Varanasi, Delhi, and Mumbai: my caprice out east

The two volunteers that were with me in Nepal were on their way back to Kenya, but I opted to spend more time so that I could see more of India. I flew from Kathmandu to Delhi, then took an overnight train to Varanasi. So my first experience in India was the Delhi train station. I walked into this tsunami of people around 8 pm, and was dumbfounded. I literally stood there, looking around and pacing back and forth in front of the signs written in Hindi for a good 40 minutes before I started going up and down the lines of people asking if anyone knew English. No one did. There must have been thousands of people there, and maybe two lines that appeared to be for getting tickets. So I hopped in one line and finally got the cheapest ticket on the next train to Varanasi. Of course the train was delayed by four hours, and ended up taking two hours longer than it should have, but that meant that I got to see more of the Indian countryside from the train. I met a woman from england at the station who told me that the ticket I bought was for the part of the train that might not even have seats, but that I could upgrade to her “sleeper class” for a nominal fee. So I ended up in the cheap sleeper class, in which the benches fold up to a three tiered sleep bunk. It was fine, especially compared to some of the transportation fiascoes I’ve experienced in Kenya. Finally I arrived in Varanasi and ventured to the Shiva hotel rumored to have cheap dorm beds. For 50 Indian rupees (about a dollar), I got a bed on the roof of a 7 story building. The roof had a cage around it to keep monkeys from disturbing the tenants, and cots for us to use. There were about 5 or 6 other backpackers who joined me on the roof for budget accommodation. The view was spectacular and looked out over the Ganges river. I felt excited to explore this city.

The first day I walked around and explored without getting too completely lost. It was easy to orient yourself when you could see the river, but the rest of the alleys and tiny streets zig-zagged their courses in a very unpredictable way. And of course, there was a holy cow squeezing through most of them, and you had to be careful not to round a corner and get head-butted by a trotting heifer. At night, in fact EVERY night, there is a ceremony dedicated to the Ganges river, which is considered to be holy. The ceremony starts after sun down and involves lots of bells ringing, some chanting, candles, incense and fire. Everything you’d expect in an Indian ceremony. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of the ceremony was put on as a show for the hordes of tourists around me, but if they say it’s a sacred ceremony, I won’t dispute it. It is impressive that they can do this every night! After the ceremony, it was back to the hotel to enjoy some 650ml beers and chit chat with the other backpackers and travelers. It was great to swap stories, as each person was there on a different adventure and for a different reason. I quickly discovered, however, that I was there for the least amount of time of anyone there. Everyone else was in the middle of a 4 or 6 month trip around India. They thought I was kidding when I told them I only had a week. Well, not all young people can afford to take half a year off and just travel, so excuse me!

The second day, I had a little better idea of my bearings and branched out a little further. I walked up and down the river checking out the Ghats, or steps that lead down to the water’s edge. There are many, but each one has a different purpose. The main ones are the bathing ghat, the laundry ghat, and the funeral ghat which was closest to my hotel. There is a constant fire at this ghat, said to have been lit by Shiva himself and continuously burning for thousands of years. Varanasi is considered the premier place to die and be cremated, as this is how you achieve moksha, the release from the life-death cycle. So everyday, there is a constant stream of bodies being paraded through the streets in a funeral procession down to the funeral ghat for the body to be burned. I have no doubt that they have had enough cremations to keep the fire going for many generations. I made my way over to the golden temple with a couple from America I met, and weaved our way through the security maze to gain entrance. There is no entrance for non-Hindus, so we were only allowed in the outer courtyard. It was still pretty, and we went through the ceremony of giving an offering of milky water and flower petals on the lingots (stone sculptures representing the male and female) of the deities. Before we gained access to the temple yard, however, we were told to remove our shoes and come give our passport numbers. Even though the gentleman at the table was dressed in a police uniform, I have lost all trust in people, authority wielding or not. Thanks Kenya. So I told them there was no reason they needed our passport numbers and I started looking for another way in. After a minute, I realized I might be being unreasonable, and that since this was heavily guarded and a tourist destination, it would seem plausible that they would need us to sign in. So we went up to the table and gave our information, and entered the temple. Upon exiting the temple, however, I found that everyone else’s shoes were in the same place they left them, except for mine. Great, I thought, if I have to walk back to the hotel barefoot through cow patty filled streets, I’m gonna punch somebody. But after looking around, I saw my flip-flops had been tossed across the street into a gutter drain. I don’t know if it was because I put up a fight before giving my info out, or because I only bought a 5 rupee offering (the American couple bought a 20 rupee offering each, with a lot more flowers), and Shiva was punishing me for being a penny pincher. I just laughed about it and we went back to our hotel.

