Last full Varanasi day & another trip to the ghats....

                Last full day in Varanasi. Decided to put on my ‘walkers legs’  again and try to navigate from my hotel in the north-end city to the ghats along the east bank of the Ganges. Easier said than done in this country, where the roads are very narrow, twisted and chaotically crowded. The weather favoured this distortingly very humid and even light exercise moistens the skin & shirt. Anyway, despite carrying a simple hotel map and a general sense that the river is “that way”, I proceeded to lose myself ending up in a small village on a dead-end road with crowds of people with nothing much to do (who rarely see a ‘foreigner’) assuring me that it was impossible to get there (the river), from here (the village). A penny please, for every time that I have heard that during my hiking years! To the rescue, an enterprising young man in a noisy auto rick-shaw rattled up and stated that he had the solution to my problem-O.   

Even cows go shopping at Diwalli!

project, of course always sunny, but with a slight decrease in the daily temperature highs, especially noticeable in the evenings, when it currently drops in Northern India to about  20C—it is difficult to be precise, as it is

          Soon I was back on course, grinding & bumping my way towards “Mother Ganga”---- unfortunately, so was half of India. Beginning today, for several days, is Diwalli, Festival of Lights—the BIG festival in an Indian calendar that is jambed with 360 holy days per year. Everyone was hitting the bazaars & street vendors to purchase their, religious icons, trinkets, special food, holiday saris. In total traffic gridlock, I had to abandon my trusty rickshaw a couple of kilometres short of my precise goal and head westward from the main commercial street through a convoluted maze of alleyways, in which one rapidly loses ones sense of direction, hopefully towards the mighty river.. The alley ways, in addition to the odd cow and annoying young man trying to force his way through on a motor scooter, was clogged with long, and I mean long, lines of faithful Hindus packing their temples to bless (or be blessed?) at the Diwalli season. Eventually, I did reach the riverside ghats, but not before entering specific alleyways and being told—“no foreigners allowed”. Who am I to argue?

              

The largest cremation ghat.

A sustaining hot coffee for lunch on the steps of the ghat and I determined that I would endeavour to follow the river northwards, taking time to try & photograph ghat life in all it’s religious fervour & squalor. Rounding a curve I was confronted with the major cremation ghat—a ‘roaring’ business today—Diwalli is an auspicious time to die, I am told—I must remember that! I could see perhaps a dozen large bonfires burning. It was here that I encountered my first ‘ugly’ situation, when I was accosted by several street thugs who accused me of taking illegal photographs (yes, I had purloined one) and told me to hand over my passport and 500 rupees  ($10)!! Furious, I demanded that the police be summoned. Refusing to be ‘physically detained’, slowly and purposely commenced to backtrack. End of incident—they did not pursue me, or my ‘arrest’. Lonely Planet guide book in fact, warns of these type scams at the cremation ghats. Be warned, should you be in these parts.
               With nearly six hours under a boiling sun and with bedlam ringing in my ears, I beat a retreat, back through the same packed alleyway maze, to the sanity of my hotel compound.