August 8 - India: Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

Sunrise Ganges Boat Ride

This morning, we went for a sunrise ride along the Ganges River.  This is an important time of day for Hindus in Varanasi, because it is when they come to the Holy Ganges to bathe before going to temple.  All the Ghats along the riverfront were crowded with men, women and children bathing and swimming.  I wonder if it's strange to them that a bunch of tourists pile into boats to watch their daily ritual, but then again they stare at us all the time so what goes around comes around, right?  (At least, that's the basis of the Hindu religion).

It was very interesting to see the process of bathing in this muddy river.  The people generally bring special sarongs or wraps which they wrap around themselves just for the purpose of getting in the water.  Most of the ghats are for public bathing.  However, there are some ghats that are privately owned by various Maharajas, and others are solely for the burning of bodies.  After the bodies are burned, the remains are wrapped in linen and sent down the holy river.  Here's an example:

Yep, that's a dead body in a linen bag floating in the water

After the boat ride, we walked through the narrow windy alleyways of the Old City to get to the Golden Temple - Varanasi's holiest temple.  We were not allowed inside as we are not Hindu, and we were not allowed to take pictures, either.  But we climbed up the stairs of the house across the street to look into it.  It's very small, but has tall, detailed domes that are covered in 900 kg of gold.  Very beautiful!

Palace of the Maharaja

It was around 8:00AM and we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a while.  Then we met Raju and our driver to go to some waterfalls a few hours outside of town.  On our way there, we stopped by the palace of the Maharaja of Benares.  It was quite run-down, actually.  It wasn't much of a palace, the paint was peeling off, weeds were growing everywhere, and the people who were living there used all the balconies to dry their laundry.  We went into the "museum" which is really just a bunch of hallways with some carriages, moth-eaten clothing, and some weapons.  But we're getting used to the museums in developing countries.  They're never air-conditioned, the items are tossed indiscriminately onto shelves and the signs for each article are usually hand-written in ball point pen.  It makes me appreciate the Smithsonian, which I used to take for granted having lived in DC for so many years.

The Water Falls

The falls were about and hour and half's drive outside of Varanasi, and Raju told us the name of the falls but neither of us can recall the name now.  The drive was lovely - lush green rice fields, cows, hills, people.  It was nice to get out of the congestion of the city for a while.  I forgot to mention that - in Varanasi - the only rule of the road is that there are NO rules of the road.  Where ever one feels like driving, one drives.  This includes - if one side of the road is backed up - crossing the median and driving on the other side of the road.  So we often found ourselves driving against traffic.  And the largest vehicle on the road always  has the right-of-way - this means that in our car we usually have to pull of the road when a truck or bus drives by and sometimes for other cars, but pedestrians and rickshaws almost always have to pull over when we drive by (usually on the wrong side of the street, based on the premise that the wrong side of the street has the least amount of potholes!).  We've become quite used to it, actually.

Sorry - on to the falls.  They weren't overly large, but they were definitely pretty.  And they were crowded with people doing their laundry and bathing.  All of whom stopped whatever they were doing in order to watch us (the tall white people) walk around the falls.  We stopped for a while and took pictures, and walked around for a while more.  But it was very hot, and we were starting to feel very uncomfortable with the crowd that had gathered to watch us.  So after about 30 minutes, we left.  A two-hour drive and we only stayed for 30 minutes.

We drove back into town, having to stop once for two trains to pass the tracks in front of us.  

Website Class

We had a parcel to mail through the Post Office, but left it at The Shweta Travel Office because Deepak said he would help us post it.  We had put our stuff in a box and taped it up, but it turns out that all parcels from India must be wrapped and sewn in linen.  And Deepak thought the box was a bad idea because it just makes the parcel heavier.  So Deepak sent one of his staff to get linen and some thread.  While we were waiting, Deepak realized that we knew about websites and we started talking about why Deepak didn't have a website.

Deepak has taught himself everything he knows about computers, and has recently learned Power Point and has designed a Home Page in it.  So he wanted to know what else he needed to do to make the website a reality.  So Jon and I tag-teamed teaching him what more he needed to do to get his site up and running.  Surprisingly, Deepak had an amazing grasp of good design and website processing, so it was pretty easy to explain to him.  I guess we'll see when he gets it running.

Post Office

By this time, our parcel had been wrapped and sewn in linen and was ready to go to the Post Office.  So Raju gave us a ride to the Post Office, where we had the funniest experience.  We had to get a man to put wax seals over the seams of the parcel, so the customs agents would know that it hadn't been tampered with; we decided he was sort of like the Customer Service representative for this branch of the Post Office.  Next he took us into the customs office to get the parcel weighed, stamped, and for us to fill out the customs form.  

This took much longer than it sounds, and we ended up sitting in some chairs in the cramped, crowded office entertaining ourselves by watching the customs officers rip open each package and look through the items being sent.  The officers enjoyed talking to us about things such as the Bush/Gore election, India, America, etc.  All the while, they're ripping open packages and searching through peoples' belongings.  At one point, they found a package of chocolates which they opened and distributed among the other officers (and us).  It was quite funny.  

They couldn't find a customs form for us to fill out, so they put a carbon paper between two other sheets of paper and asked us to make our own.  And this is our official customs form through India's Customs Office.  When we finished, we gave them our "form", tipped everyone we could (including the unofficial customer service representative, who doesn't work for the Post Office and the Customs supervisor) and walked back to the hotel which was a few minutes away.

We spent the evening at the hotel's internet cafe and packing up our stuff.  We had dinner at the hotel restaurant because we were so exhausted and the food is good (even though the service is not).