The intense Varanasi

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What can be say about Varanasi except that it was exactly how one might picture India, the good but the bad side as well. We never really felt completely overwhelmed in India before going there. To give you an idea, Varanasi is a holy city of Hinduism where people come to die. It is said that dying there will break the rebirth circle. The city is built on the side of the Gange, an also holy river, and stairs going down to this river are built all the way along of the coast. People bathe themselves in it to wash away their sins, and the dead bodies are also bathed in the very same water. On one part of those stairs, you can see burial sites where bodies, after being dipped in the water, are burned in the open air for every interested eyes to watch – not a very cheerful sight first thing in the morning… Walks along the Gange still remain rather magical and mesmerizing, with the sunlight shining on the river, the people washing their colourful clothes, the wide view of the coast with all its temple, stairs, boats, merchants… We spent most of our days sitting on those stairs, simply watching people. But another hard thing about this city is the number and the insistence of the children who come begging. Once there, they wouldn’t leave, they would follow you, tap on you shoulder, keep on following you… There was a lot of poverty and a lot of spirituality. In the tiny street where cars could not go in, there were queues, filled with people waiting to enter the most famous temple of the city. We were told that during certain times, people would queue for up to 48 hours to be able to go in! Being a white tourist, we could skip this queue, but this was the most intense temple we’ve ever seen, and by far. No electronical device was allowed in, no phone, no camera, not even my small USB key, nothing. Then we had to show our passport and fill a form (for foreigners) to register before being able to go in. But once inside, it’s so hard to explain with words the craziness that takes place within the temple. Everyone was pushing, sometimes quite violently, to touch the icon, even the policemen were grabbing people to make them move on faster. There were people everywhere, noise everywhere, we didn’t know where to go, we were surrendering to the flow of people… It was intense. But the whole city was like that, intense but culturally incredibly interesting.