Ganges Sunrise

Part of a 2 week holiday back blip starting here on October 14th...

Varanasi could be considered a sort of Indian Miami, in the sense that people come here to die...

One of the holiest cities in the Hindu world, sitting on the banks of the holiest river, it is considered pretty good fortune to die here and have your body burned on the banks (although in some cases, such as young children and holy men, the bodies aren't burned, but simply wrapped and dropped into the river). Every morning devotees line the banks to bathe in the river, washing away sin, and playing deadly-disease Russian roulette. The Ganges, you see, is hideously polluted, and when you're on a boat on top of it it looks it.

Also busying the river are thousands of tourists on boats watching the devotees, and so consequently there are swarms of touts trying to sell you things, or in my case one chap trying to steal a ring from my finger. Out on the river you get away from all of that and... Oh, wait, what's that? Another boat drawing alongside... And it's crammed with things the rower is trying to sell us. You can float, but you can't hide...

The tiny streets around the river and into Varanasi are not really any cleaner, and rubbish is piled high in places, with cows wandering the alleys, occasionally stopping to eat it, and adding to the growing sense of desperately needing to wash. And everyone stares. And tries to sell you something. Or stares and tries to sell you something.

We haven't taken to Varanasi, despite me going out for an afternoon walk to get some more photos, but finding myself pursued by rikshaw drivers and kids trying to sell me what looked like raspberries. Safe in the knowledge that our train (another sleeper unfortunately) was due to leave at 10pm we ate in the hotel, then sat in the lobby waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Bit of background, some chap called Raj Thakeray, an MP in mumbai, has been causing a bit of turmoil, essentially suggesting that violence against north Indians is okay. So there have been riots in Mumbai, and north Indians being targeted for abuse. The north Indians (or at least some students here) have taken retribution by setting fire to a sleeper train. In the north of the country. On our line.

And so our train was canceled. I'm not actually about to blame anyone, but we were already getting wound up about having to take the train, and had even considered getting some earlier discount flights from Varanasi to Delhi and then back to Agra (our next stop). If we had done that then by the time we had been told the train was canceled we would actually have been in Agra. But we didn't and so instead we had to get a room for the night again in Varanasi, and book flights on exactly the same planes as we would have taken if we'd been quicker ourselves. And to top it all off the tour agency refused to pay so tomorrow morning we will be forking out roughly £450 from our own pockets (when the flights that I'd seen would have been about £200 and no extra hotel night to pay for).

But the REAL rant about all of this... I'll save that for the blip for tomorrow...