Destination: Varanasi

On January 24th, after almost two months living in Kolkata, I finally set foot to begin my wandering journey throughout India, and beyond. My initial plan was to go south from Kolkata following the eastern coast towards Chennai , spend some time in South India exploring Kerala and visiting Bangalore, Hyderabad and other cities, and the go north through the western coast to get to know Goa, Mumbai (Bombay), up to the state of Rajasthan and the major attractions of North India. However, since some of my dear friends were going west through some of the major spots in the country, I decided to join them and do my intended route backwards.

The gang at the Varanasi station

So, our first stop was Varanasi. This has a unique appeal to it: Varanasi is the most sacred city to Hinduism, as Hindus believe that dying there liberates the soul from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. This is also one of the oldest continually inhabited spots on Earth, with people living here since well into the 3rd millennium BC. As such, most of the city’s life revolves around the ghats, which are really nothing more than certain locations to access the river Ganges, the holy river of India. In Varanasi they are mostly stone stairways that descend into the river proper, allowing people to take their baths or do whatever holy thing they want to.

At first, only me and Ana were planning to go there, but as word of our upcoming trip got around in the vibrant foreigners’ circle of Kolkata, a lot of our friends decided to join us, and nothing less than 10 people got into the 16-hour train ride to the holy city. Here you can see part of the gang doing what travelers in India invariably do lots of: waiting for the train.

We arrived at Varanasi in the morning, and went directly to Alka Hotel, where Ana had made reservations for us. Thumbs up for her:  the hotel was literally at the margin of the Ganges, on top of a high hill, so we had an astonishing view of the river, the ghats and their surroundings from there.

The view from our hotel balcony

The view from our hotel balcony

Thief? Who? Me?

While we were settling on our room, we had an unexpected visitor: this monkey unceremoniously entered our room and started looking for whatever-monkeys-are-fond-of within our things! We had to shoo him away, but not before taking some pictures of the audacious thing. While non-existent in Kolkata, huge populations of monkeys inhabit many cities in India, and they have been a more than common sight everywhere I have been to.

After eating something, we took a walk on the ghats, just following the river and looking around. The ghats are all named – some of them are simple and used just for ritual baths, such as the one you can see in the picture- Hindus believe that taking a bath in the Ganges cleans all the bad karma accumulated over the person’s life, so a lot of people do that despite the stink and heavy pollution of the waters. Other ghats are elaborate, with huge platforms where religious ceremonies, weddings and other gatherings can be held. In one of these a wedding was happening, with a lot of music, cheering and dancing.

Ritual bath at the Ganges

Normal life at the ghats

The Mamandir Ghat

Ana and Giselle, two of the Brazilians (who else?) in the group started dancing like crazy in the middle of the crowd, being led by a kind old lady who afterwards even more kindly demanded some rupees for her trouble.

Dance, dance, dance!

A wedding party

You can see mostly anything along the ghats: people bathing, praying, chanting, dancing, washing clothes and dishes, offering flowers and floating candles, taking boat rides, and selling every little thing you might need to do any of the above. You can even find clothed goats.

Fashion goats

A man saying his morning prayers at riverside

Bear hug

After our long walk, we returned to the hotel to rest for a while and have some beers (thanks God – or Gods – that beer is vegetarian), while waiting for our anxiously anticipated evening boat ride on the Ganges.

Beers at the hotel's restaurant

We took our boat, and were promptly approached by some little girls selling flower-like floating candles for us to offer the river – 30 rupees, sir! Ok, ok, 20 rupees. No? Okaaaay, 10-rupees for you, sir! – these girls simply hop from boat to boat in the middle of the river charming the tourists into buying their flowers. They are very successful in doing that.

Us the the little floating candle girl

Taking the evening boat ride into the Ganges is really some sort of magical experience. The whole atmosphere of the city imbues mysticism into everything.  There is a distinct fog that makes everything looks a little hazy and unreal, and the floating candles and colorful ceremonies at the ghats all add up to that effect. You can find a little video I’ve made about that moment below:

Evening time at the Ganges

Our boat took us to two different places along the river: one was a ghat devoted to burning corpses (more on them later), to which we could neither take pictures nor get too close to, and a ceremonial ghat where a sort of purification ritual was happening. It is quite a sight – hundreds of boats cuddling together near the margins, hundreds of people on the ghat watching the ceremony, and an assault of colors and sounds to your senses. We could almost forget the swarm of mosquitoes enveloping us. Almost.

Purification ceremony

A thousand boats and a billion mosquitoes

Tired and overwhelmed, we came back to the hotel, and after resting a bit we went through the crazy maze of dark alleys the surround Varanasi’s ghats to find something to eat. After some bad service and worse food, we came back to the hotel around 11.pm. Then, a wild idea occurred to us.

Two of the many ghats in Varanasi are devoted solely for the ritual cremation of bodies, one of which is much bigger and more traditional. Somebody in our groups said: “what if we went there RIGHT NOW?”. Since not many sensible people even get to India in the first place, there we were – almost midnight, walking through the deserted ghats towards the main cremation place, in an hour when no tourists are around.

So we finally got to see the real thing up close. It’s kind of hard to describe exactly what was it like to be there in the middle of the cremation ghat. At first, it was pretty clear that a lot of people didn’t want us around there – these are the last rites for their loved ones, after all, and nobody wants nosy tourists fussing around that. However, since it became clear that we were demonstrating proper respect and were not taking pictures, people (especially those interested in a generous tip) warmed up to us and showed us around.

A lot of old and sick people from all around India take a last trip to Varanasi, in the hopes of dying in the sacred city. These people stay at common houses, just waiting for death to come and surviving on the donations of pilgrims. We were offered to visit one of those, but declined out of the fear of unknown diseases there and to avoid intruding too much.

The smoke and smell of the cremation ghat is overwhelming:  burnt wood, burnt bodies and more than a few notes of putrefaction from bodies taken from too far away to be burned here. The pyres (which are just big bonfires open to view, nothing like the clean aseptic procedure of western cremations) at that ghat have been continually lit up and cremating bodies for 3,500 years, day or night, rain or clear, warm or cold. After cremation, the ashes are thrown on the Ganges. Everybody is cremated, except for pregnant women, children and holy men, who are considered to be already pure and do not need purification through fire. In these cases, the whole body is thrown into the river. There are a lot of stories of many a tourist that bumped into floating bodies during their boat rides.

Of course, we did not take any photos, but we have been able to record a very short video of some of the pyres while concealing the camera:

After that we just went straight back to the hotel, where we had to clap and shout for people to open up the doors for us (most hotels close at 10 p.m. in Varanasi). On the morning after, after doing some not-really-worthwhile walking tour around some city temples, we took our train towards our next stop, Agra, and its worldwide famous jewel – the Taj Mahal.

Varanasi is one of the places where you can really feel all the exuberance of Hinduism as a living religion, and really take a glimpse of the pulsing heart of India’s mysticism. An unforgettable experience.