Varanasi, Benares, Khasi..

City of the gods and the heavens...

Way before starting my trip I knew deep inside of me that something special would happen in India. Ha! I was far from imagining that so many fantastic things would happen to me throughout the whole journey!

Ladakh was a paradise of sceneries and showed me in so many ways and similarly like Medan showed me that the new generation of youths can have such a huge heart and good soul.

The hospitality and welcoming I received from Sonja's family in Delhi was beyond anything I had ever experienced before.

And Varanasi, well...yet another experience incomparable to anything else.

I arrived in Varanasi by train from Delhi, after 17 hours of train, and at about 5am...in total darkness. Magical.

I negotiated a bicycle taxi for the 20 minute ride to the main gates of the streets leading to the various guest houses by the Ganga. Crossing the city at this early hour, in the darkness was the most surreal and fascinating scenery. Especially when knowing that Varanasi is an incredibly dirty place filled with crime.

But the most incredible spectacle was by far when arriving on the ghat of the crematorium right as the sun was rising. A bright sanguine red circle rising above the very foggy river while several human bodies are burning on stacks of firewood. I stayed there for a good 15 minutes clueless, speechless, motionless, not knowing what to think nor what to feel as I was numbed by the uniqueness and strangeness of such magical moment and scenery.

No description of the landscape can do justice to such beauty. I only wish my vocabulary were extensive and creative enough to manage to visually transport you through words to the shore of the Ganga in Varanasi. But in all humble honesty, entering those key words in Google images or just waiting for me to upload my photos will give you a much better idea, and I am convinced that you won't believe that such scenery actually exists. But trust me, it does.

So after a couple of hours with my bags on, looking at most of the guesthouses close to the river bank, I finally found one to crash for the first night. I was just dead tired and wanted to take a little nap before venturing in this architectural and cultural wonderland.

I believe that first day I walked about 8 hours non stop. All the way east to the nearest bridge, crossing the supposedly shantytown, and back. The people in the shantytown were so welcoming and smiling. Hard to believe that Varanasi is the source of all the criminals of India.

By 7 pm I still hadn't had any food since lunch the day before and so i was pretty much starving and would have eaten an entire holly cow!

Found a decent place, had my vegy byriani and banana lassi, and went off to the crematorium to sit down and peacefully observe both the fires, the temples, and the Ganga at the same time. The scene is even more impressive by night. It reminded me of those scenes in Les Miserables or any other movie happening during those days in old old Paris, where misery and desperation haunt the streets at night, and all you see along the banks of La Seine are the flames of big fires, flocks of stray dogs, and few groups of people here and there standing at the bottom of gigantic ancient fortresses or castles. Most surreal back from the past kind of moment...

The next day, I woke up early enough to go check out a cheaper place I was recommended by a kid the night before. On my way back to my guesthouse and ready to check out I bumped into this girl from Paraguay (!!!) who had just arrived from Nepal, and convinced her to change place and share a room in the new guest house I had just seen. Very nice and fun girl. And gosh, it felt so good to speak Spanish again!!! So Carmi and I hung out and pretended to be brother and sister since then, sometimes pretending to be from Brazil or Spain, or Argentina...basically just having tons of fun making up new stories as we went.

The evening of the second day, after taking a two-hour row boat trip on the Ganga for sunset, we decided to venture more thoroughly into the crematorium where we learnt that they apparently burn about 200 bodies per day (Hindus believe that a dead body has to be burnt within 24 hours, and the fact of being burnt in Varanasi means that the dead goes directly to Nirvana. Some people actually make the long journey to Varanasi to spend their last breath and get a straight ticket to heaven.). Once there, we were let in to the small little house/temple where the eternal flame is guarded and where the site's guriji resides. For some reasons it seemed that tourists don't dare entering that building, we did, and were invited in. We basically sat down with bunch of men, including the guriji for about two hours, chit chatting, laughing a lot, and taking a few photos. They even got us chai tea. The moment was surreal, especially given all the warnings we had been told regarding the site and how private and anti photos it was.

One of the guys there, a barber shop owner, invited us for lunch to his house the next day. How could we have said no to such special opportunity?! Hehe! And guess what?! (Only my friends in Paraguay will understand why this was so funny and strange) the name of the barber shop is Monalisa!!!!! The same day I meet a girl from Paraguay and get invited to have lunch at a place called Monalisa! Unbelievable! (Mabel, Gecilda, Rosana y Maria Gracia, eso seguro les va a hacer reir).

Day three...well, even more amazing than the previous day. Never thought that would be possible. Anyhow...

...day started at 6:30am by sunrise row boat ride on the Ganga. It felt like a Sherlock Holmes movie: extremely thick fog blanketing the whole city early in the morning, and the old buildings and holy people appearing magically out of nowhere as the row boat moves forward over the water. Surreal!

