“Brace yourself. You’re about to enter one of the most blindingly colourful, unrelentingly chaotic and unapologetically indiscreet places on earth. Varanasi takes no prisoners. But if you’re ready for it, this may just turn out to be your favourite stop of all.”  – The Lonely Planet

It started well when our train was delayed by 11.5 hours and our sleeper train became a day train. So we simply had to pass 16 hours by doing absolutely nothing. Easy. We embraced this, such is life in India, you just get on with it. So there I was casually listening to Jason Derulo and congratulating myself on not losing a toenail since the Philippines when I heard it. THE SNORING STARTED. I couldn’t believe it, not another Indian snorer! You will understand my horror if you’ve read our previous blog. This was becoming somewhat of a joke and seriously detrimental to my patience control. Do I just attract snorers? Am I a magnet for those with blocked nasal passages? Do people’s soft palates’ just vibrate uncontrollably when I’m around? I only wish I knew the answers because try as I might I simply can no longer block snoring out. Especially when it’s like a braying horse with a microphone.
Meanwhile (whilst I was busy accidentally kicking the said snorer in attempt to get him to shut the f**k up) Lyvette was engaged in a conversation with the man opposite her. He actually asked her if she was Indian. Let me repeat this, an Indian man asked Lyvette if she was Indian. I mean, she was sat in India pants eating a biryani at the time, but really?

Brace Yourself
We arrived at the train station around 1am to find bodies strewn everywhere. Bodies as far as the eye can see. The train station was a sea of blanket covered ELD’s (Emergency Lie Down’s), partly due to the train delays and partly due to Indians loving ELD’s. The only person not ELD’ing was the guy squatting in the middle of the path taking a leak. Lyvette was amazed, she’d never seen a man squat to wee before.

Welcome to Varanasi.

Unapologetically Indiscreet
So there we were just strolling along the ghats that line the River Ganges when a group rocked up in front of us carrying a dead body. Then they plonked the body on the ground next to the (extra large) cow that was just chilling by the Ganges. The people bathing and doing their laundry in the river didn’t bat an eyelid at the corpse that had casually just joined the party. Then came the rituals with the holy water and starting the fire on which the body was to be burned. Naturally myself and Lyvette couldn’t take our eyes off this whole scenario and we joined the other spectators who were drinking chai and observing the scene as if it were a morning tea break, encouraging the two white girls to watch (no photos were allowed).
And then, and I kid you not, a man strolled towards the river and nonchalantly started brushing his teeth. Next to the corpse.
And then, and again I kid you not, a young boy finished his bathing session, waded out of the river, and started drying his towel over the fire imminently due to be smothered by the dead body.
It was all so bizarre and unreal to me that I had to stifle a giggle.
And then they put the body on the fire. And we just stood and watched, completely fixated. And then the leg fell off. Like, actually blistered and fell to the floor. And then a man approached Lyvette and asked her if she’d like the leg. No, she responded, no she absolutely did not want a dead man’s leg from Varanasi. I was tempted to take and stick it her backpack when she wasn’t looking. Imagine the response – if she creates a scene when a fly attacks her, imagine how she’d act finding a dead leg in her bag. Meanwhile someone was busy picking the leg off the floor using two sticks and throwing it back on the fire. It was like he was roasting a chicken leg on a BBQ.

Welcome to Varanasi.
Varanasi takes no prisoners.

Blindingly Colourful
That basically sums up our first few hours there – I think we received our Varanasi education pretty quickly. After that we became used to dodging groups of people carrying dead bodies down the road. What we couldn’t get used to, however, was the sheer size of the cows. They were absolutely huge, the size of actual elephants. Lyvette decided to call them Cowaphants.

We were warned that Varanasi was crazy and with regards to seeing things we were not accustomed to this was true. It wasn’t however as chaotic and busy as we expected. For us, when we think busy, we think Delhi and so far nowhere on our travels has compared to that.

Just to note that Varanasi is an extremely religious place and one of the most favourable places to die for many Hindu people as it offers liberation from the cycle of rebirth. The Ganges are renowned for being sacred and cremations are an regular taking place in the public eye.

One thing we encountered a lot in Varanasi were the kites. Kites everywhere. People playing with kites all along the ghats and letting us trip over the bloody invisible strings. The amount of times we got kites wrapped round our legs was uncountable. Sometimes you didn’t even realise until you fell over. Or you almost tripped into a funeral. Or a cricket match. Or you realised you were dragging a kid behind you, as they refused to let go of their kite. I still have a kite scar btw, bloody kites.

Unrelentingly Chaotic
On our meanderings we encountered the weird and the wonderful, for example dogs actually full on eating cow poo. And then people just walking through great heaps of poo with no shoes on and not even batting an eyelid. And then there was the goat, stood contentedly next to one of the ghats. Now this goat wasn’t your average Joe, it stood with authority, like it was a supreme breed of goat. And it had long hair, it looked like a biblical goat would look. In fact, we named him Jesus, it was Jesus of the goat world, we’re sure. Lyvette tried to take a photo of Jesus as he looked at us through his superior eyes, when a man stopped;
“Do you want him?” Do we want him? Do we want the goat? Yes we’ll just pop him in a backpack along with our newly acquired dead leg. Fyi Jesus would never have agreed to that.
“Do you want him? I can get you him for free.” Absolutely not! We are not stealing Jesus the goat from the side of a ghat in the holiest city in India. That simply is not an option! Except in Varanasi apparently it is.
Then I nearly got my ear blown off by a firework. Obviously this guy was just sauntering down the street with it lit up and ready to go, and must have aimed it at my head. I went momentarily deaf but counted myself lucky that I was still in one piece, alive and kicking. Lyvette was grateful she didn’t have to dispose of my body on the side of the Ganges next to the Cowaphant and the man brushing his teeth.

As we continued winding our way through bodies, cowaphants, kites and shit a young man approached us.
“Do you like sex?” Excuse me?! And who with? I mean Brad Pitt yes that would be great, with you definitely not.
“You like sex? For free…no money. (Oh, well that makes it much better then).It will free your mind, you will love India. One hour, full power. Just touching for one hour.” First of all one hour full power of touching sounds a bit intense, if not painful. Second of all, I’m not sure it would ‘free’ my mind or make me love India. And third of all, who are you?!!!!
And with that he slapped Lyvette’s bum. I realised this when she yelped and jumped so high in the air that she was gone a good 5 minutes. Now the good thing about India is that although (like anywhere) you get the bad people you also have the most caring, friendliest people I have ever met. And the majority like to look after their tourists. So when Lyvette made a noise the man in the shiny suit and his mate ran over to see what was happening, uttered some words and shooed Sex Boy away and we carried on back to our hostel where someone had vomited all over the floor.

And that was the whirlwind that was Varanasi

The Lonely Planet wasn’t lying. It was unapologetically indiscreet. It didn’t take any prisoners. And it may just have turned out to be one of our favourite stops of all.

“Varanasi takes no prisoners. But if you’re ready for it, this may just turn out to be your favourite stop of all.”