The Varanasi experience

I went to Varanasi with about 11 other people, and just getting there was a struggle. Our Spicejet flight was running an hour late. When the plane finally took off from Delhi it flew for about 30 minutes, made horrible noises, then landed suddenly.

I'd been blasting the volume on my iPod because to block out the noise (which I convinced myself was totally normal), so I assumed we were in Varanasi and began preparing to disembark. Someone had to tell me that we we actually had to return to Delhi because the 'seals' were broken. We have no idea what this means, but we are happy to be alive.

Here I am before any of that happened, excited about the trip:



And here are Tanja and Mahin post-emergency landing:



It's funny how living in India makes you kind of blase about 4 hour delays, emergency landings, etc. You just kind of have to go with the flow and laugh at it, or you'll go crazy with impatience and frustration. Anyway, we switched planes and eventually got to Varanasi where there were cars waiting for us:



We stayed at a place called the Hotel Haifa, which I found in Lonely Planet. It's about $10 per night, situated right near the ghats, and comes with little balconies in all the rooms. But the clincher is the popular and amazingly good restaurant, which serves Middle Eastern food. This is the main reason I chose this hotel over any other, and it totally lived up to the bill.

Here's most of our group outside the hotel ready for a night excursion:



We had our first experience with bicycle rickshaws:



These are THE way to travel in Varanasi if you're lucky enough to get a driver who understands your needs. As Tanja and I discovered, you can't judge a driver by his cover, either. Our first driver was about 70 (we were skeptical) but spry as can be. If he'd brought us to the places we actually wanted to go, he would have been perfect. Instead, he dropped us off in the middle of nowhere on two separate tries before we gave up and decided to get to walk (we still had to pay).

Our next driver appeared young and healthy but was SOOOOO slow that even walkers were passing us (this made me giggle uncontrollably). Much to our annoyance, he also wouldn't shut up -- as we rode into oncoming traffic he turned to face us and talked incessantly about what an amazing driver he was. Luckily, we were almost stationary so it was possible for cars to swerve and avoid us. That was a long, painful ride.

On Saturday morning we got up at 5:00AM and took a boat ride on the Ganges to watch the sunrise on the ghats.



A little boy handed us each a floating candle surrounded by flowers. We all made wishes on them and released them into the Ganges, leaving a beautiful little trail of candles in our wake:



Here are me and Charise with our candles:



And here is a series of photos from the boat as the sun started to come up along the ghats:











Some Chinese tourists who apparently thought we were one of the major attractions in Varanasi:



Later, Tanja and I took a walk along the ghats (the rest of the group had to fly back to Hyderabad... the poor things were in Varanasi for less than 24 hours due to the flight delay!). We almost got mowed down by a few territorial cows, and behind us was a constant entourage of people trying to sell us things.







Laundry washed in the uber-clean Ganges and spread to dry on the uber-clean ghats:



Lazy water buffalo (who always face the land, interestingly):



And some lazy goats:



Cute baby goats:



That night, we went to see a puja (Hindu religious ceremony) performed at night on the ghats. It was pretty cool -- lots of music, bells, incense, fire, and synchronized motions by the holy men: