Tuesday February 24th
5am is just too early for people to exist as living beings. But the Vellore Four woke up around this hour, grabbed a breakfast to-go from the “compound”, and raced through the Bangalore airport for a flight headed to Varanasi. For those of you India virgins out there, Varanasi is the town in India that’s on the banks of the Ganges River. It’s got all those stairs (aka Ghats) that people dive off of to take baths in the holiest water in the world. We decided a trip to India would be incomplete without a visit to this spiritual headquarters of the nation, so we flew north on our fave India airline, Jet Airways. During the flight I found out some insider info on the Maharajas that I mentioned in my last blog posting. I was in seat 23D and this Indian man in 23E saw me digging through souveniers from Mysore Palace. Turns out he is BFF with the current Maharaja of Mysore who is supposedly from a long line of maharaja’s with the last name Wodeyar. He gave me the dish on this Wodeyar guy who it turns out is tragically overweight, sporting a super unattractive curly moustache this season and he has royal duties which are limited to his role as president of the local Cricket Club. But everybody in town still salutes him and he throws some pretty fab parties. The unfortunate thing about the Wodeyar maharajas is that way back when, they had a horrible curse placed on them by the goddess, Chamundeswari (sp?!?!). She destined the future Wodeyar generations to a lifetime of infertility. The catch is that her curse is only cast on EVERY OTHER generation. Unfortunately the current Cricket Club prez is one of the unlucky ones. But instead of the grin and bear it method of his predecessors, he’s visited multiple infertility specialists in the U.S. and now has plans to adopt sometime next year. The other super exciting information I was given by Mr. 23E is that little did we know it but we were arriving in Varanasi, spiritual capital of India, on the eve of Maha Shivaratri, one of the largest Hindu festivals of the year. This Hindu festival is a celebration of one of two things (I’ve heard two very different yet believable explanations), Lord Shiva’s birthday extravaganza or a holiday to remember Shiva’s marriage to his wife Parvati. Either way, we were game for celebrating. I also learned that Hindu’s stay up all night long and worship Shiva at temples and near the water. All of this was exciting news and we were stoked to finally land at the Varanasi airport. This airport is smaller than the Stillwater, Oklahoma airport but with a few more tropical plants and a really funky smell. At the baggage claim in this tiny place we met a large group of white people with really impressive cameras. I asked some questions and come to find out these people are NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHERS!! They are doing a documentary on India and planned this trip around the festival mentioned above. Whoa. So Awesome and crazy that we didn’t even plan for this! Of course we pretended to be completely aware of the importance of this festival, but decided to refrain from pulling out our throw-away Kodaks to do “camera-talk” with our idols. We eventually made it to our Hotel Pradeep in the heart of Varanasi and immediately took a stroll toward the Ganges. Along the way we noticed thousands and thousands of Indians lined up on the left side of the street ( see photo and Indians in a line
0. We continued walking for what seemed like miles. Eventually we reached a rather janky security screening center and the entrance to The Golden Temple. This is the most important Hindu temple in Varanasai and all of these people had been waiting 4-5 hours to enter the temple and place flowers and claypots and other offerings at the base of the statues inside. We couldn’t spot any FastTrak options for the line so we continued toward the Dasaswamedh ghat. This is the busiest ghat of all and even more so with this crazy festival action. Ok pause for quick ghat details here. The ghats are a series of sets of staircases that lead right into the Ganges River. Each stair case is known for something different, like a cremation ghat or a ghat for healing medical problems, or a ghat with really yummy woodfired thick crust pizzas. Some Hindus come to bathe in the water every morning and some come once in their lifetime. The water is purifying and is believed to cleanse Hindu believers to allow them to be reincarnated at a higher level or to reach Nirvana directly. It can also supposedly heal some diseases and according to tour guides, scientists have been unable to culture any bacteria from test tube samplings of the stuff. (Of Note: My guidebook strongly contradicts this notion and discourages all travelers from drinking the water) Many of the ghats have bamboo umbrellas with Brahmin (priests) stationed underneath to provide prayer for people. We spent the evening walking and stalking the National Geographic guys for