We met our tour manager, Mansi, in the lobby of the hotel. She is in her late 20’s and unmarried, which is unusual for an Indian woman of her age. She is engaged to be married to a man she has met for 22 minutes. But we learned this much later in the day. I digress. More later as she tells us more of her story.
After breakfast (loved every bite!) we boarded a coach and headed to the airport where we caught a flight to Varinasi. Here’s what the guidebook says about Varanasi.
“Brace yourself. You’re about to enter one of the most blindingly colorful, unrelentingly chaotic and unapologetically indiscreet places on earth. Varanasi takes no prisoners”.
The difference from inside the airport (or hotel room, for that matter) is striking. The squalor, the traffic, the bikes, dogs, people and cattle in the streets is indeed chaos. Mansi said that there are two million people who live in Varanasi and one million of them are out on the street at a time. I came to India expecting a lot of traffic but for some reason I didn’t expect many cattle roaming free. I expected that would be a thing of the past. That there would be a few. I can tell you for certain that is still a thing of the present. They stand on the edge of the street or lounge in the middle of the road and the people on foot, bike, rickshaws, cars, and buses all accommodate them. And there are a lot of them.
The drivers use their horns as a means of communication, to both say “make way for me” and “just letting you know I am here” to people, bikers, drivers. The shops are tiny, closet sized places of all sorts. Peeking in as we drove by today I saw at least four separate businesses with those old, boat anchor heavy, black sewing machines. There were tiny stores, clothing shops and many, many, many fruit vendors with carts along the edge of the street. The sidewalks are nearly non-existent, and where there is one, it is full of bikes, or carts, or motorcycles. People walk in the streets next to the cars and busses and bikes and rickshaws all in an un-choreographed chaotic movement that somehow works. There are no lines painted on the streets and the idea of “lanes” is a completely foreign one.
We drove through the chaos to Sarnath, a sacred city where Buddha is said to have preached his first sermon after attaining enlightenment. There is an archeology museum there with many statues of Buddha (the slim, strong Buddha, not the happy big belly Buddha), and a few other artifacts. Then we walked the grounds of the ruins. This is one of the sacred places for Buddhists. According to Mansi, the four sacred Buddhist places in the world are where Buddha was born, where he found enlightenment, where he gave his first sermon after enlightenment and where he died.
Shortly after we arrived to the hotel we had dinner in the restaurant with all of the people on the tour. There are just eleven travelers which is great. It allows us to move a little bit faster and smoother, have a little bit more personal space on the bus, and gives us the chance to meet and get to know one another. There are two people from Mexico, three from Miami, one from Australia, one from New York and another from Colorado. At least four or five of us have been on tours with Gate 1 Travel previous to this trip.
Up tomorrow before dawn to catch the sunrise on the Ganges!