Varanasi : Fireworks, Festivals and Food

One thing I have noticed the most while travelling in India is how people here are always speaking about India. On the trains I nearly always have a conversation with an Indian about how 'India is changing' and with other travellers our conversations nearly always steer towards our opinions and experiences of the country. This seems obvious, but it is much more present here than in any other country I have visited. There is also that repeated phrase I hear again and again from backpackers 'on my next trip to India....'. It's a place that sucks you in and doesn't let you go easily.

Varanasi is a holy city south of Rishikesh on the banks of The Ganges, although an unrecognisable Ganges from the fresh blue one I had witnessed up north. The river is really like a bloodstream here, people fish in it, bathe in it and are cremated into it (and all manor of other things are pumped into it too). It is said that if you are cremated here you stand a better chance of reaching nirvana and an even better chance if you come here to die. The close relationship to death is quite shocking when you first arrive, but I soon learnt to envy it. To live knowing that death in inevitable gives the town life and soul. I had come here especially to celebrate Diwali, the largest of the (many) Hindu festivals and from what I have been told, although I have been told a number of stories, symbolises the candles that were lit to welcome Rama, Sita and Hanuman home after their heroic mission in Sri Lanka. 

My first impressions of Varanasi were not positive, after growing used to the slow paced life of Rishikesh, hearing endless beeping, seeing rubbish piled up at the side of the road and witnessing people living on the streets was overwhelming. I realised I had been kidding myself for the last few days. THIS was India, and I better embrace it.

I woke up the next day with fresh eyes. My hostel was brilliant, offering loads of activities and, due to Diwali, was completely booked up which meant lots of socialising. Alex, a guy who had been in my hostel in Delhi, was also there and we woke up really early to go down to the Ghats to see the morning sunrise ceremony.

The Ghats are the steps going down to the river and each section of steps has it's own significance. We walked past the smaller of the burning ghats where people get cremated and I saw a pair of feet sticking out of a fire. I was shocked a first, but it was being treated so normally there that my shock turned quickly to intrigue and then respect. This was when I got my first glimpse at how dirty the water was, the colour was the same as when you were young and you would mix all the paint colours together and end up with a murky grey/brown. There was scum building up at the banks and things floating in it. Despite of all this people were swimming and washing themselves and their clothes in it. It went against every instinct for me and, in a way, I found that more shocking than the cremation. I went back to the hostel and spent the rest of the day reading, talking with other travellers, and taking a short wander through the amazing little lanes that lead up to the ghats, feeling that I needed to immerse myself in Varanasi little by little. Jack arrived in the afternoon and the hostel got busier and busier. We went to see some live music that evening and had  dinner on a rooftop restaurant where you could already feel the festival electricity in the air.

The next day it was Diwali! I honoured the occasion by going out with a few others from the hostel to buy a sari! Anyone who knows me well will know that I never let an opportunity to dress up pass me by. We walked along the river and around the markets and alleyways of Varanasi, stopping to get an incredible lassie (Indian yogurt based drink) from a famous shop called Blue Lassie, which does so many flavours of lassie, freshly made and lovingly served in clay pots. Yum. You could get some strange flavours too and every so often a dead body wrapped in colourful material would be carried by outside.

We visited a few shops along the way and I found my perfect sari pretty quickly. I bought the sari blouse and petticoat seperately but the whole ensemble, including bangles came to aproximately £4.20!

 We rushed back to the hostel and the staff had organised a couple of things, so I helped them decorate with colourful powder patterns on the floor and got henna on one hand. Suffice to say, I was feeling pretty festive. 

We all got dressed up and the hostel set off some fireworks in the classic Indian looks-quite-dangerous-but-seems-to-work-out-in-the-end kind of way. There were quite a few of us dressed up including some of the boys and it felt really special to have really made an effort on my appearance, it had been a while since I had done that! I got a fair amount of compliments too, which is always nice. I felt like a laaadyyyy.

The hostel had prepared a dinner on a boat on the river to celebrate, so most of the people staying at the hostel walked together, through the vibrant streets full of celebration and children handling explosives (everyone seems ok with that so I guess it's fine, isn't it?). We got quite a few funny looks as a group if westerners all dressed up. The boat was lit up with fairy lights and we took a leisurely journey along the river from one end of Varanasi to the other. 

There were candles on the ghats and in the water and fireworks going off everywhere. We had a thali style meal and played with sparklers on the boat, which made up for missing bonfire night. Back at the hostel we bought some Old Monk Rum and sat on the roof literally surrounded by fireworks until the early hours.

