This trip diary is a brief reflection on my trip to Varanasi, India, visiting the burning Ghats and the Ganges river. It only took 14 hours on a train straight. We took a sleeper train, which provides beds. But it certainly doesn’t provide the quietness of a good nights sleep. We pull into some obscure train station at 7 in the morning and transfer trains and kept going until 11:30.
We get into Varanasi with 40 degree weather waiting for us. The rickshaw goes only to a certain part of the city and then we walked the rest of the way in. Varanasi is a very holy city with the Ganges running through it. In fact, Indians abroad order specially water from the Ganges for their different celebrations. Along the banks of the the Ganges are hundreds of Ghats (stairs leading to the water for whatever purpose, bathing, washing clothes, or what have you.)
Our hotel balcony overlooks the river and the Varanasi Ghats. Looking to the one side, there were hundreds of people in celebration. To the other side a never ending horizon of Ghats. But no time for that now. Sleep was calling. None of us slept a wink through the whole night of ear shattering cackling, jostling and tossing of the train.
Other parts of the ghats where it’s empty
Taking a stroll down the Ganges river takes you through some of the most colour views in India. We hopped onto a boat at 6 in the morning to catch the views of the locals at the Ghats. Mainly, they bath in there and wash clothes as well. We saw a boat river taking sips out of the Ganges too. The Ganges is regarded as one of the holiest rivers in India. So people would cremate their loved ones right on the edge of the river.
There are 5 things they don’t burn though. 1) Children 2)Pregnant women 3) Animals 4) Lepers 5) Holy people. For these 5, they tie a stone and drop them into the bottom of the Ganges. Now you can imagine how long they’ve been doing this for. And you can imagine the pollution it creates (on top of an already pretty polluted city). Let’s just leave it at the fact that it’s not uncommon to see carcasses floating down the Ganges or a stray dog eating a half decayed cow on the banks of the Ghats.
Live cremations
The Burning Ghats attracts the most attention as bodies are publicly cremated. It is a very lengthy process with lots of rituals. The very very poor people stay near the Burning Ghats waiting to die, as they don’t have family who can pay for them to be burned. It was explained that it took 200kg of wood to burn a body fully. The men would have the chest cavity remain, and the women, the hips. Because of our labour, that’s where the most bone density is.
The burning doesn’t smell because they use different woods for the burning. A mixture of Banyan tree wood, mango tree and sandal wood. But sandal wood is incredibly expensive, so they just use the powder of sandal wood.
Bathing in the ghats
Regardless, Varanasi has proved to be a good final last stop before we hop on the train and truck North into Nepal to escape this incredible heat. Hotter than the fort in the desert we just came from. Whew!
You’ve seen it in pictures. You know it by name. And you know the country just by looking at this building. The Taj Mahal. And it was about time we finally saw it. This is pretty much the only reason to come to Agra. That and it’s lesser known things, like the fort and gardens.
Ian didn’t expect himself to be incredibly excited. After all, it’s just another monument. It was also reaching 40 degrees at the heat of the day. Not the funnest time to go wandering by any means. And to top it off, the crowds have dispersed, as it is low season, but by jove! if they’re still isn’t a huge line up to go through security. All the reasons were there to not expect a huge “WHOA”. First of, did we mention the ridiculous price of 750 rupees? The locals pay only 20 rupees. Really, 750 rupees is about 15USD. But this has a sneaky upside to it. Because tourists have to pay 750 rupees, we are considered “high value ticket holders” so we skipped the lines and jumped right ahead through security (in hind sight we could’ve), going into the mausoleum, and entering through other high traffic areas.
So that was a little silver lining. Also, going after the heat of the day… is still hot. But at least you’re not wandering in direct sunlight at 2pm in 40 degree heat. And if you’re a photographer, you’d know that around starting at 5pm is the best time for photography too as it has the perfect lighting.
Sun setting on the Taj
With that, we enter the Taj Mahal. Sure the crowds were a little tough to push through. And sure we waited inline to get to a photographic area and then to be bombarded moments later with the locals. And sure we were shoved off immediately by impatient people (tourists alike). But despite all that shoving, pushing, heat, and expensive tickets, seeing the Taj will make you forget ill fated situations that’s part of seeing something this iconic. Awe.
As the sun crept up to it’s evening glow, Ian started running around trying to take advantage of the lighting. He couldn’t contain his excitement.