I had met another couple of guys working in Washington DC, in the area for a conference and taking a break in Varanasi. They offered me a spot in the boat they rented to go see the river ceremony. Even though I had seen the ceremony the night before, I thought it might be nice to see it from the river side. Plus I was happy to hang out with Americans under any circumstances. And they had beer. So we set out on the river around sunset and started rowing towards the ceremonial ghats, when we heard something bump up against our boat a few times. We peeked over the edge and say a dead body, shrouded in yellow, slightly bloated and knocking against our hull. As creepy as it was, it just added to our experience and I thought, “this is India.” This is a holy river, and I was happy to be seeing firsthand how dedicated they are to incorporating the water into every aspect of life and death. I later learned that the body was still intact (as opposed to burnt) because there are 5 cases in which the body is just wrapped in yellow, tied to a rock and cast into the water: a pregnant woman, a child under 5, death by a snake bite (considered a good thing, since Shiva is connected to snakes), and two others I can’t remember. Of course the rock always falls away and the body comes bobbing up to the surface downstream, but keep in mind the bathing ghat and laundry ghats are both a good distance up the current from this area. It’s unfortunate that there is an industrial district even further upstream dumping heavy metals into the river, all of which led to the sharp decline in the blind river dolphin population. I was hoping to see them splashing and squeaking in the water, but there was no chance they were near this part of the river.

The next day I caught another train back to Delhi and got in early the following morning. I had all day to explore Delhi before my evening flight to Mumbai (Bombay), and hopped into a rickshaw (a bike with two seats behind) and took a little tour of the town. I went to the red fort, a huge old walled-in structure that had some impressive architecture inside. I also saw, for the first time in two years, a lawn with cut grass and a sprinkler system. It was overwhelming. Other than the fort, however, I was really unimpressed with Delhi. It was really crowded, did not have good flow or feel to it as a city, and really didn’t offer anything special. I poked into a bar to kill the time before my flight.

I arrived in Mumbai late that night, and was able to catch some sleep in the lounge before heading out in the city. Instantly, I loved Mumbai more than Delhi. The architecture was even more impressive and covered a lot more influences and decades, and as a whole the city was cleaner and more cosmopolitan. I took a walking tour outlined in the “lonely planet” guide to India, walked along the bay, watched cricket in the park, and caught a Bollywood (India’s renowned style of film) movie in a theater, and still had time to catch my breath in a book store and coffee shop, and find a bar that sold Budweiser. A little piece of Missouri all the way in India. I headed back to the airport to sleep in the lounge again before my early morning departure. (That’s right, the last three nights of my trip I slept in a train, and and airport twice. Needless to say, my lumpy mattress in Kenya never looked so appealing).

So overall it was an incredible trip. Nepal was much more relaxing and out in the wild, but India was more culturally rich and lively. I loved both and will make it a point to find my way back to that part of the world some day. Did I mention the food? Everything I ate in both countries was bursting with flavor and, even though I had no idea what most of what I ordered was, highly satisfying compared to my typical bland gustatory fare.

So for now, it’s back to Kenya to finish my remaining 4 months of service. Even though I loved every minute of my journey, it feels good to be back to what I’ve called home for the last two years.