During our wait in the station of Satna, cows could be seen everywhere around us....
...On the track...
...Waiting with the rest of the people...
...or cleaning the bins.
You would expect that such a sign would not be necessary on the waiting platform,but believe me it is (although for those who can't read,
I'm not sure what is meant with this pictogram)
We arrived prepared in Varanasi, the Lonely planet and the other travelers had warned us: Varanasi is very dirty (even for Indian levels…!) and tuk-tuk drivers are the most annoying. So as we get off the train, we try our first trick which is to leave the station at the back of the station: here a few tuc-tuc drivers offer the ride to town (a couple of km) for 200 rupees and no way to bargain the price down! So we change our plans and cross the station to leave at the front and main gate, but walk right through the main parking without paying attention to anyone (here you have to imagine us forcing our way through a crowd of tuk-tuk drivers saying “hello Sir”, “excuse me Sir”, “where are you going Sir”, “how are you Sir”, “where are you from Sir” etc etc. ..) until we reach the main road. Here our first attempt is 80 rupees which we can bargain down to 60 rupees (1 Euro)… that’s more like it! But we’re not there yet, about 1 km before our destination, as the streets get really busy our driver tells us: ok, get off here, tuc-tuc not allowed pass this point (as he was saying this, obviously tuc-tucs were passing by in a non-stop flow). So that’s where we took our GPS out and told him: that’s not true, take the first left, keep going 1km and after the curve on the right… which obviously got us straight to where we wanted.
Varanasi is the India we know from Discovery Channel: people bathing in the river Ganges being holy, but also one of the most polluted in the world (levels of Bacteria are 5,000 above the levels they should be to bathe in). Appart from the sewers from the whole city (and obviously everyone upstream), that’s also where they throw the lepers etc, just so you get a picture of it… This being said, there’s really something about the banks of this river, specially as the night falls and large ceremonies are organized: a sort of way to wash their sins away. This is a very impressive and colourful event!
During the monsoon, the river rises by up to 20m,leaving several meters of sticky mud on the steps of the banks.
Not all the mud was washed by the time we were there.
But even more impressive, are the other worldly open air incinerations of their deads, also on the banks of the river. Here there’s not much more than whispers and people from the lowest cast, moving around in order to get the fires burning.
Here people are coming out of the waters
On our second day here, we woke up a 5am in order to take a boat ride on the river and see the sunrise. Unfortunately, the day was cloudy, so we didn't get much of a view.
I had a try at paddling, but without success(we were pretty much turning in circle)
Here the usual Japanese touris groupe with their mouth protectionDavid
