Varanasi Day Two...Last Full Day in India

We woke up early this morning and headed for the ghats, where we took a row boat along the Ganges, starting from Dassashwamedh Ghat, which has distinctive umbrellas above. While watching the sunrise over the river, we saw people doing laundry in the river, swimming, bathing, dunking, performing rituals, and doing laughing yoga. Among other sights, we saw Lalita Ghat, with a Nepalese Temple; Scindia Ghat, with a partially submerged temple; Harishcandra Ghat, home of a less popular electric crematorium and Assi Ghat, where we started last night. At Manikarnika Ghat, where there are fires and cremations 24 hours a day, there are huge stacks of logs for that purpose. Along the shore, women were doing a ritual that involved vegetables. We passed many people chewing on sticks that are used in lieu of a toothbrush.

We then walked through some of the narrow old streets of Varnasi, which are lined with stores selling things for the rituals in the temples and the streets are littered with cow dung and other icky things. There are small shrines with images of idols, including Shiva and Krishna. Some have only the lingus, a phallic shaped rock, which represents the male form and Shiva himself. We glimpsed at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, called the Golden Temple because it is plated with 820 kilograms (1,808 pounds) of gold and is dedicated to Shiva. Right next door is Gyanvapi Mosque, with monkeys playing on the rooftops.

We then left the older area of the city, and went to the University area. The University is huge and has over 30,000 students and includes one of two medical schools in India. Men and women have separate dorms and each area of study has its own section of campus. We stopped at a nearby Hindu Temple, with ringing bells and idols.

We ate breakfast and saw an article in the newspaper about yesterday’s festival, called Def Deepavali. After a break at our hotel, we went to the Bharat Mata, or Mother India Temple, which features a relief map of India, representing that the very land of India is sacred. (I don’t even know what to say about the irony of that given the pollution here.) From there, we went to see a demonstration of how some of the silk weaving is done, using some old fashioned looms. This was followed by (don’t be shocked), a persistent sales pitch, which we ignored. We returned to our hotel (I think the guide expected us to be at the silk place for a while shopping) and then a few hours later went to a dance performance. I would have thought that this would have been a show, with other people; however, it was in the courtyard of somebody’s house and was just the two of us, which was kind of awkward. The dancers were very good but, of course, we were offered a sales pitch –to have henna applied this time. The drive back to the hotel featured the legendary traffic and took longer than the entire dance thing.

We are going to have dinner and pack and mentally prepare for our LONG trip home. We leave this hotel around eleven in the morning and fly to Delhi. We have a few hours to waste and then we board the plane home. Jon and I are both looking forward to seeing Phoenix and the doggies and sitting on the couch and doing nothing. I am also looking forward to not being stared at – I have had to resist the urge not to make obscene gestures or faces at those staring and clean laundry. I know we with both appreciate sleeping in our own bed. This trip has been interesting and certainly enlightening about India, the people, and the paradoxes here – but we will be happy to be home….(until the next trip).