August 7 - India: Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Today was our "City Tour" day. We met Raju and driver in the lobby of the hotel at 9:00 and hit the road from there.
Temple Visits
First, we visited a bunch of temples which were interesting but not as brilliant or as beautiful as I'd expected. We couldn't take pictures of them and most of them we couldn't go inside because we're not Hindu. (Hindus, by the way, are born into their religion. One cannot convert to Hinduism.)
These are some of the monkeys at the Hanuman Temple
We stopped for lunch at a place called Poonam Restaurant in a hotel nearby. Jon and I both ordered Chinese food because our stomachs need a break from all the Indian Food we've been eating.
Muslim Area - Silks
After lunch, we went into the Muslim Quarter of the city where they make beautiful silks. We've decided that this is one of our favorite parts of this trip: to be able to see the skills and trades in different parts of the world. So our tour through the Muslim area was especially nice because we got to see how silk is woven by hand. Click here to see the details. We spent a while in the man's shop seeing some of the most beautiful silk weaves - bedspreads, pillow covers, scarves, etc. We resisted the urge to buy a duvet cover and bought some gifts instead. I guess the Crate & Barrel bedspread will have to last a while longer.
After this, it was around 3:00 and we went to Shweta Travel (the travel company here) to figure out what we were doing for the next few days. Since we bought our own plane tickets but paid for the bus tickets as part of our package in Delhi, we wanted see if it was possible to substitute the bus tickets for a night's stay in Kathmandu. Deepak, who owns Shweta, was very nice and we got everything all worked out with no problem. Deepak was also very excited to show us pictures of his "famous Hollywood movie star client", Mario Van Peebles. Mario was in Varanasi last year with his family and did a lot of business with Deepak, who invited him to his house for dinner.
Jon's Haircut
Jon is way overdue for a haircut, so one of Deepak's employees took us to a non-descript barber shop nearby. It was a small but clean shop with one barber, 7 chairs, and 3-4 loitering friends. On the TV in the shop they turned on the equivalent of Indian MTV. So I sat and watched cheesy Indian Music Videos while Jon got a haircut, a shave, a long-needed beard trim, and a massage for $2.00. They took forever doing it, but it looks good!
Sunset Ride on the Ganges
We went back to the hotel for an hour to relax, and then went on a boat ride along the Ganges at sunset. While sunset is not as important as sunrise to the Hindu religion, there were many people taking their evening baths and doing their laundry in the river. We also saw the burnings at some of the Ghats, which is where they burn the bodies in a ceremony before putting them into the river. Very different from our culture, but I didn't get any pictures because it's considered rude to take pictures of this ceremony.
Along the way, a little boat attached itself to ours selling little boats made of a leaf with flowers and candles inside; Jon and I both bought one and sent it down the Ganges for good luck.
Pooja Ceremony on Ganges Riverfront
We returned to the shore just as the sun went down, and settled in on some steps to watch the evening's Pooja Ceremony. This is a nightly Hindu ceremony to pray to Shiva and offer flowers and oils to the Ganges. There were 6 Brahmans (priests) there with a variety of candles, flowers, drums, horns, and oils, and who performed a prayer vigil with beautiful choreography and movements. The ritual is lovely, and lasts about an hour. The Brahmans wave their arms about with each different offering, singing and praying. The worst part about the ceremony was the groups of tour buses who trampled through the middle of it to get pictures!
