Varanasi

Varanasi was great. Its not a very large city, especially compared to Kolkata. But I stayed mostly in the tourist Old City area, which added to the effect of it being small. The Old City is the part of the city near the ghats; near the Ganges. It consists of teeny, winding alleys, in which Nienke and I got lost several times. Even rickshaws are too large for these alleys, but its illegal for them to enter them anyways. There was, like everywhere in India, an abundance of cows. Perhaps this was just more noticeable in Varanasi because one has to squeeze ones self to the side of the wall to allow a cow to pass in an alley.
One night, Nienke and I went to the daily puja (worship) that is performed just after sunset at one of the largest ghats. (Ghats, for those of you who don't know, are steps leading down into the water. In this case, into the Ganges.) We paid to sit on a man's boat and watch from the water, since the priests face the river. Five holy men in organge robes performed the puja. It involved lots of chanting and incence and fire. Despite the fact that I couldn't understand what was being said, it was beautiful to watch.
One morning we got up extra early to take a boat ride on the Ganges at sunrise. We watched hundreds of people bathing in the sacred waters and the golden sunlight. It was gorgeous. That was actually my favorite part of the trip.
Varanasi is used to a high volume of tourists, both Indian and international. There was a higher concentration of foreigners there than anywhere else I've been in India. Nienke and I always wore salwars, which scored us points with the locals. Most foreigners wear baggy ali babba pants and have a "dirty hippy" look to them.
Nienke and I spent alot of time at a bakery which catered to tourists. We lounged for hours at a time on the cushions and low tables (ok, not on the tables themselves) eating good Western food and talking to people from all over the place. It was nice to chill in such a Western enviornment for a change.
I took the train back to Kolkata alone. I sat in a compartment with two families: one with a mother, father, son, and grandma; and one with a mother, father and two daughters. A man travelling alone also shared our compartment. The grandma was a really sweet old woman who didn't speak any English. I siezed my opportunity to practise Bengali, and was able to communicate basic things to her. The son, his father, and the man decided to play cards, and they invited me to play also. Grandma supervised my playing (pulling cards from my hand and putting them on the "table" before I could decide what to do) until one of the men went to smoke and she could play her own hand. The game was called 28, and it was quite like Euchre. It was fun. They ended up not serving dinner on the train, so everyone pitched in to feed me. Grandma's family gave me veg biriyani, the girls' family gave me a sweet and the man gave me some fruit cake. Indian hospitality is unbeatable.
It was a great trip.

~m