Amritsar to Varanasi

Today was mainly a travelling day, so there aren’t too many photos to share. After almost 24 hours in Amritsar it was time to leave again. Just to reinforce yesterday’s post, great temples and very friendly people. We flew back to Delhi and then caught a connecting flight to Varanasi. One thing that has struck me about airports in India is that you generally have to walk across the tarmac to the terminal, but there are no yellow lines to indicated the correct path and there is always at least one passenger stopping under the wing to take a selfie!

Upon arrival we met up with our driver and it seems for the next 14 days the price I paid includes and ‘Executive’ who is like half tour guide and half executive assistant. He told us it would take about 45 minutes to get to Varanasi City from the airport. It isn’t actually that far (about 20 kms) but a combination of some poorly planned roadworks and the volume of vehicles on the road, make for a long journey. Add to this, the roadworks are taking the front rooms off all the houses and shops along the road, so there’s lots of people recovering and selling usable bricks from the houses. There also seem to be a lot more cows in Varanasi that also need to be negotiated as they stand or lie in the middle of the roads.

As we arrived in Varanasi quite late we decided that all we would fit in was the Hindu Aarti Ceremony on the Ghats along the Ganges River. There is one world to describe the old part of the city, and that is chaos. The roads are in poor repair and there are people everywhere. Thankfully our guide ‘knew a guy’ that could get us seat at the ceremony. We had a view up the river from our seats, but the ceremony was happening on the other side of a wire cage, so photos were a bit difficult.

The ceremony is about waving light in front of the deities from space, wind, fire water and earth. There is music and a bit of clapping along as I thought that there is probably a mixture of spirituality and performance art for these particular priests, who perform regularly. They do seem to genuinely like performing for the crowds.

I don’t pity these guys, the heat and humidity in Varanasi is stifling, so when our guide asked ‘Are you comfortable?’ I think he realised it would be wise to go buy us some water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So with the ceremony over, we battled the chaos back to the car and the hotel, trying to ignore all the postcard sellers while stopping long enough for Indians to get a selfie with the tall guy.

Anyway, tomorrow promises to be much more interesting, with a number of temples on the list.

Until tomorrow!