Varanasi is defo one of my absolute Indian faves! The people watching experience is just incredible. This is Incredible India afterall. The happenings here are so diverse and colourful. A puja ceremony is held every evening on the Dasaswamedh ghat which was magical and mesmerising with hundreds of people watching from the ghats and boats on the Ganges, with Hindus reveling in the religiosity of the ceremony and tourists like me in awe of the beauty and enormity of it all. Incense and fire and feathers were bandied around by the eight Sadhus performing the ceremony as they moved with their props in synchronised fluid motions for two hours. Absolutely captivating.
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| Sadhus in full swing |
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| End of ceremony and a closer peek at the Sadhu stage |
I took a couple of sunrise boat trips down the Ganges and passed by the conspicuous burning death and funeral pyres which was really moving yet felt slightly intrusive, but Varanasi is the place where life, love, and death all happens so unabashedly. The laundrymen beating out the grime in the Ganges, folks modestly bathing, those meditating, symbolic first dips for newly weds...And of course I released flowers nestled amongst a lit candle into the Ganges.
I took several strolls along the ghats to absorb as much as I could of this fascinating city and got lost in the weaving labyrinth of the back streets passing by kids playing cricket on dusty pitches, veg sellers, shrines, the usual. And of course the sacred COWS! My fear of cows has really been tested in India. The tiny alleyways of Varanasi meant that I had to slink past cows regularly with as much calm as I could muster. There was even the odd bull sashaying down the tiny, maze-like streets!
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| Colourful bathing ghat |
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| View from my sunrise boat along the ghats |
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