Varanassi
First off, There hasn't been much time since I've been shooting, so keep in mind that these journals are very raw.

Varanassi is a completely different world than the rest of India. It has been extremely interesting to see and photograph. It is deemed the Holy City of India for Hinduism. After ridiculous layovers and leaving at 7am from Bangalore, I finally reach Varanassi(which is in the north of the country) at 3pm. My goal was to make it to the Ganges river by sunset. Luckily my prepaid taxi driver said he’d take me everywhere and even pick me up this morning for the river at sunrise. It’s a huge event, and happens daily. Yesterday was elections day locally for the city, so it was even more chaotic. The police had closed down most of the streets, and made it difficult to get around. The first thing I noticed as we drove around is how many freaking cows there were strewn across the streets. More cows in one city than I’ve seen yet in India. Obviously this is where our term “Holy Cow” comes from. They actually do deem the cows as Holy Mothers.

After checking in to the hotel, we head down to the river. This city is vastly different than most of the other towns that I’ve visited in India. A lot more bicycle rickshaws instead of motorized ones. It feels like even more of a step back into time. This is the first time I get to ride in one of the ambassador cars though. I was pretty excited about that. Baba was my driver, and he ended up driving me around everywhere including this morning. We park, and Baba says “Ok, we walk from here” so we walk down the street, then enter a very small street, which is the old original streets of Varanassi. After winding through and through, we walk down this dark tunnel with stray dogs and their puppies just chillin’ there. Outside of the tunnel, we come to the Gange River. Steps lead down to the river where people are cremating bodies.

So for a little background I learned from Baba. Varanassi is the Hindu Holy CIty. It is the mecca for the Hindu people, and they come from thousands of miles away to live, pray and bathe. Many many old people come to life and finish their lives. The Hindu belief is that if your ashes are thrown into the river, you will go to Hindu Heaven. The water is to follow, the water from the Ganges river is the ultimate holy water. Therefore, everyone bathes in it to wash their sins away. They do this daily, and sometimes twice daily. Once at sunrise, and once at sunset. They also have the Puja prayers where the Braman boy comes and lights an alter of candles and sprinkles the Puja dust and flowers around.

Once we walk down to the river, Baba introduces me to Pinta the boat rower. We then step into Pinta’s little wooden boat, and he rows me around for a private tour. This city is ridden with tourists. Not quite as many tourists as Paris, but a lot. Most of the people in the boats that you see are tourists. The first place we row by is a few fires where they are cremating bodies. Since all the old people come here to live out their lives till they die, there are many deaths per day. Therefore, people are cremating 24 hours a day. It costs anywhere from 500 Rupies to 3000 rupies to cremate a body depending on how long it takes. The even more disturbing fact is that if babies die, they put tie their bodies to a stone and drop them in the river. We did come across a dead cow in the water. Guess someone’s mom died.
We then turn around and cruise down stream, and see more people and the Puja worship events. When you look at the buildings, you can see the steps that climb about 150 feet, and turn into a temple. It’s interesting because you can see the waterline just below the top of the buildings/temples. The water actually rises that far up during monsoon season. Upon returning to the place we started, we stayed for a little bit of the Puja worship then headed back to the hotel, and arrange for the 5am pick up to see the sunrise bathing.
Namasday with praying hands to the chin means Good Morning, Good Evening, Good Bye... It’s the common word for all the greetings.

I ended up falling asleep at 9 o’clock which was perfect for the sunrise wakeup. I actually woke up before my alarm. Baba was there waiting for me and we made our departure. Upon arriving to the same location, we sat and waited for a bit for the sun to rise a little more. While we were waiting, more and more people came to bathe and pray. Such an interesting thing to watch men and women from young to old come to the steps, jump in and wash up. Even though it’s moving water, there are still dead bodies, and ashes in it. Can’t imagine it could be too healthy. Funny because a lot of wellness beliefs come from India. When the sun rises, they do a little praying to the Mother Ganges. I then hopped back into the boat with Pinta, and we headed down river. Hundreds of people bathing all down the shore. We then cross to the other side which in it’s own right looks like a completely different country. Like somewhere in the middle east. Apparently only the Varanassi side of the river is Holy. The other side isn’t, even though there were people bathing over there and a holy man was walking around.
We then returned back to the beginning point. The driver then took me to see a couple temples which were a little uninteresting. Then for the secret Indian silk tour, which was all grand until they took me to the “You’re lucky because most tourists don’t see this and get special Varanassi prices” room where they began pulling out 100 silk bed spreads and trying to pressure me into buying one. I mean hey, they’re great and all, but not my cup of tea. I wouldn’t put them in my house. I ended up leaving with a couple pieces. I found it to be really annoying. I hate playing tourist and feeling taken advantage of.

On that note, checking out of the hotel rather obnoxious seeing as though I wasn’t too pleased with the hotel in the first place. Of course it takes 20 minutes to check out because they could get the printer working and had to use the back up dot matrix printer.

Finally, Of course again, Indian Airlines was an hour late arriving to Varanassi. Eventually, it made it and we headed off to Nepal.