Snakes on a Train, Alley Katz and Monkey Business

Sup foo'z

Straight up I've already enjoyed 3 cups of chai this morning while sitting on a rooftop overlooking the mighty Ganga (Ganges River), ears filled with chants from the ghats below; watching the sun rise creep through the fog and smelling the locals' fresh paratha for breakfast. So its fair to say I'm relatively high on life. And caffeine.

Underground Eats - Varanasi Style

Yet again we've been charging. Arrived in Varanassi at 8am after quite the adventure of a train ride from Delhi. Think 13 hours, at night, having booked not quite the right class of ticket and ending up packaged into our berths with random indian males that didn't have tickets (aforementioned 'snakes'). The only tickets available were what we thought were second class (were in fact much less) and in two sets of two, turned out Mike and Jimmy got a slightly better deal with Dom and I - as they were seated with a very friendly indian family. The snakes that we shared our bench seats with were already there when we arrived, so Dom and I figured that we were somehow supposed to share seats with them. Long story but the end result was a pretty claustrophobic 13 hours. Mean adventure in hindsight though.

Took a corner in the lanes to our hostel and BOOM came across this. Completely out of it. I got a video too, which is completely mesmerisisng... but too big get on here

That on the back of us doing an Amazing Race-esque sprint from out hostel to the New Delhi train station to try make out 16:25 train to Varanassi. Goose stepping locals, fending off rickshaws and stopping trafffic (Dom), we got there with no more than a few seconds to spare...... to find out our train was in fact running an hour and a half behind schedule. No biggie though, we skulked around the train station with locals and bandaged the toe the Jimmy had re-munted at the train station.

Arrived at Varanassi and got ourselves a place to stay. Literally down a kilometre of alleyway that is only walk-able. Rooms shabby as, but more than compensated for by the rooftop garden / restraunt. After we dumped out stuff we got amongst some exploring through the alleyways (looked just like what you'd see on postcards of Greece/ Rome) and onto the main street. Luncheoned at a couple of street places where the locals were chowing down 'Kachori' with chapati. Yum as, cost us a total of like a BUCK nz and tasted wicked. Also got into some mean as mango sweet from a cart vendor which tasted just like roll-ups! Ended up sitting on a mattress sipping chai with a silk merchant/manufacturer and browsing fabrics for potentually some Mac Daddy hand made silk ties and things.

HEAPS of animals 'round town here too. Monkeys on the roofs, dogs/cats/cows in the alleyways. All just doing their Indian thang. Not aggresssive at all, just goin about their day regardless of what gets in their way.

Tight Squeeze - Jimmy attempting an overtake manoevre

Post-silk merchant we hit our free 5pm boat ride along the Ganga, which was nothing less than awe-inspiring. Funeral pyres burn around the clock at the Burning Ghat (ghat is basically a ledge next to the river); where bodies of Hindus from wherever are first washed in the holy waters of the river, cremated atop their pyre (rates for differnet types of wood vary, so start saving now) and their ashes thrown into the Ganga. Dying at the Ganges and having your cremated remains thrown into its waters is said to free the soul from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth that we are otherwise trapped within; and lead the soul to oneness with Shiva (one of many iterations of God). WELL worth reading the wikipedia articles on the Ganges, Hinduism and Varannasi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varanasi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganges

Ganga and Varanassi are essentially the centre of the Hinduism across the globe and have been for thousands of years; the castles, ghats and temples lining Varanasi's banks to the Ganges are testament to this. Dom described it as "a step back in time" - watching the funeral pyres burn as they have done for centuries and the intense river-side ceremony.

Ordered dinner on the rooftop and enjoyed a fair few Kingfisher beers over our chicken biryanis and channa masala. Turns out we were on the 8%er's, and we collectively put away roughly 40 standard drinks in the space of a cupla hours.... Its Sunday today, so some of the temples are supposedly closed; but got talking to a dude who works here during my solo 6am roof visit (been here for almost 4 hours now) and some more things we're gonna do around here include:
Checking out the local university (apparently one of the biggest in the world)
Puja (prayer) at the Golden Temple and Monkey Temple
Yoga sesh tomorrow morning

Got a few good travel tips from this Austrian bird who joined us for a while last night. Plan from here might be to train up to Darjeeling (2000m up, so pretty cold) to check out a view of Mt Everest; cruise some tea plantations; maybe hit a trek, then possible fly across back into Agra/Jaipur for Taj Mahal and get intoi all the action to be had in Rajasthan. See what the team reckons.

MEAN