Day 40 - Sarnath

Technically today is one of many “free” days this tour encompasses. In Intrepid parlance the North India Revealed tour is classified as a Basicx level tour (that’s not a typo). Our South India tour was an Original level tour. The main difference seems to be that there are more “included” activities in the latter and more “optional” activities in the former. More or less, one pays up front for the included activities of the Original tour and can choose to do (and therefore pay for at the time) the optional activities or not. If my memory serves me well, we of the older generation have all chosen to do pretty much every optional activity on offer, together. Young Anna has skipped a couple here and there. Of course that means we’ve been visiting the ATM more often on this Basicx tour that we did on the Original tour. But that’s the only burden as Anant has been happy to organise everything for us. We just have to turn up in the lobby at the agreed time.

Today’s  optional activity was a visit to the nearby town of Sarnath – which is really just an extention of Varanasi’s urban jungle. This is a sacred site for followers of the Buddhist faith as it is here that Buddha gave his first sermon after he achieved enlightenment. Eric, Cheryl, Kerry and I thought it would be good to see a Buddhist enclave in this Hindu country. Really surprisingly, only 0.,7% of India’s population claim Buddhism as their religion of choice, placing it 5th on the religion ladder. Surprising since Buddha was born here, died here, achieved enlightenment here and gave his first public address here. But then again, I suppose JC did all that in the region of the south-east corner of the Mediterranean Sea and his religion never really grabbed a strong foot-hold there either.

Anant organised a pair of tuk-tuks for us and we set off for the 30 minute ride to Sarnath at about midday. When we arrived one of our drivers walked us from the parking place under a big, old tree and proceeded to point out all the monuments we should see, in which order we should see them and what we should pay to see them – for all but one, nothing. First stop was the Sarnath Buddhist Temple. This was the site where Buddha gave his first sermon. The temple itself was built in 1931 by donations from a Sri Lankan Buddhist group. Just adjacent to it is an ancestor tree of the famous bodhi tree under which Buddha sat to deliver the sermon. There is a large stone sculpture piece of Buddha encircled by five people people all listening intently to his words. The sculpture is surrounded by dozens of prayer wheels and many large stone plaques each written in the language of a Buddhist nation. The little temple is under repair in the front and sides but the inside is quite nice, the walls being covered in frescoes depicting Buddha’s life. After agreeing to a couple of “selfies” with some excited school children, some excited mothers and grandmothers and some excited young men (all of the aforementioned just love to have a photo with a westerner for some reason) we sauntered off to the next monument – the Dhamekh Stupa, also under repair.

The round, red-brick stupa resembles an enormous hay stack, rising up to a conical peak. It is part of a larger archaeological site that used to be a place of living and worship for a community of about 1500 monks in the period of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the 2nd or 3rd century, essentially, the original Sarnath. It flourished until the mid-5th century when it was destroyed by invading Muslim armies and remained lost to the world until it was re-discovered by the British 1300 years later in 1835. Amongst the ruins was found  the capital of the once 15.5m high Ashoka Pillar which was comprised of four lions sitting on a drum-shaped abacus which is in turn adorned by a number of wheels. The wheel image was adopted by the new Indian Republic in 1947 as the centre piece of the Indian flag.

With a refreshing ice-cream in hand we explored the ruins for half an hour or so and then proceeded to to a lovely garden further down the road which held a huge standing Buddha (30+ metres tall) and a couple of other much smaller ones in the standard sitting position, including a gold one in a little temple.  A few more “selfie” request acceded to we found our patiently waiting tuk-tuk drivers and headed back to Varanasi after a really interesting couple of hours. By request, we were dropped at a shopping mall close to the hotel expecting to meet Anna and Irene but it was the wrong shopping mall. It was as boring as any other shopping mall anywhere else in the world so we sat for a coffee and then went back to the hotel.

At about 7:00pm we gathered in the lobby and headed over to an up-market hotel for dinner, minus Anna who hand been invited to a young man’s birthday party. The hotel was formerly the palace of the king of Tibet so you can imagine it’s grandeur. Our table was on a lawned area in a large central courtyard, surrounded by a two-story, white-walled building facade in all sides. The night was warm and very comfortable, except for the odd annoying mozzie now and then. There was even soft music emanating from the bushes in the surrounding garden. After a simple, but very nice dinner, we headed for our, once again, waiting drivers. Before we got to the tuk-tuks we met an oncoming wedding procession. Indians really know how to celebrate weddings. Ahead of the groom was a vehicle blasing out really load music, women in their best sarees dancing in the street, older suited and turbaned men walking ahead of them, young men holding a neon-lit umbrellas and other lights and a chap letting of fireworks every 10 metres. The procession moved a snail’s pace down the street but boy was it bright and noisy and colorful. After 20 minutes we found our drivers and headed back out into the busy streets  to the hotel. 

Day 39 - Varanasi

The chai-wallah came through the carriage at about 5:30am, I reckon, so that makes it the official start to the day! His counterparts selling other things for breakfast followed soon after so the day was really on. Over night the driver had made up quite a bit of the time lost yesterday evening so we were due to arrive at Varanasi station pretty much in time. Let the bag and people shuffling begin again!

