Day 4 - Varanasi: getting to grips with the ghats

Day 4 - Thursday 3 November and a very long post.... sorry!

The night train allows some sleep, though I wake about 4 and doze thereafter. My fellow-travellers were early bedders and not up for revelry on the midnight express. At 7 am we have a long stop at Alalahabad. The chai-boy whizzes through so quickly I do not have time to stop him. Tea is Rs 10 (15p), with real tea bag and pre-sweetened milky water. I wonder what's for breakfast. ...... That was a hour ago. I now discover that  the proper price of tea is only Rs 4, so that was 150% mark-up for the "farringer". Breakfast is a take on eggy-bread, a floppy Spanish-type omelette enfolded in soft bread. Tasty. Have just bought the English-language Hindustan Times, also 4p, reading of a new government bill to stamp out small-scale graft. I must tell the train chai-walla. 

The countryside is slipping past. This is a long low plain, obviously very fertile and growing a great variety of crops. There are rice paddy fields, and I recognise such staples as cassava and maize. Reminds me of Tanzania, though farming methods here are a notch or two up. I see small tractors and ploughing with pairs of harnessed white oxen. In one field, children are hand-harvesting with sickles or reaping hooks, watched by a ring of white egrets stationed like sentries. The landscape is dotted with banana plants, gnarled mango trees, guava and spindly papaya, all of which once grew in our Dar es Salaam garden. Break: "Waranasi" (as he pronounces it) is in 20 minutes, so says the kitchen-walla who comes to collect Rs 240 for dinner & breakfast. He seems to know most of my details. Should I tell him about great-great-uncle William?

The little villages and farms are mostly of thatched mud huts with some sturdier homes made with red bricks with tiled roofs - as in Tanzania, there are small-scale brickworks everywhere. Corrugated iron sheets, almost universal in southern Africa, don't seem to have caught on here. On the edge of most compounds saucer-size pats of buffalo dung are drying in the sun. One such place has about twenty tethered buffalo supplying the raw material, a regular shit factory. On which topic, I spot a few people "squatting" at the side of the track, which is another social evil of which the great Dr Pathak disapproves. Rubbish is heaped up at the side of the track, I notice, as the train draws slowly into Varanasi. A huge hairy pig obviously loves rooting among the human refuse, and a cow eats its guts to oblivion on discarded plastic bags. Another scourge for Dr P to challenge.

The train draws into Varanasi station. As predicted (see Day 1) I'm here before Jeff, who is still at Stansted, no more pages turned. Here - sure enough - is the guesthouse driver waiting by the very coach (just as you said, MJ, but my train was on time). The ride into town by auto-rickshaw is distinctly hairy, especially with so many bicycles. Think King's Parade, Cambridge, but add rickshaws, handcarts, cars, cows, tractors and hoards of humans all weaving between each other and dodging the piles of rubbish as best they can. The last part is on foot through alleys too narrow even for cycle rickshaws, and so we enter the Hotel Alka with its deep, quiet terrace and the river Ganges just below and beyond. I had no idea the river would be so wide, even though water levels are pretty low at  this time of year. Parts of the terrace juts out, so there are views of the ghats up and down stream. It's pretty central, the best choice (not least 'cos the room is only Rs 750). I'm looking forward to exploring this afternoon.

Varanasi is the dirtiest place by far that I've ever been (and that's saying something!) You really have to watch where you're treading in case of stepping in cow poo or worse. I'm now at the internet cafe - the only one so far with an air rifle propped against the wall. "Do you shoot your customers?" I ask. "Oh no indeed not sir," comes the reply, "only monkeys".

Varanasi (Benares) defies description. I'm trying to write in a bloggish way and avoid guidebookese, but the Rough Guide says "Western visitors since the Middle Ages have marvelled at the strangeness of this most alien of Indian cities: at the tight mesh of alleys, the accoutrements of religion, the host of deities - and at the proximity of death." That about sums up its impact and I'm not sure I have the words to express it otherwise.

Ghats looking East

My hotel is the Alka. I hope this is not an abbreviation for Alka-Seltzer. [Varanasi has a reputation for poisoning people and / or driving them nuts.] It is a modern pinkish concrete block on three floors round three sides of a flower-potted courtyard restaurant, the fourth side being the terrace overlooking the river and nearby ghats. My room is tucked at the "backside" (as Indians say) of a top floor corner, so I can only see the Ganges if I squint sideways. But it's a bargain at Rs. 750 (£10). In fact most things here are half Delhi prices. The Alka has luxuries only dreamed of at Surya Plaza, such as genuinely hot water and a ceiling fan greased so that it does not creak and squeak. Also, all the light bulbs work and there's a curtain at the window. However, I spot a couple of really big mozzies relaxing on my bedsheet and swat them hard, only to find they are just holes in the sheet. But life's never perfect, certainly not here. I am befriended outside the hotel foyer by an unpleasantly mangy dog, most of its fur rubbed away through scrtaching at raw sores. I give it most of a sponge cake, which it gobbles appreciatively, though it may be kinder just to take the dog out and drop it in the Ganges. Which, in a manner of speaking, is what happens to the humans. With no cake left, I boringly have a cheese and tomato sandwich from the hotel's extensive menu. They also offer "mixed fruit sandwich with honey" and I wonder if this also comes toasted.  *

* answer: yes, it does.

