The City Of Shiva, Varanasi previously called Benares.

(23^th Dec 2007 – 26^th Dec 2007)

Dear friends and family,

We would like to wish you all HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008. It may be a little bit too late but as you know that we weren’t around Delhi during the festivals end of the year 2007. Let me summarize about what we did during these two weeks.

We had Sandra and Christophe who came to visit us as well as India. Our first destination was Varanasi the Holy City. We took a train on 23^rd Dec 2007 to that city which we have known very little about it. As it shown it the photos and the interesting story behind it about the Hinduism, brought us there without to have a second thought.

The services in the train are divided in to two categories: they served food and never stop to serve chai, coffee and other drinks which I think the initiative is very good. But through all the cleanliness in general is very poor especially the toilets. The night seems so long and in the train it was hard to close the eyes as it was too cold. Funny thing with these Indians, they switched on the air conditioner while it was cold outside. We arrived at Varanasi train station the next day at 7.30 a.m. and at the train station, it is written in any travel books that the rickshaw-wallah always finds their way to cheat on the tourist. Well, some of us refused to believe what is written on the books as:

The predatory touts and rickshaw-wallahs in Varanasi pounce on visitors like starving tigers pouncing on a defenseless deer, and are the hassle that most travelers have to deal with. But Varanasi has a darker side and criminal element operates mainly around the airport, train station and bus station, so take extra care in these places.

Well, it did happen to us, when 4 of us tried to take 2 rickshaw-wallahs. When we didn't agree with their proposition to do a city trip with them, they had organized something behind us. What they tried to do was to separate us totally in a heavy city of Varanasi. Laurent and me, we were left at the fuel station, while Christophe and Sandra were left somewhere else. But at the end, we found each other at Assi Ghats with the help pf other rickshaw-wallahs.

It was 24^th Dec 2007, a Christmas Eve and most of the hotel were fully book. After trying and trying, at the end, we found one hotel which is next to the Haifa Hotel. We took a room on the roof top which has a small terrace. Sometime, came a cross my mind: what an idea to celebrate a Christmas in this city. It is so polluted.

About Varanasi:Varanasi, the city of Shiva, is one of the holiest cities in India. Hindu pilgrims come wash away all their sins in the Ganges. Varanasi was previously called Benares and Kashi (City of Life) and has always been as auspicious place to die, since expiring here offers moksha – liberation from the cycle of birth and death. The city is beating heart of the Hindu universe, a crossing place between the physical and spiritual worlds, and the Ganges is viewed as a river of salvation, an everlasting, ever flowing symbol of hope to past, present and future generations. The magical but sometimes overwhelming city where the most intimate rituals of life and death take place in public on the city’s famous ghats. The accessibility to the practices of an ancient but still living religious tradition is what captivates many visitors.
In the history, Varanasi has been a centre of learning and civilizationfor over 2000 years, and claims to be one of the oldest living cities in the world. Mark Twain wrote that ‘Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.’

Its history dates back to 1400 BC, but it was around 8^th century AD that Varanasi rose in prominence when Shankarach Shiva worship as the principal sect. The Afghans destroyed Varanasi around AD 1300, after laying waste to nearby Sarnath, but the fanatical Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was the most destructive, looting and destroying almost all of the temples. The old city of Varanasi may look antique, but few buildings are more than a couple of hundred years old.

Helping The Great Mother To Breathe Again: The Ganges River, or Great Mother as it is known to Hindus, provides millions of Indians with an important link to their spirituality. Every day about 60,000 people go down to the Varanasi ghats to take a holy dip along a 7km stretch of the river. Along this same area, 30 large sewers are continuously discharging into the river.

The Granges River is heavily polluted at Varanasi that the water is septic – no dissolved oxygen exists. The problem extends far beyond Varanasi – 400 million people live along the basin of the Ganges River. The pollution levels mean that waterborne diseases run rampant among many villages that use water from the river.

2 days, we walked along the Ganges ghats, we witnessed a lot of thing: people taking a bath in this river, children playing around, the women washing their laundries and also the dead body has been burned on the riverside. Life looks harmony even though in the unpleasant condition.

The city of Varanasi is a heavy city and there is no place where you can be alone. Sometime it is easier to take a rickshaw to move around and also easier to see most of the thing around us. We took the train back to Delhi on 26^th Dec 2007. The train was 2 hours late. We reached Delhi end of the day.

Big kiss from Delhi/Gros becs de Delhi