One day in Varanasi-

I tried to make it more like a half day, but Kingfisher was not cooperating. I will, however, be flying out tomorrow afternoon- two days earlier than previously planned. (YEAH!)

I was way pissed last night when I got here. First of all, my train was four hours late getting into the city. “What can we do this is Indian Rail?” was all my cabin mates had to say. I had some pent up fury which got released upon the front desk man here at hotel Sai Shiva or wherever the heck I am.

I tried to call the hotel I had booked when I got into the city, no answer on the phone. I got an auto and attempted to follow the instructions on how to find the hotel from the website. The auto driver was not cooperating. He took me not where I wanted to go, but where he wanted me to go and the problem was that it was dark, I was in a strange (stranger even than I thought at the time) city and both he and the guide book recommended against walking alone at night.

We ended up here and I was mad. Not because here is any worse than where I wanted to go, but because I just knew the driver was getting some kind of commission for bringing me here. I tried to call another, different hotel, the phone lines weren’t working, there had been some kind of storm earlier that knocked all the lines out.

I asked to see the room here. It was ok. I asked how much it was. The price was ok. The desk man asked how many nights I was staying I said, “one.”
He said, “you have to pay for two.”
I said, “Why would I pay for two if I’m only staying for one?”
He said, “It’s the rule.”
I said, “That’s a stupid rule, why do you have it?”
He said, “I don’t want you to stay only one night here and other nights in other hotels.”
I said, “But what if I won’t want to stay in other hotels? What if I want to leave Varanasi tomorrow?”
He said, “Then you can stay one night.”
I paid for one night.

At that point- well, to be honest at every point along the way leading up to that point I had already convinced myself that if at all possible, one night in Varanasi was more than enough.

I got up at 5:15 this morning to take a dawn boat ride on the Ganges. It wasn’t as awful as I imagined it. It’s much wider than I thought, and there wasn’t a smell at all. Nothing- that’s weird. It didn’t smell like sewage or death- it didn’t smell like fish- it didn’t have a smell. We rowed past all the ghats. It was early so it wasn’t so busy- the “Burning ghats” were just getting swept clean of yesterday’s ashes- the people on the bathing ghats were still sudsy and the songs were just getting started on the temple ghat.

I half heartedly took a bunch of pictures and set a banana leave bowl full of rose petals out into the water for a “blessing.” I may have negated the blessing by not including the candle . . . but I decided to keep it because it was kind of cute.

After the river trip I came back to the hotel for breakfast and to talk to Kingfisher about changing my flight. Then I was taken on a tour of temples in the area. I went to the monkey temple- where you cannot take pictures because once Pakistan bombed it. 17 people and uncounted monkeys died in that attack- and they don’t want it to happen again.

One thing about Hinduism is that the temples are always lively. From dawn to late at night the temples are going. There are people playing instruments and chanting- others are praying, meditating, reading scriptures- walking around fending off hungry monkeys, giving offerings- giving themselves the marks of the pious- All the daily activity of the temples make American Christianity and Christian churches look pale.

We accumulate so much stuff for our buildings, we have to lock them up so nobody takes the stuff- but nobody can come in for prayer, meditation, worship, reading, praise or fellowship. In that way the temples have us beat.

I also saw the “temple you should go to if you are in love” and the “temple that is too holy that no not-Hindus people can go there.” I saw the former from the outside only, on account of my non-holiness.

The driver commented that I wasn’t excited about it all. Little did he know how not excited I was by it all.

Then I went to see how silk was weaved, by hand- now that is crazy intensive work. Weaving a carpet- ok but weaving a silk sari? By hand?! I’ve heard of it, but I guess I always thought they were kidding. They weren’t. I walked through a house- the first room had a man feeding his goats in it. The second room had silk looms. And I have pictures of a guy throwing a shuttle of thread back and forth through the silk cross threads. It was pretty amazing.

So I bought a few pieces of silk just to show I appreciated seeing how it was done.

I was done by 10AM so I took a shower and laid around naked in my room in which the electricity had gone out. It was stifling hot. By noon I couldn’t take it any more so I went out into the city- I found an Israeli restaurant and had some falafel. I found a café/bakery called “Bread of Life” some kind of missionary thing- I noticed they were serving “chilli con carne (veg).” I don’t know what that could possibly mean. I hung out as long as I could before I just had to come back to the hotel.

Here I am- counting the hours until I leave “vacation” and the days until I leave India.