What is the Taj Mahal? It’s a building constructed in memory of a 3rd wife by the Maharaja (blah blah blah) But because the Maharaja took the taxpayers money to build it, the son (who succeeded him) decreed that he should be locked up for life for selfishly using the taxpayers money. Boy, if politics worked like that today! To make it a double whammy, he was locked up in the Fort across the way in perfect line of sight to the Taj. He had to suffered that sight until he died 8 years later.
View of the Taj from the prison
Now? Now the Ministry of Tourism is using the entrance fee proceeds for maintenance and upkeep. They even declared the space 500 meters around it the “pollution free” zone. So only electric cars, bicycle rickshaws, and horses are allowed in. This is to attempt and keep the Taj Mahal from turning colour from the pollution. And since the Ministry of Tourism is maintaining it, I guess in the end the Taj returned back to it’s people.
2 nights were plenty. We were itching to go to our last city. One of the holiest cities in India. Varanasi.
The air force streaked across the sky more and more often the closer we approached Jaisalmer. Military bases litter the eastern side of the city, the direction in which we were coming from. Pakistan is on the west side of the city by a few hundred kilometers. But that’s close enough to have the military presence for a quick response in case Pakistan decides to strike.
We were warned about the very aggressive touts that were in Jaisalmer. And forewarned we were. To the point where we booked a pick up from the hotel, which turned out to be a good idea. As the bus pulled into the bus stop aka, side of the road, the rickshaws appear from thin air along with their drivers. I didn’t know rickshaw drivers were even on the bus until Neil was stopped by one before he had a chance to even get off. As soon as Ian got off, he was shoved with brochures “Tokyo Palace.” Not a surprise as everyone thinks he’s Japanese. Like, com’on, look at him. Asian; Korean, Japanese, Chinese? Chinese is usually the last guess for some odd reason.
We fight our way to the back of the bus to take our packs, while the rickshaw drivers were cutting us off. They would throw their pitch, we’d walk around them.
“Where is our damn driver?!”
Some incredibly cute calves
Suddenly, a driver comes up to us and whips out a paper with “Christina” written on it, our friend who had booked the hotel and pick up. We all ignored the other drivers and went straight for him. Ian got lost in the confusion as someone grabbed his arm and tried to pull him aside. A quick smack on the wrist and a “I don’t want no trouble, just let me go” did it. The experience there was so chaotic. Hands in face, grabbing, people shouting at you all trying to get your attention and business.
The rickshaw sputtered to life and we were off. We get into our hotel in the morning and sat down for a meal. A quick consolidation of plans and in the afternoon, we were off to see some of the sites of Jaisalmer.
Alladin street-scapes
Jaislamer looks like the romanticized version of Alladin, but in real life; minus the flying carpets and genies. It was a desert city. The old city had very tight streets the width of a cow and amazing drivers; rickshaws and motorbikes alike, squeezing through and honking. Ropes spanned the top of the buildings with clothes drying in the desert sun, while other ropes had a canopy to provide some relief from the sun as it casted a hot shadow on the ground.
And then there was the fort. A living fort from the 1600 if not older. Most the city spills outside of the fort now but everything is planned around the fort. The fort sustained numerous battles and it was evident in its bloody history. And now, the battle its fighting is against water damage as the ancient walls give way to landslides because the foundation had had simply enough of the fort. But the city is repairing it to keep it alive as there are businesses and people living in the fort.
The view of the fort
2 days later, the skin on our bums were chaffed off by the day long camel ride into the remote desert. We started early in the day to beat the desert heat. We sat under a nice big tree for lunch after 2 hours on the camel. We had lunch around 11. Our guide, Dellboy, tied – effectively – handcuffs to the camels feet to prevent them from running away too far while we ate. We set off again at 2 in the afternoon. So much for beating the heat. Even the camels didn’t want to go into the sun.
It wasn’t too much later when we arrive at our sand dunes for the night. By this time, everyone was groaning from pain, in their derriers, their legs, their back, and pretty much everything. A safari it was, but we weren’t warned about how painful riding a camel is.
The formation of the caravan of camels
The camels lay down for us to get down, slowly in agonizing pain our legs swung over the saddle. The handcuffs were put on the camels again, and shame, we saw one camel try to jump with joy that his work was done, but only to find he could only hop. Slightly. And then he was sad again.
A beer boy appeared from thin air (I don’t know if it’s the Alladdin spell in the desert, but people seem to do that here…) Everyone bought a beer from him to watch the sun set on the desert dunes. The sky turned red and the scarabs crawled out from hiding. You know those little beetles you saw in The Mummy? Yeah, those black beetles came out. And they bite. But they don’t dig into your skin though, luckily.