some great photos along the steps. At the cremation ghat we stopped to observe the simultaneous cremation of four Hindu bodies. (See attached pic of cremation ghat with all the wood piles and then the big electric cremation building to the left of the wood) The stairs of the ghat went down to a flat beach type area. Only there was no sand, only heaps and heaps of ash remains. The owner of the cremation ghat (kinda like a funeral home director but with flipflops instead of the black suit) explained the process of death in the Hindu religion. He told us that they burn 100-150 bodies each day and are open 24hours/day. It is very expensive to be cremated and if people cannot afford it they can be cremated at the electric cremation facility. What happens after a Hindu dies is that the whole family comes to the deceased persons house and brings flowers and spices and puts all of that on the body. Then they wrap the person up and put them on a bamboo stretcher and carry them from the house straight to the Ganges. (This happens within 4 hours after death) There they wash the body in the Ganges and the family members pour water from the river into the mouth of the deceased to give them their last purifying drink from the Ganges. Then they are placed on the wood and cremated for 3 hours. Afterwards the remains are put into the river. There are 6 types of people that are not cremated because they are believed to already be purified by the gods and thus can be tied to a heavy rock and dropped in the middle of the river. These include kids under 9 years, pregnant women, lepers, people with snake bites or small pox, and Brahmin. At the end of the night we strolled all the way down to the Assi ghat, the southern most ghat which is known for great pizza. On our way home we stopped to watch Brahmin priests perform a ritual dance with seashell horns on the bank of the Ganges. The entire stretch of ghats was packed with people setting up candles and alters and other places to meditate and worship for the festival. The whole place looked like the biggest slumber party in history, with thousands of worshippers laying on the steps preparing for the late late show at the Ganges. After some debate the Vellore Four decided to forego our slumber party invite to sleep back at the hotel. The walk home was a bit more treacherous than expected due to lots and lots and lots of steps in the darkness with headlamps and the rancid stench of the "oh-so clean" Ganges. There is also quite a thick swarm of flying bat bugs attracted to the Ganges. I found these insects to be especially fond of flying up the nostrils of tourists. The other especially tricky part about getting home from the Ganges was dodging the Hindu Festival Parade obstacle course of small children dressed as Shiva on stilts and floats made entirely of megaphones blaring the Slumdog soundtrack track 11 on REPEAT AND REPEAT AND REPEAT AND REPEAT. Unfortunately the Vellore Four mistakenly became a main attraction in the parade train while trying to maneuver our way through a mosh pit of locals on the street. These party animals had obviously taken one too many shots of some sort of yellow yoghurt drink with a touch of a little something extra mixed in. I say that because while we were escaping the smelliest mosh pit ever, Indian men's hands began to wander toward unsuspecting lost American girls. Within seconds the Vellore Four morphed into X-men Diva Nazi Girls with special powers including Keanu Matrix style flight capabilities and Kung Fu Panda kicking ass choreography . In a flash our rickshaw getaway car appeared and we sped off into the night.
Varanasi day two was just as smelly but somewhat less eventful. We once again woke up at a time unacceptable for life on earth to exist. This time it was to catch our sunrise cruise of the Ghats. This was truly very cool and I recommend this little cruise to all of you. In the early morn lots of locals go to the ghats to do yoga and loofa their armpits and wash some socks. And so we watched that and also lit a little flower fire pot thing that we bought for 1 Rupee from a little boy. If I've got my story straight I think the flaming flowers are to symbolize a prayer that you make for something and then you put it in the water and let it float on the Ganges. I prayed to continue having Kung Fu Panda kick ass skills in the States and also that my crippled Rolly Bag would have a miraculous recovery after its Ganges bubble bath. (Rolly Bag lost her right front leg after a freak accident in baggage claim). We said our prayers and parked the boat before walking through a district of town that makes gorgeous silk on these really ancient looking wooden weaving machines. In this pic a grandpa is teaching his little apprentice grandson to weave. After a silk shopping spree we were confronted by some local cattle concerning complaints they'd had about our stench. We quickly apologized and packed our bags and hit the road for Delhi.
