Varanasi till you dropsi

In order to find our way out of nowhere and onto Varanasi, India swept us into her chaotic and bureaucratic reasoning of doing things. I'll cut the story short and just say that it took 3 days when it should have taken 13 hours. Yet it was amazing, fun, and the truest test of patience and a positive attitude. My fellow American traveler and I were some of the few foreigners who have ever passed through these towns. While waiting in a steamy garbage filled bus stop a local government official asked us if we were from Japan. Yeah, Japan.

Now is the low tourist season to be in Varanasi because the heat is so intense that pretty much between 12 and 5pm you become a pancake blob and slowly get cooked until you can peel yourself off the skillet and blob around for the rest of the night. It was about 108 degrees every day, yet we had the place to ourselves, meaning hardly any other foreign tourists.

For a Hindu Indian coming to Varanasi is like a Jewish person's pilgrimage to Jerusalem, it must be done. It is also the hot spot (quite literally) to leave the body behind. Indians come from everywhere to die here, and there are many old Sadhus (holy men) who are just ambling around in constant prayer waiting for that moment. It is thought that if you are cremated in Varanasi at the holy sites situated right on the river than you are guaranteed instant Nirvana and freedom from Samsara, the karmic cycle of suffering. If you ask me it seems like an easy way out, but hey if it gives them peace of heart and mind then I'm all about it.
The Ganga River is the pulse of spirituality here as in so many other places of northern India. It's the life blood, the place where everything happens. Dying, bathing, doing laundry, brushing teeth, fishing, transportation, and praying. One of the countless ironies of India is that this river is more holy than any temple they have built, yet they dump their sewage in it. Hmmmm...
I didn't quite have it in me to even dip my toes in.
While the sights were fascinating the heat was exhausting, and after 4 days I was happy to get on my last overnight train back to New Delhi and feel the night air rushing in through the windows.