India - 'Holy Sh*t'..... Varanasi

Well if Jodhpur is supposedly the rubbish dump of Rajasthan, then Varanasi must rank as the rubbish dump of the entire country - it is one seriously filthy place. It is also probably the busiest and most chaotic place in India as well. There are some beautiful old colonial buildings still hanging on in the middle of the old town and walking through the narrow lanes full of shops and tea stalls one can imagine what it used to be like, once-upon-a-time, but most are in a state of disrepair, dogs, monkeys, cows and water buffalo are around every corner and dodging the ‘mess’ from these is a full time exercise. Many people sleep and live in amongst all of this mess and chaos, not in homes but on the street and it does make you realise how very lucky we are at home.

Varanasi is one of the most important places to Hindus, or more pertinently the River Ganges that flows through the city - considered the holiest of all rivers to Hindus, supposedly possessing spiritual and life giving powers hence millions of Indians flock here on pilgrimage every year to bathe in the Ganges and drink from it for its supposed benefits. The reality about the river is that it is horrendously polluted, being the repository of all of Varanasi's multiple unfiltered sewage outputs which just pump straight into it. A fair bit of the cities litter (of which there is a lot) also ends up in the river, as do the carcass' of dead dogs and cows, and then of course to add to that wonderful cocktail of foulness you also need to add human remains into the mix as well.

Being cremated on the banks of the Ganges and having your ashes scattered into the river is the highest honour that can be bestowed on a Hindu, the theory being the holy river offers liberation from the perpetual cycle of death and re-birth. All day every day, there are public open air cremation ceremonies that take place at one of the 'burning ghats' as they are known - a ghat being an place along the river bank with a series of steps leading down to the water’s edge. The streets of Varanasi are a labyrinth of narrow winding alleys overrun with people and animals, a regular sight as you jostle your way through the maze is a group of men carrying a handmade bamboo stretcher with the body of their deceased family member on it, wrapped in cloth and elaborately decorated in bright sari type material and flowers.

The bodies are walked down to the river before they doused in the holy waters of the Ganges, then carefully stacked up within a pile of logs that sit within one of the many shallow pits that are dug into the river bank, more logs are then placed on top of the body finishing off the construction of the funeral pyre. Some ritualistic ceremonies then follow before the funeral pyre is set alight and certain select family members, along with numerous members of the general public stand around and watch the cremation take place. It obviously doesn't take long for the robes to burn off the body and for raw burning flesh to be on display. The ashes are then collected up and scattered into the river, along with any stray limbs etc that didn't quite get fully cremated. Literally right next to all this happening you have people doing their laundry in the exact same stretch of river while people merrily swim and splash about, drinking in all that goodness right in amongst it all. To those carrying out any of these rituals it is the most natural and normal thing in the world - to your average westerner on the other hand it can seem to be some darkly sadistic game of Russian roulette. (photo above right is courtesy of the National Geographic.... we didn't think it appropriate to take pictures).

A study by an environmental group has published a report stating that for water to be safe for human bathing it should contain less than 500 faecal coliform bacteria (human waste) per litre of water; a sample taken from this stretch of the Ganges apparently had in excess of 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per litre. Life giving properties eh...

We arrived in Varanasi a week or two before the monsoon was due to hit the area, meaning it was stiflingly hot and humid (46-48c) which when added to the mix of the filth everywhere and the human bbq's that were going on it gave the place a somewhat funky whiff to say the least.

Every morning at about 5.30am and every evening at about 7pm the 'Puja' (respect) ceremony is carried out in honour of the Ganges, or 'Mother Ganga' as it is known to the Hindu's. The particular ghats where these take place are absolutely mobbed with pilgrims. 'Sadhu's' - the holy men usually dressed in nothing more than an orange loin cloth with dreadlocked hair and beards are also here in great numbers. These are people with no fixed abode that have denounced all material possessions in favour of a life devoted to spirituality and religion - they seem to spend most of their sitting around smoking dope and asking passersby for 'donations' to their cause as far as we could tell though - not entirely dissimilar to your average university student, sitting around in their pants smoking dope all day getting hand outs from anyone they can...or are we missing the point...

Varanasi is a completely full on place, absolutely mental in every way and is like a melting pot of all the craziness of India in one place. When people talk of India being an assault on all of your senses it is never more prevalent than here. So after 4 days of mayhem here, and almost 2.5 months in the country we decided it was time to head out of India for a while, taking the train north headed for Nepal's capital city of Kathmandu.