I wake up in Kolkata at 2:30 am to go to the Howrah station to start for Varanasi. Varanasi, formerly Benares, is located on the left bank of the Ganges. It is considered one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. I asked the Varanasi hotel manager if they could pick me up at the station because it is difficult to find in Varanasi and cars do not have access to the city center.
I arrive in the city at late night! Varanasi is a very lively city. There are lots of vendors in the streets, colorful facades, sacred cows on every street corner, goats, wandering monkeys. Each scene of life seems to be a painting of India as we imagine it in the scene from a Bollywood movie! It's a whirlwind! Luckily I asked the hotel to pick me up.
A rickshaw sent by our guest house awaits us and leads us, through the monster traffic jams into the old town. A guy called by the driver then loads our bags on his head and guides us through the maze of little streets filled with people to the guest-house. It is sometimes difficult to follow as the crowd is compact in places!
We finally arrive in a dark alley. The hotel is nice and the room has a small balcony with views of the Ganges. The guy at the hotel told me to pay attention while going to the balcony because the monkeys sometimes try to enter the rooms!
Day 2
Today is Diwali! We have breakfast with coffee, rabri jalebi and lassi on the terrace. After breakfast we go to the city looking for a temple that my father visited four years ago. As as a clue I only have a photo of the interior. We finally find the temple in question with the help of the inhabitants. Its name is Kedareshwar. Inside, a priest makes us offer offerings and recite prayers around the different deities.
Then we go in search of the Durga temple. We visit other areas of Varanasi which are a little quieter than the one where our hotel is located. The streets are even more colorful and it's beautiful! We pass in front of Anand Bagh, a small park. We go back to our neighborhood to go to lunch.
We go through the alleys, and as we are here during Diwali there are a lot of people on the streets. We climbed to the viewpoint that is installed just above where the eternal fire remains in Varanasi. We return to see the stalls with the wood stacked, ready to be sold. We continue the tour, now we see the beautiful Nepali mandir that is near there.
In the afternoon we go to the ATM to withdraw money. In the bank they are preparing the decorations for Diwali. Next we go to visit the Varanasi University in an auto rickshaw. The university is huge! The park in which are the buildings of the university is very nice. There are large avenues with trees all along! It's so quiet and clean here. I feel good compared to the hustle and bustle of Varanasi!
We wanted to visit the museum but it is closed because of the Diwali festival. After that we decide to go to see the Kashi Vishwanath temple. We had to go barefoot and leave our bags in lockers outside. Everything is forbidden inside the temple except money. A priest must accompany us and of course we have to make donations for the temple. There are hundreds of people waiting to pray there.
Then we stop to drink a chai served in a small earthenware pot. We leave to go to lunch and order a thali! In the afternoon I wanted to attend a yoga class but the same is not possible because of the Diwali festival. So we go for a walk. For Diwali I see a lot of people in the shops that usually are empty. People buy a lot of decorations and offerings.
And we walk through the ghats, watching scenes of daily life. We go back through the alleys of the Bengali neighborhood, where we see a kali puja pandal. We continue walking, with its stalls and alleys. We had to be careful with the firecrackers in Diwali. Children do not hesitate in throwing firecrackers in the middle of the street, when we pass by.
We go back down to the ghats. It is a very photogenic city. We go south, towards the Assi ghat, one of the largest and most important. We go and eat right there on the Assi Ghat at the restaurant. The Kachori Sabzi was very good and abundant, we could not finish. When we finished eating, we walked back to our hotel through the ghats.
In the evening we come across the Ganga Aarti. When we arrive at the Dasashwamedh Ghat, we are in front of a huge fair. We see a lot of boats, sadhus, pseudo gurus and seers who want to put a red dot on the forehead, pilgrims and tourists of all kinds and lots of cow dung everywhere!
The ceremony is celebrated by priests who pray to honor the river. There is music, priests sing (pilgrims too) and perform a whole bunch of rituals with smoky and inflamed objects. We go down to the shore to see the ceremony closer. It's pretty with all those floating candles and boats that sail on the Ganges. In the end the priests distribute sweets to the devotees.
We put a little candle in the water in the Ganges. After the ceremony, we walk a little in the streets. Diwali has begun in Varanasi! We see the rangolis at the entrance of the houses, courtyards, shrines and other buildings. Intended to show warm hospitality, rangoli is drawn on the ground with rice flour as a sign of welcome and to repel evil spirits. Colored powders are also used to form geometric shapes.
While strolling in the streets, a family invite us to come in their house to see their pretty rangoli. All the streets, and all the shops are decorated with candles, garlands of light. It's beautiful! The temples are of course not left out. Not very hungry after the big thali this afternoon, we take lassi. The tradition being to buy sweets, we buy some!