If I had any doubt about the cleanliness of the Ganga before, I now do not have any more doubt AT ALL!!!!

Let's see...what did we see this morning while cruising on the boat:
- dead dogs floating on the water, but as big as a goat due to so much water and air inhaled.
- tons of fish coming up to the surface of the water, and struggling to keep their head out, the same way dogs or cats would, in order to get some oxygen.
- people taking a poop, people doing their laundry, people brushing their teeth, people showering, all next to each other and all out in the open.
- a dog chewing on the heel of a dead human body half floating on the water and half laying on the staircase of the water. The entire intestines and inside organs of the body were hanging out, but the dog was digging its teeth as deep as possible in the bone.

Aside from that, the boat ride was incontestably magical, and those elements made it even more mysterious and surreal.

After a long morning walk along the river bank (you just can't get enough of walking along those majestic ghats and buildings!) we made it right on time to the Monalisa barbershop.

Gosh, I hadn't been received and hosted like this by total strangers since the last time I came to India with my family 15 years ago. One sometimes or rather often, tends to unfortunately forget the good of which the human heart is capable.  It was so moving and touching how they received us. Their house or rather cement room was no bigger than 3m by 3m. A large wooden board on four legs was the only furniture, serving as bed, dining table, common area, sofa... So we spent most of the day sitting there, trying as creatively as possible to communicate with our hosts. This beautiful couple and their four children. After some traditional chai, the woman started cooking right on the room floor, with the absolute most basic tools and equipment. The chola and rice she cooked for us was delicious. At least this time, we were not the only ones eating. Once we got started, our hosts also got eating. Very soon we were al eating together...with our hands. Gosh it was spicy! But hey, whatever! The sweat on my face and my runny nose made them laugh quite much. Lol

After lunch we all walked up to the roof, the floor above, and even smaller than the main room. All of us sitting there, while all the neighbors from the surrounding building kept on peeking their heads out to see where all the noise and English was coming from. Then the oldest daughter, 12yr old, offered Carmi to do her a mendhi, or henna, since she was studying it at school. It was so moving. She was so focused and so attentive to do her best...while her parents were so proudly watching.

It was hard to leave their house when the night had arrived. They wanted us to stay. :-)

The next day was when we met Om, a 14 yr old local boy. One of the wittiest boys I have ever seen. 14 going 40! Lol

That evening we just briefly met him and just chatted for a bit like we usually did with everyone else in the area. Little did i know that i would spend every following day with him.

A little gastronomical parenthesis though, that same morning we also discovered the absolute best lassi place in the world: Blue Lassi. And for once, the Lonely Planet is entirely right about its recommendation. OMG those lassis are so incredibly good! My favorite is the Mixed Fruit one. A home/hand made liquid sweet yogurt mixed with coconut, and topped with pomegranate, orange, pear, banana, papaya, pineapple, a touch of powered cacao, a touch of strawberry jelly, and crumbled pistachios. Delicious is a huge understatement!

One day walk Carmi and I did before hanging out with Om was to go all the way to the Ramnaga fort, a good 20km away (so we were told). This fort is majestic. A true piece of architectural art. When we got there, we saw that unfortunately the entry fee for foreigners was way to high (Rp150 per person! Vs 20 for locals!), so we decided to walk around the outside wall along the river bank to check out the river view. After crossing a public toilet land (literally, a large piece of land where people just go and relieve themselves, whether it be #1 or #2, shamelessly out in the open, day and night), and a supposedly snake infested bushy area, we made it to the foot of the fort on the water side. It was our adventurous luck that some slightly sketchy young kid incited us to follow him and basically hike and walk along the facade, as if we were breaking in, face and whole body glued to the wall, until reaching the other side or the back entrance of the fort, the one only used by boats. Though we were initially scared to be caught by the fort security, we realized that technically we were still outside the fort's walls anyway, thus legal. Hehe!

Once there, we were surprised to find quite a few fishermen...well, if men from the slums, using a piece of nylon string hanging in the water in the hope of catching some food can be called fishermen. I believe they were as surprised to see us as we were to see them. We even met a Sadhu there. A beautiful Jesus like face of a a guy. He wanted us to take photos of him. And so did his friends. It was funny. But even funnier was that at one point he was making a charas (clay cone filled with marijuana and tobacco), and then urged us to take no more photos of him, and to just go. A bit of hypocrisy there, but oh well...isn't it what religion is all about anyway...

Our first whole day spent with Om, we walked the entire day along the Ganga's banks, crossing the city and also some slums, in order to find the only Krishnamurti center in India.

