Instant Karma's Gonna Get Ya!

The train left NJP station south of Darjeeling at 11:20am and after about 17hrs it pulled up at Mulgra Sari station just 14KM outside my destination Varanasi. Seventeen hours on a train sounds like a lot of time and you're right it is. However, I got to hang out of the doors as we zoomed along. I also got to meet a few interesting people.

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I was the only foreigner on the train but since I was in 3AC (that's an AirCon sleeper with 3 bunks on one wall of a 2 walled room) I was with educated Indians I could chat to. I tried to pick up some more Hindi but failed. I did manage to convert 3 locals to the power of Su-do-ku before our time was up. Once in Mulgra Sari my new Indian Army Captain buddy helped me in my auto-rickshaw negotiations. I also promised the driver and extra 25% if he promised NOT to talk about any hotels on the way. I secured his word and for the next 25mins he told me how amazing and much cheapness Hotel SunnyTime was and how my hotel (which I did not even mention) had burnt down. I specifically chose a hotel near one of the Ghats so I could get there without too much help. However on arriving at 04:30 in the morning I was dropped "near" and had to negotiate the tiny ancient streets in a hunt. I must have been blessed for as I rounded the 27th corner I suddenly came across it near the waterside. I was greeted by Bulboo who happened to be a boat man. Within 2mins we had agreed on a 2hr row at sunrise up the Holy Ganges. This is Varanasi the holiest place on the Hindu map and a great time to see it is at sunrise. My fifth sunrise since I got here.

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Now I have been awake for sunrise before but usually in Robbie's flat talking total crap not on a long row boat feet from the steps watching people floating candles and seeing bodies being carried to wooden piles and set alight. The Ganges is the Mother of Life, the river has special significance and especially here at Varanasi. People come for 3 reasons. Firstly to wash their sins away by descending one of the 125 Ghats into the water, at a peak 60,000 people a day bathe, swim, clean their teeth, shave and even drink the holy water (which incidentally has 100,000 times more human feacal matter in it than legally allowed in the UK). Such is the religious conviction of the faithful that the locals come each day to wash themselves and the bedsheets from the hotels. The second reason for coming is to increase and gain Karma points. This can be done by giving to beggars or donating to poor people so they can be burnt. There are many waiting to die in Varanasi. This brings me to the 3rd and final reason. People come here to die. If you utter your last words and draw your last breath at Varanasi and are delivered back to the great mother withing 3hrs then you escape the eternal cycle of rebirth. No more being born as a dung beetle or fruit fly, you automatically step from the process and into Nirvana. Normally people are burnt at special "Burning Ghats", only a few are dropped to the bottom of the river (babies, pregnant women, leapers, small pox sufferes and holy men), the rest are burnt. Now it is hard to describe a burning, for a foreigner it looks odd for sure, but to Hindus it is normal and deeply moving. I won't go into too much detail and I did not take any pictures out of respect. It is hard to explain what it looks like for a belly to melt and guts set on fire or what it looks like for a burning head to fall off and be picked up by over sized bamboo tweezers and placed back on the fire. It is best to see for yourself. It is not a sad of grim atmosphere, it felt more like watching old men play French bowls or a father teaching his son how best to turn the sail on a model boat on Regents park lake than the burning of a bead body. This goes on 24/7 all day and all night. All around children play, kites fly in the sky, cricket bats swing, beggars crawl and holy men dressed in orange chant. Cows walk around, dogs bark, goats lick at hip bones that have washed up on the shore. The Ghats stretch for miles and after walking most of it I decided to explore the old town, wandering it the Muslim area where I found silk weavers making the cloths. Varanasi is also famous for its silks. I passed what must have been 50 Hindu temples. I asked how many temples there were I was told 100,000 or 1 million. I contemplated jumping in the Gangees myself it is the kind of stupid thing I would do, but my gut instinct told me not to, I had a feeling that somehow the sins that were washed off everyone else might stick to me. My head could take no more, for a place with so many sinners washing their evil deeds and for so many widows waiting to die it was bursting with life but a bit of a brain-ache. It's funny how different cultures view such an undeniable event. After seeing and taking a picture of the "ETERNAL FLAME" (said to be burning for over 4 and a half THOUSAND years) I headed back to the hotel for some lunch. The waiter brought over my Vegetable Thali together with a 1.5metre stick. Before I could ask what it was for I could feel the "eyes" on me ". MONKEY" he grunted and walked off.

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I looked up and saw a baby monkey on the balcony above with Daddy money eyeballing my curry. I'm feeling pretty tired now, 17hr and not much sleep on the train and straight to the river for sunrise. I ordered a beer and watched the sunset. From the hotel balcony with over 50 children's kites in the air as the sun dipped behind the temples and trees. The chanting got louder and the drums more frantic........I feel Varanasi is just coming alive now the sun has gone, but will I have the energy to explore a city that is older than history itself?