Impatient pilgrims

As we arrived in the holy city of Varanasi on Wednesday morning, we were immediately overwhelmed by even more ferocious cab drivers than in Agra. Getting used to this, we walked over to the official prepaid taxi stand, but ended up with a higher price than what was offered from the touts! Confused, we went with the prepaid anyway, and set off towards Varanasi's old town. To our delight we found the rickshaws of this town to be unequipped with car horns! This is undoubtedly to preserve the holiness of the area around the Ganges river but we say: "Well done, Varanasi!"

The old town proved to be inaccessible by rickshaws anyway, so we went on foot the last part and entered the really narrow streets in the riverside area by the ghats - wide steps leading down to the sacred river. After checking in to friendly Teerth Guest House we went for a riverside walk down to the ghats. Among the never ending stream of flower-sellers, massagers, boat drivers and souvenir vendors, devout Hindus would bathe by the riverside, while mumbling a silent prayer to one of their many god aspects. The biggest culture shock however, was when we wandered over to Manikarnika Ghat, one of the famous burning ghats. Hindus believe that being cremated on the Ganges river ends the cycle of rebirth. Pictures of the funeral pyres were strictly forbidden, but we could stand as close as we wanted and watch the partially burned bodies.

The river Ganges, as photographed by a friendly Korean girl.

The ghats are an explosion of color and sound.

For dining in Varanasi we were immediately attracted by the Lonely Planet-recommended Brown Bread Bakery. We headed for it both for breakfast and second breakfast, but had a hard time picking it out from all the opportunist neighbors ("Brown Bread Akery" and such) taking advantage of the tourist flow. It was certainly delicious though, we'd been missing brown bread. We also made a similar pilgrimage to Blue Lassi, allegedly the best lassi shop in India. This one also beautifully exceeded expectations, but accompanied by tourists with their nose on the same page as us in the same guidebook, we felt kind of silly. We've been looking in a few book stores for the Lonely Planet guide for Nepal, but maybe it's just as well that we never ended up buying one! Yes, you might miss a couple of gems, but it's not only positive either that the tourists are all channeled to the same places.

Not sure why I couldn't rotate this!

At nightfall we grabbed a cup of chai at the main ghat and sat down to behold the nightly river worship ceremony. Hundreds of people gathered on boats out on the river, others crowded together on the ghat, while others found good views from a balcony, like us. The ceremony was led by seven men on small platforms, performing synchronized movements with accessories like peacock's tail fans, candle-fountains, Shiva-snake torches, flyswatter-pompoms etc., accompanied by ringing bells and music of worship. It was quite the sight.

The goings-on at Dashashwamedh Ghat every night.

After the ceremony we went to one of the many restaurants offering live Indian classical music. We really got lucky - Ganga Fuji restaurant isn't in Lonely Planet, but was awesome enough to have name-mimicking impostors and messages from happy customers lining the walls. The owner was incredibly enthusiastic about his cooking; when we asked him to recommend dishes for us he bubbled over of excitement, describing the ingredients and cooking method in colorful and mouth-watering detail! The food was every bit as good as promised, one of the best meals we've had in India, and the music in the background and other happy guests (among which were the first other Norwegians we've met!) created a great atmosphere.

For the next day we had booked an early morning picnic and boat ride on the Ganges from Brown Bread Bakery. Yes, the view was lovely from the river and the breakfast was delicious, but it all got rather overshadowed by the fact that our rower was a seven-or-so year old boy! It wasn't all to nice munching your sandwich while the little kid was rowing as hard as he could upstream. Motorized boats chugging and emitting black exhaust also wrecked a bit of the charm.

Morning on the Ganges. The burning ghat is in the background, if you can
see past the big strong man in front of the boat obstructing the view.

The rest of the Varanasi day was spent soaking up the ghats, blogging, another Blue Lassi and another concert at Ganga Fuji. We met backpackers spending a month or more here, and I can understand it. It is a spectacular place. For us, however, it was also the last stop before the eagerly awaited Nepal, so we're departing already tonight!