippers offered sweets made from chickpeas, Hanuman's favourite, as well as orange powder that was mixed with water or milk and smeared over the god. The run-off from this was collected by the Brahmin priest and rolled into a ball, from which the faithful smeared a splodge on their forehead using their ring-finger. Our guide asked us whether we minded his marking our foreheads thus; we said we did not object so long as Hindus would not find it offensive. He told us that Hindus were very welcoming and would not mind in the slightest, so we dipped our heads for him to mark us with the red paste.
From there we drove to our final temple, dedicated to Durga, the female manifestation of Bramha. On the way our guide explained a little about the caste system. He asked why we were not yet married, and then proceeded to tell us about his own difficulties in finding a bride. Because his parents had died, his elder sister was responsible for finding him a girl. Unfortunately this was proving difficult because his caste was running low on eligible women. He was worried that, aged 28, it was getting a little late for him. He might have to resort to marrying outside his caste, but would prefer to find a girl from his own caste. He told us that marrying outside of caste was still the exception even in the city, and that in the countryside it was very rare. If parents disapproved of an attempted love-match, as they often did, the youngsters could well just run away together.
Temple to Durga
Anyway, back to Durga. Her 18th century temple was painted a violent red, her favourite colour. Again we arrived just in time to see the goddess and her red-painted offerings. A young lady was the last to make her offering, and was told off for cracking the red coconut herself rather than handing it to the Brahmin priest for him to do so. Immediately afterwards a deafening ringing of bells announced the closing of the temple. As we scurried away from the din, our guide told us that Durga was often besought by women wanting babies. If their prayers were granted, they used to bring a goat to the temple and sacrifice it in front of the altar. The meat would then be taken home and eaten by her family alone. The sacrificing of goats at the temple has since been banned since all that blood was deemed rather unhygienic.
It was then time to head for our final stop before lunch, a shopping trip to the old Mughal town that remains the heart of (north) India's silk industry. We were shown inside one of the "factories", which consisted of a small, dark, bare room wth a few weavers working at their loom. Their work was nevertheless as impressive as their surroundings were spartan. We were then sat down in one of the shops and shown a dazzling array of fine silk shawls and pashminas. In the end Clem did not find what she was looking for, so we offered our thanks for the show and headed off.
Silk loom
We then had some time to ourselves before being picked up at 5.30 for the dusk boat-trip along the Ganges. We walked back up along the ghats, past yet more air-choking cremations, dodging cricket balls and boat touts, and up in the ever-more-chaotic centre of the old town. We were looking for some authentic food and certainly found it. This little place by the side of the road was full of locals, who gave us a rather perplexed look as we entered and made our way up to the mezzanine level. The food itself was excellent, as was the sweet tea that arrived in unholdable metal cups and was poured into plastic thimbles for us to drink from. The only downside was the five minutes of choking on the thick smoke swirling upwards from a huge open frying pan on the street below.
We then made our way back along the ghats, where we briefly watched some kids playing one of the more unusual ghat games. One boy flicks up a stone and whacks it with a stick as far as he can. The other team collects the stone from wherever it lands and from there throws it back towards the first guy, trying to hit a stick lying on the floor. If the stone is well-struck, they have little chance; if it is missed or mishit (as in the video below), they have a better chance. I assume they swap at some point.
Below are a few ghat scenes.
Back at the hotel we tried to book a train from Gaya on to Kolkata, but found that everything was booked up. We ended up booking a train where our "waitlist" number was only 2 and 3, the lowest we could find. We would then have to wait for cancellations, which we read online was fairly common. Fingers crossed.
At 5.30 we were led down to Harischandra ghat by the hotel porter (that is, the guy who'd been sleeping under the reception desk when we arrived very early the previous morning). He handed us over to the boatman, who rolled up his jeans and waded barefoot into the dark waters of the Ganges to fetch the boat. He sculled us up the river to Assi ghat, and then spun us around and headed back downriver, occasionally offering awkwardly incomprehensible comments on the ghats that we passed. We stopped at Dasaswanedh ghat, where that evening's aarti was just beginning. We were one of around a dozen boats that had pulled up together to watch the ceremony from the water. Down by the ghat people were making their own private offerings to the Ganges, setting butter candles off into the stream.
Approaching Dasaswanedh ghat
One of the more impressive ghats
Candle offerings
Watching the aarti from the river
Aarti
After around half an hour the boats started to drift off, evidently having had enough of the aarti. We asked the boatman to drop us there rather than take us back down south, as there was a restaurant nearby that we wanted to try. Our thali (a whole meal on a dish, with curry, rice, daal, poppadoms, and paratha) was excellent, as usual. We cannot say often enough how much we have enjoyed the food in India, which has been consistently delicious (and wonderfully cheap!).
From the centre we decided that, rather than walk along the ghats for the umpteenth time, we would hand our lives over to a rickshaw driver. The video below gives a very limited idea of how hazardous this was, particularly at the first junction/roundabout/free-for-all. Our cyclist delivered us to the hotel in full working order, and we quickly packed up and went to bed, ready for a 4am start to catch our train to Gaya.
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