My mother had always told me about Krishnamurti. She always tried to get me to read some of his work, but I never made the effort. So since I had been told about that center by one of Sonja's aunt, I figured it would be a good opportunity to catch up and enrich my knowledge a bit about such world renown spiritual leader. Hmmm...all I have to say is that it takes more than one trial or read to fully grasp what he is talking about...and today I am still not quite there yet...

In any case, we then returned to our neighborhood via the Muslim district, by far the nicest part of the city. So colorful, relatively peaceful, but filled with vibrant culture and diverse street life.

A day or so later I believe is when the beautiful Angelina arrived to town. (Remember her? We met on the very last day of my Vipasana course in Yangoon. She is half Japanese half Brazilian).

Well, we had stayed in touch since then, and managed to make our journeys coincide in Varanasi. :-)  lucky me!

It was the perfect timing, since Carmi was to depart on Friday, Angelina became my new roommate.

Not only is she beautiful on the outside, but the time we have spent traveling together since then has allowed me to realize how beautiful a person she is inside. She has been traveling for about 20 months already, and has spent each of these months volunteering on some projects, from the Caribbean, to Africa, to eastern Europe to Asia. She is like an unstoppable do-gooder. Her heart is just bottomless. It is just so inspiring and refreshing.

I have now been on the road for about 8 months. Like most backpackers who go on such journey, my overall objective is to "find myself", find what my purpose in life should be and find the appropriate inspiration to drive me in the right direction.

I have always known in a way that helping people is what makes my heart vibrate, but other than when I was working at AED back in my DC days, I never really fully put any of it into action, at least not the way Angelina has been doing it. And as we all know, actions speak louder than words.

Does my passiveness all these years say something about my real intentions or passion? I am not quite sure and am still trying to figure it out. But the one thing I know is that spending time with Angelina and listening to her ideas and the work she has done does inspire me so much and makes me want to turn my passive state into serious actions. Perhaps I have just been a bit afraid to dive in thus far, fearing that I don't have the right tools or preparation to know what to do. But isn't that the main fear of all entrepreneurs and what makes the difference between those who think about it and those who actually do it?!

A question I have been asking myself more and more is whether I should be a social entrepreneur or a social worker. Between Beverly's book and Angelina's stories, I am not at a lack of inspiration at all!

Anyway, back to Varanasi.

Angelina and I pretty much spent the rest of our stay there walking, discovering, chatting, laughing, learning, and eating with Om and Babu every single day, as if they were our two sons. Such a strange yet thrilling experience. Every time we would buy them diner or sweets, watching them eat with their gourmand and happy face was so rewarding. One evening we even took them to the movies. I think we enjoyed the movie just as much as we enjoyed watching them having so much fun. I must confess that during those days I did think a lot that those moments and feeling were perhaps comparable to what part of parenthood could be like...and it did make me look forward to it quite a lot. And what a perfect sequence right after the precious time I had spent with Milan and Surya in Delhi.

Angelina even convinced me to "bade" in the Ganga. Only up to our knees though!!!!! People, don't freak out...no genitals nor any other vital parts of our bodies were ever in contact with the water as like I said it was only up to our knees. But it was nonetheless quite a trip, especially the way passers by were looking at us...both locals and foreigners.

A lot a soap and scrubbing happened in the shower after that in order to remove any potential sticky bacteria from the skin of our legs. So no, my legs are not Ganga infected. Lol

Our last evening in town, we decided to do a sunset boat ride. Though Angelina and I had our own idea of what we wanted the ride to be for such occasion ( more on the romantic side), Om, Babu, and their third friend managed to make the experience something entirely different and absolutely unique. But most definitely, way better than anything we could have wanted or planned.

We rented an old row boat f or an hour, but our boys insisted to be our boatmen. So it was basically just the five of us on the boat. Like a big happy family. All five of us took turns at rowing and trying to make the boat go in a direction or another. The sun was just a gigantic bloody red orange of a sun setting in between the kings palace and the old mosque. We were in the middle of the water, the fog was thickening by the minute, the boys were discovering the fun and excitement of taking photos with our cameras, and we were all having more fun than ever.

What a perfect last sunset in Varanasi.

Our last day, (since our train to Bodhgaya was late at night) we mostly all hung out on the rooftop of our guesthouse, just joking around, playing with the cameras, chit chatting, relaxing. And at night, the boys took our backpacks (which were almost bigger than them) and led us through the streets of the city all the way to find a rickshaw, a cycle rickshaw that would take us all five and our bags all the way to the train station. What a hilarious ride. Mainly because those cycle rickshaw usually barely fit two people tightly sitting next to each other and with no bag. Hahaha! I won't say more!

Bye bye Benares!...

"Walking is good for health, talking is good for mind." Om.
"No worry no hurry, no chicken no curry." Om.