Bali Bits

The tiger character from a traditional dance

Wooden horses and cobras

Temple statues

Temple fish and coins

Harassed monkey

Monkey attack on Angie's pop. Uncle Mike was not amused.

Roundabout statue

Bye Mumbai, Bye India.

Mumbai was out last stop in India, and it put on quite a show for us as we left. Ganesh, everyone’s favourite elephant-headed Hindu deity had his big festival and the streets filled with trumpet-blowing, statue-carrying crowds as we gobbled down our last Indian meal of paneer butter masala (cheese tomato curry), aloo palak (potato and spinach curry) and fresh lemon soda. The food, especially for my vegetarian self, has been amazing in India.


As our taxi banged its way to the airport, we passed dozens of celebrations in the street; throngs of dancing devotees trailing flatbed trucks carrying enormous speaker stacks and technicolour Ganesh statues. Most people, and passing cars, took on a dull burgundy tinge, thanks to all the red powder being flung about in celebration. There was music, colour and movement in copious, very Indian, amounts. It was a fitting final glimpse of a gloriously bizarre country.

Around Agra

Food map

One of the most spectacular architectural wonders of the world is surrounded by some of the most spectacular architectural failures. I'm talking about the hotels that have windowless walls, or teensy windows, facing the main attraction. View form our room (thorough cement grate).

The Taj and surrounds

Rooftop breakfast - Muesli, curd, milk tea and the Taj

Agra street

Behind the Taj is a river, and from there you can see the Taj for free (it costs over $20 to enter the grounds).

Offerings revealed by the low water level

Taj Mahal

Happy tourist

Tour group

Angie's Varanasi

People unimpressed by my vessel selection on the Ganges

Happy Tears

After buying some jewelery from a woman, we agreed to be taken by her son to his store, where he would show us some of his merchandise. As he led us through the streets, he turned to Angie and said:

‘I was talking to one man, and he said the saw you walking here and crying the other day.’

Angie replied that, yes, that was her, but before she had time to elaborate, he continued, with one of my favourite theories on the effects India can have on tourists.

‘All the time I am in Varanasi I see tourists here and they are crying. I think, maybe, these are happy tears?’

Angie explained that, probably no, they aren’t tears of happiness, and recounted the traumatic details of the particularly infuriating encounter with a travel agent that led to her storming the alleys in tears (a bemusing sight for the locals, which kept them talking for days, apparently.)

* * *

Morning on the ghats

Goat eating a schoolbook

After-school Job

Angie was walking around the streets, being harassed by hawkers, touts and guides, as is usual for any foreigner in Varanasi.

‘Miss, Miss!’ came the familiar call from a pre-adolescent kid.
‘No thankyou’, replied Angie, denying whatever was on offer before it was even proposed (again, usual for the foreigner.)
‘No, no, Miss, I am not a guide, I only wish to talk to you.’
‘Okay, but I don’t want to go to any silk shops or ghats. I only want to walk.’
‘Miss!’ came the melodramatically offended response, ‘I am not a guide! I am a student.’ He then proceeded to make chit-chat, asking all the usual questions about what country Angie was from, which city she was from (‘MCG or SCG?’ is how we sometimes get asked this) what she does in Australia, before getting down to brass tacks:

‘Perhaps you would like to come to my Uncle’s silk shop?’
‘You told me you were not a guide!’ said Angie exclaimed.
‘Oh, Madam!’ he cried indignantly, ‘I told you, I am not a guide! I am a student! In the mornings I go to school, and in the afternoon I work.’
‘And what is your job?’
Innocently, he explained: ‘I round up tourists and take them to the silk shop.’

* * *

Naptime at the Nepali Temple

Cow with a sense of humour

Follow That Corpse! A Visit to the Burning Ghats.

‘Yes please what you want? Rickshaw? Silk shop? Boat? …Hashish?’ (In hushed conspiratorial tones for that last one) ‘Where you going? Hotel? Main ghat? Burning ghat?’

These questions, and variations on them, form a constant soundtrack to any tourist wandering around Varanasi. It’s how seemingly millions of young men make their living; either by acting as a guide or by earning commissions from businesses after they’ve rounded up some rich westerners willing to part with wads of rupees. They’re incredibly persistent, and notoriously greedy when it comes time to pay for whatever service they have provided. They really can make a walk around the streets unpleasant, and are best avoided.

So when it came time to visit the burning (cremation) ghat, we didn’t take up any offers to guide us there, instead attempting to navigate the tangled alleys that sprawl between the buildings crowding the riverside. There aren’t any useful maps of the alleyways; they’re a cartographic nightmare and any sane mapmaker would just stick to producing purposely-inaccurate maps of the Indian countryside (apparently designed to confuse potential invaders.) The alleys dogleg about as they dodge the buildings, which are so tall that you can’t see any distant landmarks. There aren’t any street signs, and I’m pretty sure the roads don’t have names anyway. Plus it’s noisy, with motorbikes honking and weaving at incredible speeds. And of course it stinks, with all the cows and dogs about.