Anant was first off so he was able to quickly find a porter for our bags. One man carried both our suitcases (each weighing about 20 kgs) on his head up the platform stairs and down the other side to the waiting tuk-tuk rank. I think I paid him just 200 rupees ($AUD4.00). Our little convoy headed off into the growing stream of traffic to the hotel, a little way out of the middle of town. We arrived there at 7:30am and, not surprisingly, our rooms weren’t ready so we adjourned to the first floor restaurant, to escape the little lobby, where by 8:00am breakfast was being served. At 10:30am our rooms were ready  so we retired there to rest and wait for our agreed 12:45 meeting time back in the lobby to continue the days adventures.

A short ride on an e-tuk-tuk took us into the heart of down-town Varanasi made even shorter when we were forced to abandon them because the traffic was at a complete stand-still. I have rarely seen such a mass of humanity in one place, that wasn’t the crowd exiting the MCG after a huge game. The only one I can think of that comes close was our walk down Hennessy Road in Honk Kong back in 1986. Playing “follow the leader” (literally) we made our way on foot towards the Ghats of Varanasi. The Ghats are comprised of individual but adjoining places along the banks of the Ganges river where Hindus come to wash and bathe, worship and wave good-bye to their relatives who have gone over to the side (of life). Extending for quite a few kilometres, broad stone steps lead from the top of the high bank down to the water’s edge. In total there are eighty such places along the Ganges. We first stopped at the Manikarnika Ghat where a new modern sandstone structure has been built by the Indian government in recent years due to its proximity to the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the holiest in the Hindu faith and the Ghat’s function as one of a number of “burning ghats” – places along the river where the aforementioned relatives are cremated in public and their ashes spread in the river.

We happen to be in India when the important Hindu festival of Holi is on. It’s celebrated on different days in different regions (but not in south India) and today was one of those days in Varanasi. What was already a maxed out visual and acoustic scene was taken to a whole new levels down by the Ganges when we encountered the Holi celebrators. Traditionally, the people are expressing their joy at having “driven out the demons” by gathering en masse and painting themselves in bright colours and then throwing all different shades of brightly coloured powder at one another, many having already partaken of their drug of choice. To put some context on this, the police force and army are also out en masse with their weapon of choice, to keep the crowds, which seemed to be comprised of mostly young men, somewhat orderly.

From here we made our way into the laneways of the old town in search of a famous store called “The Blue Lassi”. A lassi is a beverage common over all India made up of curd (yoghurt) and various fruits of your choice. Very tasty, and healthy as well being full of pro-biotics, a “must have” to stay well while traveling in India. BTW, the lassis’s aren’t blue, just the walls of the tiny, tiny shop. As we enjoyed our lassi’s a few ex-people being carried on stretchers made their way down the narrow lane in front of the shop towards their appointment with the Ganges.

In Varanasi, the Ganges is a broad river with a very large sandbank on the opposite side. The sandbank and most of the steps of the Ghats will disappear when the monsoons arrive in a few month’s time. Right now, however, the sandbank is home to a very big tent city courtesy of the G20 summit which seems to be going on everywhere across India. The river is surprisingly clean. To be honest, I was expecting something akin to an open sewer. I’ve seen the Thames and the Yarra in a worse state.

After the Blue Lassi we made our way back into the throng and through the winding lane-ways to the shop of a chap who sold scarves, shawls rugs and other fabric items. We sat on his floor and listened to the same story we’d heard at each of the other in Intrepid-supported community-based businesses we visited our the last few weeks. Here we learned how to tell a fake product from a real one by putting a match to it – much like I’d done at the rug shop. Natural fibres, like human hair, contain carotene which will not burn. Kerry acquired two very bright scarves that she fell in love with and a cashmere rug as well. It’s all being shipped back home because our bags are already bursting at the seams.

Next we headed back to the Ghats to meet our boat for the sunset cruise up the river. Our walk took us about three kilometres to ghats number eighty, the very last one, so we saw quite a lot along the way. Just as dusk was coming down (and after a quick masala chai) we boarded an old wooden boat and headed for the Manikarnika Ghat. In the middle of the river the captain stopper the motor ans we just drifted for a little while, which was very pleasant, watching the ghats and the buildings of Varanasi light up. While drifting the captain prepared a little flower-boat for each of us. He lit the tea-candle in each one and we then released them onto the water of the Ganges, making a wish as they sailed off behind us. It was a lovely sight to to see our little group of candles bobbing along the surface of the river as the the night began to fall.

The Manikarnika Ghat was already full of people and the nightly ceremony to worship the river was well underway. The river itself was equally full of boats like ours viewing the ceremony from the water. We were a good 50 – 75 metres from the shore but one could have “boat-hopped” all the way there without getting wet – and there were many more boats behind us before too long. The ceremony almost over our captain backed-out through the other vessels and we went a little further upstream to view at close range a a dozen or more funeral pyres that were lighting up the night sky.  Back downstream a short way we alighted and walked back through the crowds leaving the ceremony to find a restaurant for dinner. We has a quick, cheap meal and then made our way a kilometer or so to the nearest tuk-tuk rank and headed home after an interesting and exhausting day. Was Varanasi as "confronting" as I thought it might be? No, but I reckon that's because we'd been "conditioned" over the last few weeks.