We arrived in Varanasi yesterday afternoon and are leaving tonight (we hope) on the night train at 11:30pm.  (Maybe – that’s what it says on the ticket).  Our train was 3 hours late this time, but we did make it.  Our guidebook warned us that Varanasi has very high ‘hassle-factor’ so we came out of the train station ready for battle. An onslaught of auto-rickshaw drivers and bicycle rickshaws attacked. Our guidebook told us there was a pre-paid taxi stand, but it was not staffed. The tourist office wasn’t helpful either. So, we grabbed an auto-rickshaw, but seeking to avoid the hassle of him taking us to the wrong hotel,we concocted a story of needing to meet our friends at one of the ghats (bathing areas on the Ganges river).

We insisted we had no idea where our hotel actually was, only our friends knew it. He wasn’t buying our story and kept insisting we tell him where we wanted to go. Finally, despite our insistence, he dropped us off at his hotel. He claimed that the ghat we were looking for was just down the street, which it of course wasn’t. We set out to find our hotel, having no idea where we were. We managed to find a main street, and used our cell phone to call our hotel. They pointed us the right way, but we were soon lost again. We had quite a group of touts following us – our backpacks ensured that every tout within a 10 mile radius was all over us. We asked a female storeowner, who pointed us the right way, but unfortunately some of the touts overheard. They started following us, again. The problem is that as soon as a tout bring you in to your hotel, the room price would go up so the hotel owner could pay the tout.

We tried at first to politely get rid of the touts, but that wasn’t effective. Next we tried making fun of them, insisting that they pay us for the pleasure of talking to us. One tout actually coughed up a couple of rupees to talk to us! Finally, as the hotel came into view and the touts started running ahead, we lost our patience and yelled at them at the top of our lungs. This was actually effective and we finally shook them.

The Hotel Temple on Ganges is right at the end of the Ghats at Assi Ghat. It is a great location (quiet, but still very convenient), the hotel is clean, and there is a reasonably priced (though horribly slow) rooftop restaurant with a great view overlooking the Ganges.  Very relaxing.

We went for a walk along the ghats (holy places/laundry/crematoriums).  You can walk all the way along and there are steps down so that people can go down to bathe (not a good idea – the water is beyond filthy – the levels of pollution are off the charts – they dump sewage into the river at several points).  Anyhow, we saw lots of people bathing in the Ganges, kids playing cricket, cows, goats, more cows, people peeing, people crapping… We saw a cremation and we were constantly bothered by every child and beggar on the banks.  Anyhow, it was a very interesting experience.  We ate dinner at the hotel.

The following day, we had arranged for an organized day tour of the main sights of Varanasi. We tried to get our hotel owner to arrange it for us, but he said he couldn’t (he didn’t have any business sense, but a very nice guy!). We ended up with someone we arranged through the tourist office. First thing in the morning we went for a boat ride on the Ganges. This was a good chance for pictures, but it wasn’t long enough. We went to Benaras Hindu University. It’s a very pleasant campus – lots of space, greenery, and quiet. We visited the Sri Vishwanath temple, before heading back to the city. We saw the Mother of India temple which has a to-scale topographical map of India which was interesting. We also visited a couple of other Hindu temples.

Finally we headed to Sarnath, 30 minutes outside of town.  Our guide thankfully left us alone to wander the grounds. There is a crumbling stupa, and other ruins. There is a tree that is supposedly a descendant of the original bodhi tree, where Buddha gave his first sermon.  There’s also a spectacularly boring museum on site, which we had to pay 10 cents US to get into. (We should have saved our dime).

Back in town and alone (much better!) we wandered around the market at the central ghat and then headed down to the river again to light some candles (they sell them with flowers in a little bowl made of leaves – you say a prayer and float them out onto the river).  By accident we managed to be there for this new ceremony they’ve started.  It went on for about an hour and involved 8 guys light up chanting and ringing bells and burning different lights and incense and pretty much everything else imaginable.  Awesome!  We had dinner at a big hotel with some friends we had met at the Hotel Palace on Ganges. The buffet was overpriced.  But hey, it was a Christmas buffet…