Taj Mahal to Varanasi

After a very long 13 hour sleeper class train (which is basically like sleeping on a plank of wood, with a filthy piece of plastic sheets covering it) I arrive into Varanasi. I haggle for a rickshaw to take me to my guesthouse. I am taken as close as the rickshaw driver can get to my place as the guesthouse it located down a labyrinth of alleyways that he cannot penetrate so I need to find it myself. As soon as I start walking some man is following me and asking me where I'm staying and then 'guides' me to my place. I don't need to be guided, I can ask for help and I'm trying my darn hardest to be as rude as possible but one thing is for sure, these guys sure are persistent!! He wants to 'help'. Trust me, no one here wants to just help. He 'takes' me to my place and then demands a 'finders' fee from the owner. BUT I didn't need to be found! The people here drive me insane. However I see the owner give the guy money anyway.

Welcome to Varanasi! Varanasi is known as one of the holiest places in India, where Hindu pilgrims come to wash away their sins in the Ganges or to cremate their loved ones. The city is the beating heart of the Hindu universe, a crossing place between the physical and spiritual worlds, and the Ganges is viewed as a river of salvation, an everlasting symbol of hope to past, present and future generations.

I am staying at Monu Family Guesthouse, which is the cheapest place I have stayed so far, but the room is clean and comfortable. Like most beds here, it's not the most comfortable - like sleeping on a plank of wood.

I decide to take a walk along the ghats watching people wash themselves, their clothes in the highly polluted, dead body, human waste, chemicals infested river in the world before I come across the burning ghats which is where they cremate the dead. I can't describe what it's like to be so close to bodies like that. It's like a conveyor belt of bodies. There is a constant stream of bodies being carried down to the river. The bodies don't smell because as soon as they die they massage the body in what I believe is sandal wood. They then wrap the bodies in different cloths. The colour of the cloth depends on whether you are a man, woman, old man, old woman. I can't tell you what the colours are. The body is then carried to the river where they put Ganges water into it's mouth and then it is cremated. This is all done completely in public view as well.

The only bodies that are not cremated are holy men/babas, children under 10, pregnant women, people who have died of snake bites and leprosy. These bodies are not cremated but instead put directly into the river. Basically the Ganges is a giant cemetery!

As I'm wandering the burning ghat (Manikarnika Ghat) I am told that no tourists can stand around but I can view from some viewing platform up in a building. I know that there is going to be money involved at some point but I go anyway. I go up and watch from above when a man comes up to me and starts talking to be about what is going on below and then asks me if I will 'donate' money towards firewood. I tell him I have no money. He then asks to see what's in my bag. I tell him no, you can't look in my bag. He then asks for my watch! Right too far! Does he not know that this is not a normal watch but a classic, old skool Casio?!?! I'm so out of there.
So I get out of the building and stand at the side when the man comes up to me and starts shouting and abusing me, saying I have bad karma and that I'll come back as a dog in my next life because I didn't give him money! He is right up in my face, no more than 3 inches away hurling abuse at me and telling me to get out. I'm thinking, 'say it don't spray it, you can get stuffed. I'm not going anywhere'. I stand my ground and I swear I think he's going to hit me, but I refuse to let him intimidate me. I'm getting pretty mad myself and can feel my face red hot with anger as this man is hurling abuse at me. The next thing I know a big group of Indian men are surrounding us and I'm not sure if they are here to help me or him, so I'm shitting it but I refuse to move. But then he walks off and I quickly make my getaway up an alleyway and past a dead body that is no more than a foot away from me.




Washing in the river - you would never catch me near that water!!

Clothes hanging out to dry