Varanasi, India

As I have decided to cut my trip short, I used the last remaining ten days on my Indian visa (that I got three months ago) to explore a little the north of the country.

I arrived by bus to Delhi, a city I found to be underwhelming, after all I heard about it before. This might have been partly because I visited during the cold season, and it exactly the sensory overload, enhanced by unbearable heat that normally is the impressing delhi-experience. In many ways it is just a big, modern city with a very good metro system, a lot of traffic and honking. From Delhi I headed on towards Varanasi, but not without giving the Taj Mahal a visit on the way, which impressed me much more than anticipated.

And then to Varanasi. The city Varanasi is one of the holiest places in India, situated along the Ganges. It is said that whoever dies here reaches moksha instantly and is thereby liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth. It is also a place where a lot of burials take place: on two sites, so called burning ghats, along the river, every day approximately 250 bodies are burned on bonfires without break during day and night. Varanasis riverfront is a bizzare place – from a european perspective architecturally and spatially reminescent of venice. Standing at a burning ghat one feels the heat of the fire. The smoke fills the air and burns in the eyes and in the throat. In the sky dozens of kites are flying, independently from the fires, it just seems to be a favourite pastime of children. On the Ganges small candles float in between groups of boats, filled with tourists. The closest relatives of the deceased shave their heads and take a dip in the holy sewage-filled waters of the Ganges. Bodies, completely covered in orange cloth, marigolds and gold foil are being carried here on bamboo stretchers. The floor is filled with trash: flowers, cloth and broken bamboo. In between cows are looking for food and stray dogs are roaming around or taking a shit. And there seems to be nothing strange about any of this. 

I will spend another month in Nepal for another meditation retreat, before coming back to europe.