The contrast between the festive evening and the beauty of the illuminated streets, is striking. The owner of the hotel invite us at 9 pm on the terrace! And there we see fireworks all around. The hotel employees bought lots of small lights and lanterns so that we all participate together in the festivities! It's a unique moment!
Day 3
The alarm sounds again at 4:30 in the morning, but we do not care. Today we have the boat ride at dawn on the Ganges. Instead of looking for the boat, we decided to hire the tour through the hotel, for a duration of an hour and a half. They told us that at 5 o'clock, we should be at the hotel reception.
And at that time we were leaving two Canadians, a couple from Taiwan and we reach the ghat, to ride our boat, to navigate the Ganges, in silence. First we go to the Manikarnika Ghat, where we can see the lit pyres, as life and death take their course. Then we turn around and go to the Assi Ghat, passing through all the other ghats.
The bustle, begins to seize the ghats. We are spectators of life, of those scenes we have seen before on the Discovery Channel. And we see a different, magical sunrise. The fog dissipates and the sun appears.
At 7 o'clock in the morning or so, we finish the walk by the sacred river. We have seen the ritual of death, but also that of life in the river, of the ablutions, of how people wash their teeth, how they wash their clothes. We see the joy of the people when dipping themselves into the Ganges.
The jetty is five minutes from the hotel. We go to the room, clean up a bit. In Varanasi it's quite hot, with humidity. Then we went up to the terrace for our breakfast with coffee, tea, omelette and pancake. We go back to the Manikarnika ghat. We climb to the same place yesterday and we remain absorbed for a while.
We continue as we want to travel now to the ghats that are farther north, which are much calmer. We get to a point where we cannot go as clothes are spread on the floor to dry. So we turn around and retrace the path.
We are now in search of the restaurant as the walk has awakened our hunger. So we reach one that is more than 100 years old, a charming place with walls full of photographs of people who have passed by. We drink lassi. While we were there, we saw two processions passing through the street towards the main crematorium.
We also eat pakoras with onion and mashed potatoes, Tamatar Chaat, and plain naan. And we go back to the ghats, again in the direction of Assi Ghat, looking at everything. We see kids playing cricket, while others play cards.
It begins to get dark. Today we want to see the Ganga Aarti in another smaller ghat with fewer people than in yesterday. We reach the Kedar Ghat. Here, there was only one priest. It is true that there were few people and I could tell that it was more authentic, more genuine.
We were just a handful of tourists, but we liked more than yesterday, which was more showy and entertaining. This was too solemn and ceremonial. And we returned to have a lassi. And as it is the Diwali, we see many firecrackers and rockets.
Maybe I was not ready for Varanasi. Perhaps it was the radical change after traveling through large cities such as Calcutta or Delhi which caused the commotion. Perhaps it was because despite the fact that pages and pages have been written about this city, it has always been difficult for its authors to describe the incoherent feeling of walking through its streets.
I loved and hated Varanasi for its permanent contrasts and its ability to take things and emotions to the extreme. Benares has traditionally been known for Varanasi, a name composed of the Varuna and Assi rivers, which converge on the Ganges, a river that represents Shiva. It is said that Benares is the oldest inhabited city in the world.
This city is contemporary to mythological cities such as Babylon, Nineveh or Jericho. It is part of that circle of living cities among Rome, Jerusalem and Athens. The American novelist Mark Twain said that Benares is older than history, older than traditions, older even than legends, and it seems twice as old as all together.
Located on the banks of the Ganges River in the state of Uttar Pradesh, it is considered the spiritual capital of India. It is one of the seven holy cities, so it receives a vortex of pilgrims from every corner of the country.
Day 4
Three and a half days in Varanasi have given so much, that I find it difficult to select what is worth telling and what not, not to bore, on the blog. I've already talked about the gali, the chaos, the traffic, the police, the ghats, and the death. I have to talk about the food. And the best way to cool down here is with a kulfi.I had the opportunity to try a kulfi on my first trip to Varanasi, but they did not tell me or I did not keep the name on that occasion. Kulfi is a frozen dessert based on milk that is seasoned with saffron, cardamom and pistachios. They sell them in ice cream stands and it's an ideal snack when you want something creamy and cold.
In Varanasi the samosa stands emerge from every corner like mushrooms. There are too many to count. They not only sell samosas, but also kachori, bread vada, jalebi, etc. They are the typical fried street food. We could not leave without venturing to try some of these delicacies, so we looked for a place where they were frying the samosas and there we waited for them to serve us some warm with the accompanying chutney. They were not bad, but they were not amazing either. In Calcutta I have tasted better.