Unnavigable

In the heat of midday we wandered for a sweaty hour or so in what we thought was the vicinity of the cremation ghat. Outside of monsoon season, it would have been a simple case of walking along the water’s edge to our goal, but the high level of the river meant that the riverside pathways were metres underwater. It became obvious that we were never going to find the ghat, and we decided to return to the main road, which feeds pedestrians and bikes into the unnavigable concrete maze we were now lost in.

Back on the main road, in desperation, we looked at a map. While Angie was tracing her finger pointlessly around the page, six men trotted past us, a bamboo stretcher on their shoulders. On the stretcher, wrapped up like an extremely morbid Christmas gift was what was obviously a corpse. It was covered with shimmering fabric, with bright garlands and fluttering tinsel wrapped around the outline of a body. There was only one place this package was going, and we set off after it, our colourful, yet inanimate guide to the ghat.

Back in the tangle, we soon lost our guide. The many bends, corners and anonymous forks of the streetscape, along with the crowd, meant keeping up was impossible. We sat and had a drink, wondering what to do. Soon enough, another gaily festooned cadaver bounced past, and we were on our way again. Sure enough, we soon lost it, but we had the hang of it now. We’d follow the stretcher for as long as we could, then wait patiently until another passed us, when we would begin moving again. In this fashion we soon made it to the ghat. As we neared it, we could tell it was close thanks to the smoke and ash that floated thick in the air.

Sometimes they don't get burnt

Following a crowd, we neared the water’s edge, where a pyre had been built and the wrapped form of a corpse freshly dipped in the Ganges sat atop it. We watched as a man walked around the pile of wood, lighting the straw underneath with a pile of coals held in a handful of hay. The fire was slow to start, and various family members poured ghee (clarified butter) on the now unwrapped body, threw offerings of cigarettes into the fire and took photos. It seemed to be a mostly male affair, and it was all very casual. People weren’t dressed up, and a crowd of onlookers were free to watch. As the fire really got going, we saw some of the rather gruesome things that extreme heat does to skin and flesh.

Apparently this operation runs twenty-four hours a day. This ghat is the most auspicious place a Hindu can be cremated, which explains the high volume of bodies being run through the streets. Awash in smoke and ash from the fire we watched for a while, then left, a little disturbed, but glad to have seen another facet of this unique river.

The ghat at night

Varanasi Boat Ride

Sleepy time on the river

‘The Quintessential Varanasi Experience’ is how our guidebook talks about a dawn rowboat ride on the Ganges in Varanasi. So, one morning in the still-hot pre-dawn we hauled ourselves out of bed and through the concrete warren of the city towards the river. Halfway there, a boatman spotted us and led us down through unlit tunnels to the water’s edge, where we negotiated a price.


We’d been warned that at the moment, the price would be higher than usual; the monsoon rains swell the river and create strong currents, meaning two or three men are needed to row the boat, rather than the usual solo oarsman. As expected, the boatman made a big deal of how many people were needed to row the boat at this time, but we agreed on a price and boarded the boat. Our ‘boatman’ promptly disappeared back into the dark maze of the city’s alleys, leaving us alone on board with a small boy of around twelve and a man straddling middle and old age. Just how these two were going to power this rather hefty vessel up the river was puzzling.



The solution to the problem of powering such a craft upriver became immediately clear as the young boy reached into a compartment, pumped furiously on a lever inside and a clunky diesel engine grumbled into high-volume life. We were on our way, the vibrations of the engine shaking us from our seats.

‘How nice is this?!’ I yelled at Angie as the orange sphere of the sun began to rise through distant clouds.
‘What?’ she screamed back, leaning into my ear.
‘I said it’s nice!’
‘I told you we should’ve found another boat!’



We chugged upriver, past dramatic riverside buildings, the ghats (steps leading into the water) filled with bathing locals, and boats filled with tourists being rowed by two men with another on the rudder. We vibrated past them at a comparatively breakneck clip, the chug and splutter of the vessel’s mid-mounted tractor engine announcing our presence to all.




The looks we were getting from other tourists out for their Quintessential Varanasi Experience were less than appreciative. Angie felt the grimaces and scowls were because these other tourists felt we were making too much noise. ‘Why would you choose that horrible smoke-and-noise-belching monstrosity for a pleasant morning boat ride?’ their scrunched faces seemed to say. I choose to believe that it was actually jealousy that they were feeling; our superior machine would cover at least twenty percent more water than them, in the process adding to horrid pollution that gives the Ganges it’s distinctive, decidedly unhealthy appearance.

On the left is a man having his morning bath. On the left, stuck in the archway, is a corpse.

Not that the Ganges needs much help in this department; we passed two dead bodies in an hour on the river, one floating freely amongst the garbage and floral offerings, the other wedged in the arch of a semi-submerged temple. Those alive on the shore were more of a spectacle. People bathe, wash clothes and perform ceremonies at the water’s edge, creating a enchanting environment of colour and sound. They also cremate bodies at the ‘burning ghats’ which may explain why the clothes I sent to be washed came back smelling of smoke.