Testing times in Varanasi

It's no secret that at times I find my placement a struggle but one of the things that helps me through it is the community of VSO India volunteers always there to offer an ear to listen to your latest problems and the distraction of days spent together. Another UK volunteer, Debs, and I had planned a trip to Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh, two months ago and were both looking forward to the chance to catch up, having last seen each other 3 and a half months before.

My 18 hour train from Jaipur to Varanasi was fully booked for the day we were supposed to meet, so I left Jaipur a day early and spent the first day on my own in one of the oldest cities in the world. The problem was Debs never arrived; in fact she never left Kolkata. Her train was cancelled and I was faced with a weekend alone at a time when I most needed the company.

But these times are sent to test us. So after some moping and considering trying to change my train to an earlier day, I became determined to enjoy myself. It wasn't just that I was alone, it was the expectation I'd built up of a comforting weekend. Luckily the guesthouse we'd picked was well geared up for travellers, so I booked myself on every tour going. A dawn boat ride along the ghats, a sunset boat ride and a walking tour of the old city. In fact, after a couple of days I actually started to enjoy myself. I got into the swing of chatting to other travellers and spent one day with a couple of Canadian friends. By the end I felt immensely proud of myself that I'd survived the experience, I felt stronger and more aware of my own ability to cope.

Now Varanasi isn't perhaps the best place to go travelling on your own. Lonely Planet describe it as one of the most overwhelming places in India filled to the brim with touts, locals trying to drug you with contaminated chai, gangsters, food poisoning, burning bodies and dirty narrow airless streets.

Perhaps it's because I've become used to India and how to handle the opportunistic locals attempting to take advantage of tourists, but I found the city strangely relaxing. Yes, there were touts waiting for me when I left my guesthouse but they were harmless. It was dirty and humid, and the power supply was terrible so little relief from fans, there was lots of undoubtedly dodgy street food but I didn't touch it, choosing instead to eat almost all my meals in a German bakery who put all their profits into a kid's school and a women’s upliftment charity.
Looking out onto the Ganges, lined with Hindu temples from my guesthouse balcony filled me with calm, my eyes resting on the wide open space the river and its dry bank filled. 60,000 Hindus visit the ghats along the Ganges each day to take a dip, believing that the holy waters will wash away their sins. Dying in Varanasi, or being cremated here offers instant liberation from the cycle of birth and death and 300 bodies a day are cremated in two burning ghats. It was humbling to observe the process, to know that although this was a sad moment, these families believed they were guaranteeing everlasting life for the deceased. Some members of society aren't burnt; the bodies of babies, pregnant women and sadhus (holy men) are lowered into the water attached by ropes to a stone and left to sink to the bottom, often rising to the surface a few days later as the ropes disintegrate, nibbled by fish. At dawn I saw a distressed father dropping a baby shaped parcel into the river. A life over before it had even begun.

Simultaneously religious ceremonies hundreds of years old stay alive in constant performances along the waters' edge. The daily evening aarti ceremony, performed by Brahmin (priest) students, offers prayers to Shiva, the Ganges and the obligatory request for World Peace. I offered my own pujas over the weekend, praying for strength and as I saw my candle burning brighter than all the rest as it floated away, I felt my request had been granted.
Photos, from top to bottom: Dawn boat trip; view from my guesthouse balcony; piles of wood for sale at the burning ghat; Varanasi preparing for the evening aarti ceremony.