The following day I walked around the town again and watched a crazy Bollywood film in the evening and the day after that I did some organised exploring. One of the best things about the hostel I stayed at (Stops Hostel) is that they offered a variety of tours daily. That day it was the temple tour in the morning which took us to a part of town I hadn't been to before and taught us about some basics of Hinduism which really helped to make sense of some of the things I have been seeing. I learnt that in Hinduism, like Christianity, there is a trinity, The Creator, The Organiser and The Destroyer and their wives who symbolise intelligence and creativity, wealth, and nature. We went to a monkey temple where apparently 3000 monkeys live and inbetween laughing at monkeys having sex, learnt about the story of Rama and Sita, which I already knew something about (the dance show I had seen all the way back in Bali had been based on the story. Pay attention, there will be a test at the end!). In the afternoon there was another tour, the food tour. We were taken to the main market area of the town and tried a thing called chatt (or it might be chaat) first which was essentially a load of sauces and flavours on a base depending on what dish you chose. There was a samosa based one, a potato based one and the Indian equivalent of nachos too. They were absolutely delicious and we all ordered a second (and only paid 50 rupees, 50p!). We went to the Muslim quarter and tried some fresh and ridiculously cheap naan bread and some people tried buffalo kebabs. I have been eating only vegetarian stuff for quite a while and nothing about the kebabs appealed to me. I really think I am going to go veggie when I get home, Not that ate that much meat before, but India has opened my eyes to all the amazing flavour and options for vegetarian food (ok, maybe I will have organic free range chicken on christmas and fish every so often, dont make me give up tuna!). We returned to Blue Lassie and I tried a coconut and chocolate one which was delicious. There was also an old sweet shop on tne route but by then I was too stuffed to buy any sweets. Finally we all sampled sweet paan. Many people in India, especially tuk tuk drivers, chew tobacco paan, which you can spot by the red teeth and constant spitting people seem to do here. Sweet paan however does not contain any tobacco and is a variety of different flavours wrapped up in an edible leaf which you place whole into your mouth and chew. It was quite a mouthful and the flavours were really strong. Not the most pleasant eating experience but it did leave me with a nice after taste which I was assured in the point. We had some more rum that night and sat up talking and singing until we were told to go to bed.

Jack and I went to the lanes near the ghat again the next day and I did a little bit of shopping buying some presents for people. We found an absolute gem of a shop, Vishnu's Tea Emporium. Vishnu, the owner, welcomed us in with open arms and talked us through the teas letting us try the ones we wanted. He put on some disco lights and music for us to sip our tea to and we sat and talked about all sorts, including his brilliant French accent. After I had bought some tea he gave us both a hug and a free postcard and said that now we were friends. It really makes a difference when you buy something from somewhere like that so please, if you find yourself in Varanasi, don't leave before visiting Vishnu! 

That afternoon we took part in a cooking course put on by the hostel in their kitchen. The teacher was the perfect Indian mum figure, short, sweet and sassy. We made delicious stuffed aubergine, chapati, panner masala, and sweet rice pudding and ate all together out of the hostel balcony, feeling very happy with ourselves. ( I will do a post dedicated to the recipes I have learnt next :) )

That evening I sat down to watch Lagaan, a Bollywood film recommended to me and in the BBCs top 50 films to watch before you die. It was a really brilliant film starring superstar Amir Khan but it climaxed in a cricket match against the evil colonial British. The film pretty much showed every part of the game, which if you were into cricket I am sure would be super interesting, but as someone who isn't was a tad dull, especially as the film had already been running for 2 hours. I got bored and went and skyped home instead.

Jack, Simon (who we had met in the hostel in Rishikesh) and I were very proactive the following day and took a taxi two and a half hours out of Varanasi to Dev Dari nature reserve which we had seen in photos at the hostel and where there was a huge waterfall. When we arrived we were pretty disappointed to find that there was barely any water falling, compared to the gushing, dramatic photos we had seen. We explored the area and it was really nice to be in the great outdoors again. After getting over the inital disappointment I managed to see the magnificence of the waterfall even without much water, the canyon was so deep and stretched for as far as the eye could see. 

We sat on the side of the canyon and spotted a group of big monkeys on the other side, which seemed to be sitting and enjoying the view just as we were. We waved at them, they didn't wave back, how rude, we're related you know! 

Our driver took us to another waterfall which cascaded down into a huge round pool below us, it was an incredible place! 

We drove back through small towns which allowed us to get a glimpe at the India not usually seen by tourists. The fields we passed through actually reminded me a lot of home or France, growing some type of grain with some rolling hills in the background and trees dotted around. That evening, my last in Varanasi, a few of us went to a nice restaurant and had great thali served on a plate of banana leaves, it was a nice way to end my time there and to say goodbye to people, especially Jack who I am not sure I will see again this trip. Good luck for the rest of your travels Jack, if you're reading this! 

The next day I lazed around until it was time to catch my overnight train to Kolkata, which I had been warned was even crazier than Varanasi. Well, as I hope is normal, when you are undertaking a long trip it's good to give yourself a break every once in a while. So I did this by spending my whole day in Kolkata in my strange glass box dorm room watching ted talks and occasionally going out for short walks or food at the local restaurant. Yes I felt a bit guilty but you know what, it was absolutely what I needed at the time, so stop with that judging look! 

I will leave it there for this post, I have since moved down to the south of India, which feels like a completely different country so is deserving of a whole new post I think!

Thanks for reading!

Emma x