The black beetles drinking liquids
As night settled herself over us, dinner was served. And we served the scarabs as hundreds and thousands, possibly, decided to test if we were dinner. We sat under the brightest stars we’ve seen in over 2 years. Star gazing was definitely on the agenda that night. Each of us pretended to know what constellations we were talking about and pointed out shooting stars. Christa missed every single one. The moon didn’t rise until the morning, so we had a whole night of bright star gazing.
We all slept in a plastic bag with raised edges to that the scarabs couldn’t crawl in and into our blankets. The desert was cold at night. Dropped down into the mid teens. But in the day, mid thirties. To be expected, but to experience it was brutal.
Camel safari through the dunes
The moon rose at 4 am, and then the sun rose an hour later. Dellboy, our guide, rose with the moon and started making breakfast for us. Tea was ready by the time we wanted to watch the sunrise. But only Ian was up for that. After boiled egg breakfast, we were back on the painful saddle. Luckily we took the short half day back. We met up with the jeep after an incredible 3 hours of pain.
We shot back to the city and settled ourselves into the fort this time. We had to spend a night in the old fort. And this was an old city. Everything was stone. Our hotel was right against the wall of the city so we could look over the desert from our small window in our room. The building the hotel was in spans over 3 centuries old. The roads inside the old city was the width of half a cow and only motorbikes made it through. Not before running it’s tires all over the cow dung which was plentiful. Open defecation is popular.
Sunset in the desert
The experience of staying in the fort is pretty unique. The sad thing is, inside the fort, it’s completely based on tourism. There was not a single local shop for local people who don’t want any trouble there. Christa went with our friend Christina to get a full body ayurvedic massage for post-camel safari comfort.
Next day, we got on the night train to a very iconic city in India; Agra.
An agonizing 5 hour train ride from Jaipur proved to be disastrous, for our stomachs anyways. It was hot, stuffy, and the stomach provided no relief from the heat or discomfort. The sleeper trains that were seemingly comfortable for 15 minutes was very uncomfortable within 1 minute. We had 5 hours to go.
We get into our guesthouse in Jodhpur, eventually, and literally just exploded. Literally. We tagged team the toilet and beat the crap out of it. Or more accurately the crap was beaten out of us. Our friend from across the hall and up one floor could hear us. It was fantastic. We started our anti-biotics when we got into the guest house. We were smart enough to pick them up before we left Korea. Finally using them. Ian, the Canadian had a fever and felt cold in 30+ degree weather, while Christa was feeling hot. The room had a fan with one speed. No compromise. We slept for the whole afternoon and night and into the morning, while occasionally waking up to use the toilet. We took the pills when we need to and drank liquids as much as possible. There’s nothing more fun than having your food trying to kill you while travelling. Finally, near the morning, Ian had enough strength to go to the roof top restaurant while Christa had already felt a lot better from the anti-biotics. Ian thought it was a great idea to let the stomach bug stew in Jaipur.
The most that Ian saw of Jodhpur was the toilet walls of the guesthouse while Christa managed to go zip lining down the fort wall of Jodhpur. This fort was the same fort that Bain escaped from in Batman: The Dark Knight Rises franchise. Also, Christian Bale (Batman) escaped from by free soloing up the prison walls and making his leap of faith to freedom.
Christa ziplining
Zip lining down the wall proved to be the biggest attraction in Jodhpur. It was slightly expensive, but there are 6 levels to zip line down. Took 45 minutes to get all the down. You get to control the speed of your descent with a brake. But if you slow down too much, you won’t be able to get to the last platform, which forces you to go a little quicker. But it’s no problem if you don’t make it across. Someone comes to your rescue. Ian hung out in the toilet at the guest house.
Finally, after 2 nights, on the 3rd day, it was time to move. The desert was calling. The call of the desert fort in Jaisalmer was beckoning us. It was time to go.
We flew into Jaipur from Goa 2 days before Holi. We came specifically to Jaipur to see an elephant festival on the eve of Holi. Spirits were high. A succesful booking of a flight into Jaipur, with a transfer in Bangalore, refreshed our wallets with ATM money from home and got into our hotel with no problems.
“The elephant festival is cancelled” says the hotel manager. That was the first thing about it we hear since entering Jaipur. The government cancelled it because of the animal cruelty. BOOOOO!!! We reconfirmed with searching for news on the internet. Sure enough, it was cancelled. Fair enough too, poor elephants. They’re regarded as a holy animal but the ones that are “working” under the care of the owner, we don’t really know how well they’re being treated. Some of them are healthy (looking) and some of them are so sad looking.
Gardens inside the fort
Regardless, we make the best of it. We wandered into the old Pink City, which this city is reknowned for. Wonder why it’s called Pink City? Well, it’s probably what you’re thinking. All the buildings are pink. Literally. Especially in the old city, inside the walls. We met this fellow, Ravi during our walk at night. He lived in France and spoke 5 different languages. Spanish, Italian, English, French, Hindi and his native language (which I can’t remember). Ok, 6 languages. All fluently too!
We said our farewells and promised to visit him the next day for Holi, ate some Momo’s from a street vendor and hurried back to the hotel not too soon after as one of our friends, Neil, came down with food poisoning. Something he ate at the airport transfer in Bangalore. We brought him some gross ayurvedic medecine reccommended by locals. “Tastes awful” he says, but next day, it brought him right back to shape.
Morning was Holi. Neil and Christina ran out to get more medecine while Christa and Ian were looking over the railing to see if they’ll get hammered with coloured powder as part of the festival. They came back clean. We were in utter disbelief. “We have to get them before they get back in”. With our Holi powder, we ran out and covered them in it. Some Indians nearyby to us saw us partaking and also “Holi-ed” us. It’s started.
Holi powder sold on the streets
We walk down the street to some gentle people dousing us in Holi powder. The police came and chased them away and shouted at us “You should go to a hotel! Get off the street!” – Party poopers. We continued to the main road and was hammered by tons of people Holi-ing us. They would stop the car, get out and rub us with colour. They would stop the motorycycles, get out of rickshaws, run from across the street… it became mayhem. Actual mayhem. Imagine a zombie apocolypse but instead of eating you, they rubbed you with powder. They sniffed you out and found you.
Infact, it got quite unbearable because the girls were being frisked. A quick feel. But a lot of them. Actually, this is a good time for anyone thinking of doing Holi in India – GIRLS: YOU WILL BE GROPED, beforewarned. It was starting to get incredibly annoying and frustrating to have to fend off the pervs and get out of a huge circle of them. The cops provided some relief as they would come and help get rid of the crowd of people. Finally, we’ve had enough and hopped into a richkshaw. We haggled for 150 rupees to take us around into the old city.
Horrible shot of us being Holi-ed
The driver must’ve drank some “special lassi” before we got in. As we started he was fine. Half way through the ride, he wasn’t even looking at the road and turning right back around to talk to us, swerving right through traffic and missing cars and pedestrians by millimeters. We’ve had enough of the drunken rickshaw driver very fast and told him to drop us off at a party at a nearby hotel we heard of earlier.
We get upstairs hearing some massive heavy beats with high expectations. At this point, we were completely covered in colour powder and when we got up, it was a rain party. The dance floor had fountains and it was all wet. And sitting on the table was a bunch of holi powder for a whole crowd of nobody. There was us 4 and 2 other Indians. Whatever. Good enough. We neede to avoid the crowd outside for the while. It was getting way too heavy.
Escaping the chaos into the Rain Party
We ended up staying at this party for 5 hours as the crowd actually started to pick up. Uplifting trance to progressive house, the beats were right up Ian’s alley. The waterpark dancfloor, not so much. But whatever, we could use a shower in the 35 degree open air party. Beers went around and friends were met as other colour-blasted tourists started trickling in, in avoidance of the chaos outside.
As the party died own we made our way back to the hotel. Around 5pm, the Indians are either too high, too drunk or too tired to continue to party. The next day, Ian started getting some food poisoning. He held it off with some mild stomach pills. We went to the infamous fort in Jaisalmer where “The Fall” was filmed, at least some of it.
It was a very beautiful fort and we spent the whole day just exploring it. It was really actually the old palace where the Maharaja’s lived. It was coined “City Palace” with the actual fort a kilometer away to protect the city with secret tunnel access. Yes, we went to the fort via the secret tunnels. This fort also has the biggest cannon in Asia. We weren’t allowed to take pictures. You’ll have to take our word for it – not that we searched through Asia for the biggest cannon, but it was self proclaimed (by the Indians). It was big, but Ian doesn’t think it’s the biggest.
Jaipur was the first fort of many, many, forts in the near future. We went back to the hotel for Ian’s stomach to brew the nasty. The next morning, Ian didn’t take the meds, and Christa also fell ill from some water she drank at the fort the other day. But that day was “on-the-move” day with a 5 hour train ride.
My god, it was the longest 5 hours to Jodhpur ever. R.I.P Toilets…
