...at least there's none according to my willingness to partake ;-)
we woke early in varanasi for a boat trip along the ganges river at sunrise. it was a rude awakening after the exhaustion from the last few days but these things must be done in the name of travel and experience :-) we headed off with a couple of people from the hotel and we were aboard our little boat before 6am!
our first stop was the cremation ghat which is where they burn the bodies of people who have passed away. the eldest male in the family shaves his head, dresses in a white ensemble and lights the fire. the entire family stays for the duration of the creation, crying, signing and praying. it generally takes between 2 and 3 hours for a body to be completely burned and according to india custom, the hip of the woman or the chest bone of the man tends to be the last part to burn as they're the "strong" bones in each gender's body. the rest of the men in the family are required to shave their heads after the cremation and all dress in black for 7 days. priests and children are not cremated; they are simply put in the ganges river and can be seen floating downstream. luckily, we didn't see any dead bodies on our "cruise".
from there, we paddled down towards the main ghat where people prayed and then further along, where people washed/bathed and cleaned their teeth. everything is done in the ganges river which is a bit disturbing considering there are dead bodies and loads of pollution in it!! it was a beautiful sunrise on the river and appropriate photos were taken :-) a gent from our hotel walked us back to the hotel as where we're staying is similar to a rabbit warren with all sorts of little alleys going here, there and everywhere. he sweetly gave us the "how-to guide" to getting back to the hotel otherwise, i fear we would have spent the day looking for our hotel ;-) from there, we headed off to breakfast at a nearby restaurant that had peanut butter (oh, the luxuries :-)
amg and i went in search of an internet cafe at 8am however nothing was open until 9am so we wandered down by the ghats, watched the preparations for the speaking of a buddhist guru (we believe) and marvelled at the different sizes of plastic jugs you can purchase to take some of the ganges home with you (entirely for the locals!) :-) we found an internet cafe and i booked us both flights to bangalore and then onto kerala. onward travel booked, we separated and wandered aimlessly for a bit and then decided to go to sarnath together.
sarnath is 10km outside of varanasi and is an important location to buddhist as it's the site where buddha first spoke after his enlightenment in 524BC. we took a rickshaw to the site and had a tour by a buddhist volunteer (who later expropriated a fee for his "free" tour :-) he took us around and showed us the stuppa built to honour the site with some of buddha's ashes inside as well as many buddhist temples. we discussed a bit about the history of buddhism and then bid one another goodbye.
we headed back to the hotel (only getting lost in the rabbit warren twice) and then i went for a wander along the ganges river as i wanted to observe it further. i was approached at every 50m for a boat ride and once for some marijuana :-) i had a seat along the sidelines and watched people passing by. it was a peaceful evening and i found a gathering of people obviously waiting for something to commence shortly. i sat with some local women and waited patiently for just over a half hour before the show commenced. in fact, it was a religious ceremony which they perform every night with costumes and chanting and music playing. it was an amazing site to see as so many people were so obviously involved (read entranced) in their worship. i would have loved to understood the songs.... i snapped a few photos and then headed off to dinner just before the ceremony ended and then headed home to bed.
i woke early with the intention of doing a yoga class for an hour, grabbing breakfast with amg and then heading off to the airport to catch our flight to bangalore. the yoga class was quite good (i was a bit surprised), breakfast was even better and our rickshaw driver was fantastic - it was looking to be a great day!!
the airport at varanasi was the tiniest airport i have ever been in before!! it was clearly well used however they'd not upgraded their facilities in years (likely ever ;-) we caught our plane to bangalore, settled into a hotel for the night and were up and out the door the next morning at 4am for our 6am flights! our taxi attempted to increase the price and in the interest of time, i agreed to pay him an extra dollar for the ride!! either way, bangalore was nothing more than a stopover!! i caught my flight to cochin and amg headed to thivandum (both in kerala).
exhausted from not sleeping well and rising early, i had a bit of a nap, secured train tickets for my onward journey and then went into cochin proper by ferry. (i'm staying across the river in ernakulam which is less touristy). i wandered their boardwalk, checked out the chinese fishing nets and selected my fish from those on offer at the port for dinner. i had an early dinner and then took the ferry back to my side of the river in a rush as i was heading out to watch a kathakali performance at 6pm that evening.
kathakali is a keralian performance of dance and theatre thrown together where the artist depicts a story from the vast repertoire known to the locals. it's a spriritual ceremony and people often leave feeling light and peaceful. the venue allows tourists to come and watch as the make up is applied to the artist before the show commences. it was an intimate affair with only 5 of us in the small theatre while we watched the artist paint his face and listened to a previous dancer explain the symbolism of the colours and formation of the paint on the face. effectively, the make up is added to enhance the artist so that they become bigger than life both in spirit and body and the colours relate back to hindu gods. after the painting is completely, the artist is dressed and then he returns to act out the story to music, gesticulating with his face and body. the gentleman who talked throughout was mesmerising to listen to and had many wise lessons to impart.
i wandered back with some american girls who were staying near me and fell into bed (what else is new ;-)
hugs to all!
s
n.b. subject line is a quote from a poem called "the rime of the ancient mariner" by samuel taylor coleridge, written in 1797-1798. we studied/read the poem in year 5 or 6 and for some reason, those lines stuck in my head! i'm sure ms. phillips would be happy to know about the permanency of her teaching and i'm also sure that some psychologist could provide an interesting assessment as to why it's stuck with me for so many years :-)
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