Varanasi-Sarnath, India: 28June07

Escape from the Holy City

We took the river boat ride early in the morning. We saw people bathing, washing clothes and utensils and performing ritual by the river. Just beside of the burning ghat, they were people doing dhoby. There were even people sieving beside of the burning ghat in hope to find some small jewelleries from the ashes in the river.
When we walked in the small alleys of Old Varanasi, there were many times that we would bump into some 'untouchable' carrying the deceased towards the burning ghat. Growing up in a city so closed to death, the people here were probably very familiar and 'unmoved' with death.
i don't like this holy city. Besides from the 'holy' name, this place, including people and the street are dirty. The small streets were very narrow and always full with dung and rubbish. Walking in such a small street, i felt every dirt was just so closed to me. As long as you are tourist, there will always somebody there to either ask you to buy something or even endeavoured to cheat you. The rubbish floating on the Ganges and the waste water was channeled into the river as well. i couldn't relate this place with "holy". i couldn't stand here, so i decided to set off to Sarnath.
Dario and Eneko decided to stay for another day. So we did the last sight seeing together, the millitary guarded Golden Temple (Vishwanath Temple). The Hindu and Muslim have been killing each other for years to get this piece of temple/mosque holy ground. You torned down my mosque to build temple and i would do the same to your temple. This piece of land was nothing impressive at all, except for the heavy millitary. We were not allowed to bring anything, including beg and camera to enter the place.
The journey to Sarnath was unbelievable smooth with friendly and helpful Indians. The guest house ran by the monastery of Trangu Rinpoche was the best i ever had in India. Very clean and big. i could even eat with the monk in the canteen. The place is serene and quiet, in the middle of a village. The Rinpoche was in Hong Kong, so i didn't have such a good kamma to visit him. A young man, Tsering, who speaks better English attended to me.
Sarnath was my first buddhist pilgrim site, the place where buddha gave his first sermon.
i had a quiet and peaceful sleep.




The morning by Ganges River. People were doing cleaning despite the condition of the river. :)
Varanasi, the city of Shiva was previously called Benares and Kashi (City of Life). Hindu pilgrims come wash away all their sins in the Ganges.



This was about 6am in the morning and the river is bathed in a mellow lights.
A meditator by the holy river.



My morning puja.



The burning ghat, Manikarnika Ghat.
The tourists are not allowed to take the burning picture in respect to the deceased and the family.



The temples and guesthouses by the western bank of the river.



The dhobi ghat.



The women were washing away their sins in the Ganges.

Varanasi, India: 27June07

Holy Ganges River

Like usual, sticky, stink and sweating when we arrived at Varanasi in the noon. The riskshaw driver didn't get us to the guesthouse that we wanted to go, instead got us to the one that he could get commission. I wasn't angry but i know that we have to play tough with the people like that. So i raised my voice and kind of show that i was furious when i talked to him and the guesthouse owner. In the end, we paid him only a small fees and walked almost an hour to get to the guesthouse that we wanted to stay.

Unfortunately, the guesthouse that we took so much efforts to get to have quoted us an expensive price of 550 Rs. So although we were tired and in the great need of shower, but we still decided to proceed to find another guesthouse. Then, it started to rain and the whole ghat areas were flooded with dirty water. We negotiated with the guesthouse owner again and finally got a room at 250Rs, with river view but we need to squeeze 3 persons in 2 single beds. At least we had a place to settle down and we did not need to walk in the water with human waste, animals waste, human body ashes and ....

Varanasi is the holiest India Hindu city. But unfortunately, the people here are basically trying everything they can to cheat you. Dario and Eneko bought a water at 25 Rs while the normal price is 10 Rs. Dario said, "This is a holy city but you guys are cheaters!" i don't trust anyone here at all. This place is also unbelievable dirty to me. Very very dirty. i won't want to touch the river water. The Spanish guide book that Eneko was using said "This is the biggest toilet in the world!" i couldnt' understand what kind of mind would put Mathieu to bath in this river.



The buffalos bathing in the holy river, Ganges River. If the Ganges River could wash away the sins, then these buffalos should be really pure.



The river bank of Ganges River.



Part of the river 'scenes', rubbish.



View from our guest house.
Our guest house is so near to the burning ghat that we could smell the BBQ (human meat in this case) smell in the air.



Some kind of puja by the river bank.
As usual, there were sadu (the holy man) trying to give us blessing with a small donation.

Khajuraho-Varanasi (via Mahoba), India: 26June07

Bitchy Tourists

The train to Varanasi was at midnight from Mahoba. In order to catch the train, we would have another 4 to 5 hours of bloody bus ride. Indeed, it was another extremely over crowded and 'oven-like' bus ride.
We explored to the western group temples in the morning. It was amazing. Very beautiful and smooth and 'soft' sculptures. The erotic images were not all around but among of may be musicians or dancing sculptures. The style of the temples were almost the same, except for the worshipped God at the main shrine hall. eg. Temple A looked almost the same from Temple B but Temple A is for the worship of Vishnu and Temple B is for Siva.
When we roamed around the street, a young Indian muslim invited us for Kashmiri tea. As we had a few hours to kill, we went to his shop, despite the potential "be friending, see the shop and try to sell you things. " It ended up with some interesting talk about tourists who come here for sex and he was really not trying to sell us things. It was obviously that, many local people here think a lof of foreign women are here in Khajuraho or India for sex with local Indian men. For them, women are disposable and foreign women are loose. This is something that i would never think of. I have never been to any places in India where people talk so openly about them having sex with tourists. The young local men especially think that Japanese women are the 'top bitch' among the Asian tourists. This kind of conversation surprised me a lot. May be with the erotic temples and karma sutras sell openly, sex is not a taboo here, like the other part of India. It is probably just part of the life here and if you grown up with all these, it is just not a big deal anymore.
After this, i started to feel really uncomfortable when people ask me whether i am a Japanese. I would think, do they have something else in their mind??



Part of the western group temples.



One of the erotic sculptures.



Another beautiful sculptures.