However, there is one thing that is better in Varanasi than in Calcutta is the lassi. Served in bhar (clay cups) like tea, flavored with spices and pistachio, the Varanasi lassi has the perfect consistency and sweetness. I taste one in a gali after observing the beginning of a representation of the Ramlila. In a very dirty lake hidden in the middle of the city, we found a Lassi store that had those precious things.
The owner was a young man dressed in white like all Varanasi men (maybe to contrast with the colorful women). He beat more yogurt with sugar in a metal vase. We ordered a lassi for each one and we sat in the back of the store. Men came and went. All equally lovers of the lassi. We even returned the next day, before leaving Varanasi.
This city is famous for dairy products, such as light yogurt, but also sweets. I thought that if the milk of the city was so famous, then the Indian ice cream, the kulfi, made basically of thickened milk, flavored and frozen, should be very good. The three and a half days I spent in Varanasi, I searched desperately for each post, for each store, a sign that said "kulfi".
It was already in English or in Hindi, since in Uttar Pradesh they do not speak Bengali. But nothing. It was an impossible mission till I saw a red cart with images of Krishna and a bell in charge announcing the arrival of the kulfiwala. The base is milk that is boiled for a long time to lose water, or what comes to be the same, evaporated milk.
The ice cream based cream is presented with flavors of saffron, pistachio, roses or cardamom is dense and, despite the heat, never melts. This preparation is introduced in the molds to freeze them. Unlike traditional ice creams, they do not beat to introduce air and avoid crystallization. So the result is a much denser and more consistent ice cream.
Kulfi is a frozen dairy dessert originally from India, although it is also popular in places like Pakistan, Nepal, Burma and the Middle East. It began as a dessert that was served on special occasions such as weddings and other banquets. But now its consumption is widespread and it is common in the streets to see stalls of its vendors called kulfiwala.
The Matka Kulfi is the ice cream offered by the street vendors, known as Kulfi Wallahs. They keep the ice cream on ice with salt in clay pots known as matkas, which isolate them from the heat outside. They are served on a stick or on a leaf, and sprinkled with chopped pistachios, ground cardamom, saffron. The children wait enthusiastically for the kulfiwala or ice cream vendor that appears every afternoon in the popular neighborhoods.
It is a very rich ice cream, with a very fresh and appetizing mango flavor with a touch of cardamom. There are more than 50 eclectic flavors to choose from, including tamarind, mango, pomegranate and paan.
The other great culinary sensation of Varanasi was a pizzeria in Assi Ghat, a place that does not have anything special if it were not for this restaurant and its apple pie. The food is delicious, the pizza is cheap (120-150 rupees for a good pizza made in a stone oven, while in Calcutta a decent pizza costs at least 300 rupees). But the best, undoubtedly, is the apple pie with vanilla ice cream, a creamy ice cream, Italian style, which combines perfectly with the crunchy and moist heat of the cake and apple.
Of the cuisine of this city, the best known dish is the Banarasi Aloo Dum, a mixture of potatoes with spices and sauces, to eat with roti. Do not you want to try it? However, the best food experience in Varanasi was not this pizzeria on the Ghat, looking at the Ganges. It could have been nice, but why am I going to fool you. It is not, it is not at all. Varanasi does not have anything nice other than the ghats.
Seeing the city from a boat at sunrise is a different. It is an interesting experience, because of the motley and bizarre nature of the city's skyline. But from the city, to observe the brown river, the dirty earth, the gray sky, the old boats, and the nothingness on the other side of the river, there is nothing nice about it.
The best culinary experience was in our own hostel. We bought food from a restaurant outside (with the best palak paneer I've ever tasted), a few beers. After ordering some dishes from the hostel owner's wife, we settled upstairs, where there was a little terrace with a plastic table.
There, observing the stars in the sky, drinking cold beer, and listening to the background music that continuously repeated the "om" for at least half an hour, a different Varanasi was experienced. Every little detail made us intoxicated, from the color of the walls to when the light went out. We stayed in complete darkness, accompanied only by the "om" and a sky that cannot be seen in Calcutta. The stars seemed to move and dance for us.
On my return to Calcutta, my friends have asked me if I liked Varanasi. I was very clear that no, I did not like anything. I still have it clear. But now, after stopping to think to write on the blog, I realize that although I did not like it, it has given me a lot of intense moments that I will not forget. Perhaps that is the magic of Varanasi, beyond the cow dung, the plague of garbage, the jungle of the streets or the business of death.