Buffalo Wash

This afternoon, I walk along the ghats in a westerly direction. A good move, it turns out. Ghats are steep steps that go down to the water's edge and are where people come to bathe (sometimes complete with shower gel), fill bottles with holy Ganges water, do their laundry, alight for boating excursions, wash their sins and their buffalo, and so on. The ghats are mostly backed by and named after shrines or mandirs (temples) to different gods and goddesses. This is the Hindu Mecca, and devout Hindus try to come here at least once before death - an event which may actually be hastened by the experience. Knowing how unbelievably contaminated the river is (raw sewage, heavy metal factory discharges, human body parts, etc.) it's pretty scary to watch doting fathers encourage their children to duck right under the torrid waters. In fairness, I don't think the river smells any more strongly than, say, the Broads, it just smells of less seemly things.

Sadhu means Saddo

The ghats are colourful and buzz with life from the crazier end of the spectrum. This might include me, with my waving-halo hair and newly bangled arms. I am given a "free" arm massage (one arm) and then agree to part with Rs. 10 to have the other arm done to match (more loud cracks). Before I know it my legs are receiving attention, then I am persuaded to lie down on the pavement (on a mat) and have my back manipulated (read "thumped"). All of this on a public street. Here's a business opportunity for Wymondham, thinks I, as I cough up rather more than the initially agreed Rs.10. I also met some colourful characters - see photo post - who merely impart the sensible dictum that we should not care too much for "the bubble reputation", as someone said. Incidentally, I am also offered a haircut by 3 different barbers. Mohamed, what were you up to?

Some of the ghats are seriously old; this is one of the world's oldest (at least 2500 years) continuously inhabited cities (sorry, guidebookese). To Hindus, their beauty is spiritual rather than architectural. There's no English Heritage here (well, there wouldn't be), and no lovely National trust ladies clutching informative folders to their pearly bosoms. Instead, think Pompeii during a hot Italian summer when the garbage men are on strike and a party of teenagers has just arrived. The upper levels of the ghats catch the breeze and make an ideal launch-pad for colourful kites. Memories of The Kite Runner – this is competitive kite-flying in which the flyers (mostly teenage lads) try to cut each other’s strings. It’s a popular after-school sport.

Varanasi is all about death. The dead are brought here, and the just-living come here to die (there are hospices here, including one run by the Mother Teresa organisation.)  I walk back eastwards, the sun behind me for soft light "photo opps", and continue on, passing below the Alka Hotel until I come to the "burning ghats". These are the funeral pyres that blaze 24 hours a day and every day dispatch hundreds of people on their final journey. Photography is strictly forbidden, but there is a viewing area on the steps behind and, of course, huge stacks of long tree branches ready for use. It takes a lot of wood to burn a body, even incompletely, before tossing the remains in the river. Despite the constant comings and goings and the inevitable presence of sundry cattle, buffalo and dogs, the atmosphere is reverent. Western tourists (there are several) are clearly awestruck, facinated but uncomfortable. Bodies, wrapped in colourful sparkly cloths, are carried down to the burning area on a log-stretcher and first dipped in the holy Ganges. The outer cloths are then removed leaving a simple white shroud, the stretcher placed on a pyre and further logs built up above it. The relatives walk anti-clockwise round and round the pyre, then set it alight. They watch as the body burns until the head mourner smashes the deceased's blackened skull with a pole to release the spirit. It all happens before our eyes.

But then a grief-stricken young man, in great distress, carries down a dead small baby wrapped in a towel. The crowd, who have been chatting softly, goes quiet. Two American packpackers gasp and put their hands to their mouths in horror. It is poignant and upsetting; after a respectful interval I accept the offer of a little guide to lead me back through the alley-maze to the hotel, dodging the shit-piles and snarling monkeys on the way. As one guidebook says, nobody goes away from here unaffected by the experience.

After a rest, by pre-arrangement I meet Anil the Oarsman at 5.30 pm. Indians are good time-keepers. He brings his boat to the lower ghat steps and off we go in the gathering gloom. The boat is strikingly similar in size and shape to a traditional Norfolk punt, double-ended with shallow draft, black tarred bottom, and pegs near the bows for thick bamboo-shafted oars.  Anil's family build similar craft at the top of the ghat steps; they're just finishing a new one which will last for 30  years. Thinks: would make a good article for Classic Boat magazine. Like several young Indians I meet, Anil calls me "uncle", asks if I have a girlfriend, and feigns surprise when I tell him that I already have a son of similar age to himself. I do like Indians.

As we glide down towards the funeral pyres is becomes dark so quickly that I can truthfully say "night falls". I can almost time the splash. On the way back upstream, we light floating lamps in cardboard bowls with marigold petal garlands, one each for Sara and Oli. May they be truly blessed. Anil was, of course, anxious that I should light them for every other member of my extended family too, but I baulk when he tells me they are Rs. 100 each*. Sorry if you might have been on the list. Anil then takes us alongside the ghat, hands over to his younger brother (name forgotten) who rows us up to a higher ghat for the evening concert. This is a sound and light show with glittery costumes, traditional waily tabla music, and clever effects with candles and smoke. Pretty spectacular really, especially when viewed from a small boat on the Ganges. We leave at 7.15, early in proceedings, as I am tired and hungry and younger bro is clearly bored and cold (he points out the goose bumps on his arms) so I take the hint. Delicious meal & a beer (surprise, surprise), all for £3, then bed. Pre-dawn start tomorrow.


* This is fiction, but I forgive him.