Varanasi

Between Agra and Varanasi we took an overnight train. It was 14 hours long and we had to make do with 3rd class Air Con sleeper, which sees 6 people sleep in a space no larger in area than your standard kitchen dining table. This was achieved through the use of triple bunks/cots, and I feel I have an insight in to the world of submariners now. I have sympathy for them.

We landed in Varanasi at 6am. A taxi driver latched on to us as soon as we stepped off the train and got 300 rupees out of us for a lift closer to the hotel. As many of the tourist hotels are down in the old city of Varanasi - a jumble of lanes and alleys - cabs can't get down to them. The driver unloaded our stuff but not before telling a tout where we were staying.

Tout: "Hey! I work at Hotel Alka!"
Us: "Really? How very bloody convenient"
Tout:"I take you!"

To his credit, he did, and we didn't give him a single rupee. I was quite shocked that he took us straight there, and I was expecting him to pop up at any minute during our time in Varanasi and ask for some cash.

View from the hotel balcony, over the Ganges and down the ghats.

Varanasi is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and pretty much the Holiest of Hindu cities, where people come to 'crossover'. It also transpired that it is one of the shitholiest cities. Cow shit was everywhere, on top of the usual levels of Indian litter, filth and scum. Oh, and dead people. At least these weren't lying in the street for you to tread on/in. No, these were being cremated on the banks of the Ganges, or floating down it. Varanasi is considered the 'best' place to die for Hindus. For the alive Hindus, bathing in the river from one of the many ghats is pretty much a rite of passage. I'm surprised that the alive do not become the dead more quickly following the bathing, given the amount of shit in the Ganges. If festering bodies and human excrement don't get you, the heavy metals and chemicals released from factories upstream will give you that acid peel for fresher skin at the very least. Or burn your eyeballs out of your head.

We dumped our bags and went for a wander, up the ghats (stepped riverbank) to see what all the fuss was about. It is quite a sight. The bend of the Ganges allows a sweeping view of all the ghats, and the buildings behind, which seem to tumble down from the ridge behind the river. They just stop before falling in to the septic Holy Water.

Tales from the riverbank. 

Walking along we observed bathers swimmers, holy men ('saddhus' either naked and painted white or in orange robes) with dreads and various 'followers' listening intently, and endless streams of touts, scamsters, beggars and cripples. The latest scam to befall me was the 'Handshake Massage', where a friendly chap comes up says hello and goes to shake your hand and then with a vice like grip he turns it in to a hand massage.

I was beginning form the impression that this was much like Blackpool Prom without the Pleasure Beach at the end; a long stretch of shit and shysters.

By about 1pm on our first day we had pretty much surveyed everything Varanasi had to offer. By 4pm we were train station bound to see if we could bring forward our departure to Calcutta by a day, or ideally a day and a half. No we couldn't. So we had 48 hours to fill in a  scam-riddled shithole or a shit-riddled scamhole, dependent on your point of view.

For that special something.

The old city could be very captivating and atmospheric. The narrow lanes and alleys are actually amazing, but the level of cowshit and touting makes navigating it a chore and tiresome. Varanasi did have all the elements I enjoy in a city, but it's just gone too far down the route to madness.

The next stop, and our point of departure from India, was Calcutta. Or Kolkata as it is now.

Cow in an alley in the old city.