We left Khajuraho on an over night train and arrived in Varanasi about 3pm. After getting a tuk tuk to our accommodation we showered and went in search of food for dinner. Our accommodation was very close to Assi ghat so we decided to head in that direction first. We found the ghat really quickly and so just went for a wee walk along some of the ghats before heading back as it was starting to get dark. We found a place for food near the main street at Assi ghat and when we were climbing the stairs to the roof top restaurant we both clocked how nice the rooms looked. Our own accommodation was cheap and included breakfast but while we were getting ready after our showers we both noticed how hard the bed was so we agreed that after dinner we would enquire about the room prices just incase. We both ordered veggie burgers, which we've really enjoyed while in India, for a change from curry and chapatti, but when it arrived it didn't really look like a vegetable burger and upon eating it we both concluded that the burger was just potato. It was still very tasty though. When we left we asked about the rooms, to which they told us they were Rs900 a night. This was almost twice what we were paying at our own place so decided to leave it but when we went to leave they said they would give us the room for Rs600 if we stayed for more than one night. This was still a bit more than the place we were in and it didn't include breakfast so since we'd already paid for one night at the original place we decided to give that one a try and come back in the morning if the bed turned out to be too hard.
I woke up the next morning having dreamed that we had been sleeping on a bed which didn't have a mattress, just wood...that's how hard the bed was. Kay had a terrible sleep too, she kept waking up in pain. We decided to check out there and then and head over to the place we'd eaten at the night before. We were told at check in that they offered a complimentary guide who would show us around Varanasi and that they could arrange boat trips up the Ganges for us. We said we would think about it and went to inspect our new room. The bed wasn't very soft either but it was much better than the previous one, maybe hard beds are just the norm in Varanasi. While we were up in our room we checked the reviews on tripadvisor for the place we were in. I was leaving one for the place before to warn people about the awful beds. We read a lot of people say that the complimentary guide was brilliant and very useful as the old part of Varanasi is a bit of a maze. We decided we would go for some lunch and then take them up on their offer of the guided tour. We had lunch at a place called open hands which was a NGO place who sold items made by women in need, be that women fleeing from violence or women with disabilities who couldn't work. We had banana and chocolate pancakes and Kay had chai and I had a huge cafetière of beautiful coffee. I also bought an indian christmas tree decoration to add to my ever growing collection. Ajay ( our guide) came to collect us from the cafe at 1pm and showed us around some temples and the university campus (which is huge). We walked around all these places for about 4hrs so when he wanted to show us some place where Muslims lived and made silk we declined as we were getting tired and hungry. Ajay took us back to the accommodation but told us he would take us down to the ceremony at the main ghat if we wanted, this started at 6pm so we had a quick rest and then got an Indian helicopter (bicycle tuk tuk) down to the main ghat. Ajay waited for us while we watched the ceremony which lasted 45minutes and involved 5 priests offering fire sacrifices to the gods. It was really good but the best view seemed to be from the boats which were sitting in front of the ghat so we made a mental note to come see it again from the water. After, Ajay asked if we wanted to carry on further down the ghats and see the cremation ghat. We said that we did because this is what Varanasi is famous for. When we got down there Ajay handed us over to someone who worked at the cremation ghat. He explained to us what was happening which was really interesting but then he guided us into the ghat so we could get a better look. Myself and Kay really didn't enjoy this bit for a couple of reasons, firstly it wasn't very pleasant being so close to burning dead bodies, especially when the guide continually pointed out skulls and feet hanging out the end. We also felt that we were intruding on something that is sacred and very difficult time for the families. I'm sure the last thing they need is to have tourists gawking at they're loved ones. Our guide had been telling us while we were walking around that the wood used for burning the bodies was very expensive and that they needed a lot of it for each person and so the poor couldn't afford it. I thought, here we go, he will be wanting us to buy loads of wood because they think that because we're western that we have loads of money. He did eventually ask how much we would like to buy and also said that it would be good karma for our parents (guilt trip). I handed over Rs 100, to which we was utterly appalled and asked us if that was all our parents good karma was worth to us. I told him it was all we had on us (lies) but what I really wanted to say was, "I know this is a scam, and my parents would be mad that I gave you any money at all!". Ajay took us for some nice chai after, he knew all the best places in Varanasi for chai, and then we went back to the accommodation and completely changed our clothes as we we were both smelling like fire which was just reminding us of the sights we'd seen at the cremation ghat. We decided to just eat at the same roof top restaurant we'd eaten at the night before (the one at our new accommodation) as it was really late by this point and we were both tired and hungry.
