Day 5 - Varanasi

Day 5 - Friday 4 November (This is the colour of the Ganges)

Up at 5, meet Boatman Amir & head down the ghat to the boat, which he rows upstream. It's black on the river until a crack appears between water and sky and the day breaks at 5.45. It would be lyrical (pompous) to describe the rosy dawn, but the reality is no cliche. The mist over the Ganges is a thick grey miasma and the sun is stuck all day on the other side. No visible sunrise; it just jet gets light, prosaically. Thousands of pilgrims stream down the ghats, strip to their lunghis and splash around, throwing water over their shoulders then dip right under holding their noses. I ask Amir if he bathes in the river. "No," he says, "never." Once he's done the hard work of rowing upstream against the currrent, I take a turn on the bamboo oars and we weave a wiggly course back. With my weight in the bows, it's hard to keep the boat in a straight line.

I return to the Alka for a sleep, lunch on a cheese and banana sandwich (toasted), then meet Amir again at midday for the tour. I want to keep stopping for photos, though I know that the contrasty light in narrow alleys rarely works. Amir is rushing me on, keeping two or three paces ahead and sometimes almost disappearing from view if a cow or a crowd blocks the route. I notice Amir's posture has changed now he's taken on the role of tourist guide. He tilts his head back and swings his arms purposefully, and I point out this change to him. "Thank you, uncle," he says, though it wasn't a compliment. My sense of direction in the alley-maze is improving. I begin to recognise the fixtures - my friend the mangy dog, the turds, the "high quality" hashish vendor, the man with no hands, and the in-your-face advert for underpants modelled by a well-endowed white man.

There are shrines and small temples at every turn, and Amir says there are too many to count. So the Nepalese Temple comes as a complete surprise. It is serene and beautiful, clean and cared for (with Rs. 15 entrance fee). Amir indicates a series of little carved (I guess 18th century) illustrations of the Karma Sutra, but won't look at them himself, which surprises me. "These things are very common in our culture," he explains. No place for internet porn, then. The figures are intricate, athletic, and have something in common with that advert, but without the pants. Earlier I expressed an interest in visiting a silk weaving workshop. Big mistake. The place is some way outside the old town and involves two death-defying rickshaw rides, cycle and tuc-tuc. When we get there, the experience begins like a Turkish carpet shop routine. The shawls (silk, pashmena) are several times more expensive than Cambridge market, and they won't show me the "factory" unless I first buy a shawl, so we leave. Through a window I spot a woman working at a frame loom and grab a photo. Almost back, Amir points out his home - at a guess, the floor area is similar to ours, so I ask him how many people live live there. Sixty-five, he says.

My return to Delhi first involves a long roadside wait for my taxi. I narrowly avoid a spraying when a pick-up truck comes past with a cow wedged sideways in its open back. Said cow lifts is tail and squirts in succession over sundry passing cyclists, ricksaw passengers and pedestrians who don't have time or space to get out of the way. The traffic to the airport is crazy beyond mere jams, only a few miles but it takes well over an hour. And it is so dusty that I wish I had a face-mask, at the risk of looking like a Japanese tourist. The dust catches in my throat and I'm starting to cough; my lungs must be lined with china clay.

SpiceJet is the Indian equivalent of Ryanair (plastic seats, refreshments must be paid for), and quickly it gets me back to Delhi and "home" to the Surya Plaza, where I am greeted like a long-lost friend. Strange experience on the way out to eat just now. I am accosted in Main Bazaar Road by a doped-up young man, barefoot, dressed in filthy rags and carrying an old sack. I offer a couple of coins, but he says "No, no money - milk" and points to a little grocery store. When I ask them for milk, they produce a tin of dried milk powder at a ridiculous price (Rs. 495 - about £7). I say no, and they then produce a carton of sterilised milk instead (still Rs. 95) which I reluctantly agree to buy. They then tell me that I must first open the carton, producing scissors to do so, explaining that he will otherwise sell it. "At least this way he gets to have some milk," they say, but beggar-man is not happy. The high-quality hashmen of Main Bazaar Road may have lost a trade.