Sunrise Boat Ride On The Ganges
The alarm went off at 4.30am, it's hard to get out of bed early when you are staying at a hostel. They are dangerous places for late night gossip, board games & drinking.
By some miracle we were both up, dressed & ready to go by 4.39am!
We were joined by 2 staff members from the hostel and 2 female, solo backpackers who looked as bleary eyed as we felt.
On dry land we had a glass of hot lemon tea, which was very strong and tasted herbal with citrus tones, kinda like tang crossed with chai tea.
Once we got back to the hostel it was just before 8am & time to go to bed again.
We would awake before lunch feeling well rested,accomplished & considerably hungry.
It's our last day in Varanasi so we head to a nice restaurant close by with the other aussie couple in our dorm. Tom & I share a big bowl of palak paneer, paneer tikka masala, rice & Naan, complete with coffee's! It is delicious!
After that we have a few hours left to pack our bags & organize ourselves for tonight's overnight journey to a new city!
The alarm went off at 4.30am, it's hard to get out of bed early when you are staying at a hostel. They are dangerous places for late night gossip, board games & drinking.
By some miracle we were both up, dressed & ready to go by 4.39am!
We were joined by 2 staff members from the hostel and 2 female, solo backpackers who looked as bleary eyed as we felt.
The walk down to the ghats is very quick in the early hours of the morning without the chaotic traffic and press of people.
We arrived just before 5am, the poverty is easier to see without the crowds. There were hundreds of towels, mats and mattresses laid out on the ghats, paths & sand by the river with people sleeping on them. We walked past 1 extremely emaciated man lying naked on the bare concrete, I'm fairly sure he had died overnight.
The 5am ceremony praising lord Agni was taking place on an elevated platform. We stopped and watched for about 15 minutes and were able to take some memorable close up photos and better capture the atmosphere surrounding the ceremony.
After this we walked down to the sandy river bank and all hopped into a wooden boat. This one was smaller than the one from last night and was man powered with oars instead of a motor.
The lack of a motor & motor noise was replaced by a beautiful quiet, which amplified the peaceful morning watching the sun come up. As we moved up the river towards the ghats we could see thousands of Hindus bathing in the river, washing away the sin's from this life and previous lives.
The ghats during the day are a lot more vibrant than at night when they are cast in shadows and the castle structures at the top tend to look sinister. There was lots of orange (the Indian prime ministers favourite colour) yellows, pinks and blues. We could see lots of large murals depicting gods and the details of the castle structures at the top showed off a range of individual architecture.
Interestingly it also revealed a water level stain on the walls above the ghats from the annual monsoon season flooding. I wonder what happens to all the homeless people, the fisherman and the cremation ghats during the times the water is this high. I'm sure the cremations would still take place, death is impatient and waits for nothing & no one. Perhaps in an electrical crematorium, I heard there was 1 in Varanasi. Halfway up the river we rowed past a large, buoyant, white material wrapped object floating on the surface. I could see it from quite a distance & guessed it was a body that had become untethered from its rock anchor, the men from our hostel confirmed it.
Just before we reached Marnikarnika (the burning ghat) we hopped out of the boat and walked up into the Nepal Hindu temple. We paid our respects & entry fee donation before admiring the intricate, hand chiseled wooden beams & window panes around the shrine. The temple also offered us an excellent, elevated view back down the Ganges. After the temple we walked around the corner to the burning ghats. As only 1 of us still hadn't seen them, we didn't need to stay too long. It's amazing to think the cremations happen 24 hours a day and that an average of 100 bodies are cremated here every day. The truly amazing feat is that apart from the smoke and other typical India smells, the ghats & the Ganges don't stink. With all the death, ash and bodies decomposing below the waters surface you would assume it to have a particularly unpleasant smell. This is said to be the doing of the God Shiva, who proclaimed Varanasi would not smell.
The return boat ride went by quickly, as the sun inched higher into the sky, the heat increased as did the number of Hindu people bathing in the Ganges & visiting the ghats. This was also due to the oars being temporarily ditched and replaced by a tow rope hooked on to a passing motor boat.
On dry land we had a glass of hot lemon tea, which was very strong and tasted herbal with citrus tones, kinda like tang crossed with chai tea.
Once we got back to the hostel it was just before 8am & time to go to bed again.
We would awake before lunch feeling well rested,accomplished & considerably hungry.
It's our last day in Varanasi so we head to a nice restaurant close by with the other aussie couple in our dorm. Tom & I share a big bowl of palak paneer, paneer tikka masala, rice & Naan, complete with coffee's! It is delicious!
After that we have a few hours left to pack our bags & organize ourselves for tonight's overnight journey to a new city!
- Alli
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