The next day we decided to take a walk along all the ghats in Varanasi. We went as far as the main cremation ghat but we were both still a bit traumatised from the night before and so decided to stop there and head up into the old city. The place is a complete maze of narrow streets and very tall buildings and so we got lost pretty quickly. Luckily for us the restaurants and guest houses usually have directions painted on the walls. I clocked a sign for a place called Blue Lassie that I had read about in our guide book, it said that it was really tasty lassie in every flavour imaginable. We eventually found it by following the painted signs and it didn't disappoint. I had chocolate orange flavour which tasted like Terry's and Kay had apple and mango which was lovely too. While we were sitting having our lassie we saw some dead people being carried by their family members down to the cremation ghat. They are wrapped in dressings and decorated with flowers and other offerings so this wasn't an unpleasant sight to see, very interesting. We left Blue Lassie and tried to navigate our way to the ghat on the other side of the cremation ghat so we could carry on with our walk. We got very disorientated and after a while we started seeing signs for the Blue Lassie again so we suspect we were just walking around in circles. We asked a local for directions and they kindly led us down to the ghat. By the time we got there it was starting to get dark, and since the streets were difficult enough to find your way around in the light, we decided just to head up to the main road. Once up at the main road we decided to do a quick detour to the golden temple on our way back. We hopped on a tuk tuk and went the short ride to the temple. Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take and photos and because we aren't Hindus we weren't allowed in either. We could only stand at the entrance and peer in so it wasn't really worth the trip. We were told that if we bought some flower offerings for Shiva we would be allowed in to the temple to give our offerings. I didn't feel very comfortable doing that as the temple was strictly for Hindus and I didn't want to disrespect that. We headed back along to Assi ghat for dinner after that. We weren't feeling too hungry either of us so we decided to order 4 things from the Snacks part of the menu to share. It ended up being one of the biggest meals we had in India! The portions were huge, 8 pieces of veg pakora, 2 broccoli paratha, 8 pieces of potato pakora and 4 things which I thought were going to be onion baji but were something completely different (very tasty all the same). We were totally stuffed but still managed to fit in some Indian sweets that we bought on the way home from dinner.
We had a lazy day the next day, eating food and writing post cards. We did go in search of the post office in the afternoon only to be told that there were no stamps. The post office staffs lack of English and our non existent Hindi meant that "no stamps" was all the information we were getting. We went back to the accommodation to ask if we could buy stamps from anywhere other than the post office and they kindly sent one of the employees to show us where to get stamps. Some miscommunication meant that he just took us back to the post office even though we tried to explain that we had already been and they didn't have any. He did managed to translate for us though that there was a "shortage of stamps" at that time and if we wanted to get some we would need to travel 8km away. So, sorry to everyone who got an Indian postcard with a Thai stamp. That night we took a boat ride along the Ganges so that we could see the ceremony from the water. Our rower was the oldest man on the planet and couldn't row. Could. Not. Row. I was so tempted on several occasions to take the rows off him and do it myself. What should have been a 1hr boat ride, including some time at the ceremony turned out to be an almost 2 hour ride, with very little time at the ceremony and Kay trying to jump ship while he went to relieve himself. I did try to remind myself whilst I was starving, freezing and cursing him under my breath that he probably had arthritis he was so old and I shouldn't get so mad with someone just trying to earn a living.
Our last day in Varanasi consisted of being dragged by Kay in and out of endless shops, taking your shoes on and off each time of course, looking for a new handbag. She was behaving a bit like goldilocks, too big, too small but thankfully she managed to find one that was juuussst right. Our rickshaw ride to the train station (25km away) was one that I will never forget! We started off on normal roads but soon ended up on some dirt track. I thought at one point we were going to topple over the road was so uneven. I wasn't put at ease by our driver when he said "very dangerous road" whilst chuckling away to himself. We then went over a bridge I'm sure was only meant for pedestrian use, it was wooden planks and not much else. This was closely followed by a typical Indian dual carriage way where lorries just drive on any side of the road they like. Nerves shattered, we arrived safe and well at the train station about an hour before we were due to depart. We checked the board at the entrance to see which platform our train would leave from and noticed a 6 next to our train name. We thought to ourselves, surely that isn't how delayed it is, surely not. Surely yes indeed it was. Nightmare. We made our way to the ladies only waiting room which, FYI, are never occupied by only ladies. But they are usually clean and quiet so an ideal spot to rest for 6 hours until our train showed up. As the night went on our train got more and more delayed. We eventually left at 9am the next day, over eleven hours later than expected. We just slept and ate our way through the 23 hour journey (it lost another 9 on route) and arrived in Delhi almost a full day later than expected.
With less than 24hrs in Delhi we decided to shower and head straight out. We headed for connaught place which wasn't far from our accommodation. This is an area in Delhi where all the designer shops and boutiques are. This area is supposedly one of, if not the most expensive places to rent a retail unit in the world. Kay was desperately making one last ditch attempt at finding a decent Christmas present for Andy from India. There is really nothing aimed at men for sale anywhere in india unless you want custom made shoes or a suit, but without Andy's measurements this was out of the question. We saw a million trinkets, beautiful carved boxes and jewellery galore that would have been lovely to take home as gifts (had we had any room in our bags) for the ladies but really nothing for men. Andy woke up on Christmas morning to a key ring, fridge magnet and a box of Indian sweets - what a lucky boy. We met a really lovely Belgian couple while having some lunch. They were doing almost exactly the same trip as us but they started in south america and were on the last leg of their trip in India. They were appalled when we told then how much our bags weighed and she told us that hers was 15kg at its heaviest. She brought only 3 tops, 3 shorts, 3 trousers etc and her theory was you only needed 3 of anything. Wear one, wash one, dry one. The thought of having a light bag does appeal to me but so does having endless choice of clothing, i would get bored with just three outfits.
Sad to be leaving but off to the airport for the next part of our adventure....Thailand.
Some of my favourite quotes regarding the Indians sheer lack of knowledge of Scotland's existence:
Indian: " where are you from?"
Me: " Scotland."
Indian: "oh....near Poland?"
Me: " Erm...no? Next to England"
Indian: " ahhhh...ok. In the US?"
Indian: " where are you from?"
Me: " Scotland."
Indian: "oh really? Because you have very British eyes"
Indian: " where are you from?"
Me: " Scotland"
Indian: " what part of Scotland do you come from? The English part?"
That last one made me chuckle, little did he know how right he was. #Plockton
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