Amazing Varanasi
by TracyLB
My favorite thing about Varanasi, is that there is just not another place like it!! One minute u love it, and the next thing u hate it!!! It is so spiritual, and there are so many unusual things happening everywhere that u actually feel like u had the most amazing experience and the memories will never fade!! I just loved sitting on the Ghats and watching the boats and the people....and in the evening, gazing at the Ganges from our river view room and it is all lit up from people putting candles in the water...
And wondering down the narrow streets, and watching the children play and dodging the cows that are hoarding the streets!
Taking the rickshaw through the chaotic streets and just sitting back and taking it all in...
The sounds, the smells, the sites are like nothing i have ever seen!!
Boat repair
by Willettsworld
Saw these guys repairing this boat using just hand tools. Reminded me seeing similar repairs being carried out using hand tools on Dhow boats in Dubai. The photo also shows how bad the pollution is in the Ganges as the edge of the water is green!
Semi aerial view
by l_joo
Took this picture on the rooftop of my hotel. This is a good point to shoot good Varanasi photos if you have good strong lenses, but I don't. Houses here almost all built flat top with cement. They don't build Greco-Roman rooftop, very Varanasi perhaps.
Dhobi Wallahs - The Laundry Caste
by Hmmmm
Have you ever heard of a “dhobi-wallah?” Dhobis are the human washing machines of India. They get up early every morning and head for the dhobi-ghat where they spend the rest of the day stomping around in vats of sudsy water and dirty clothes, laundering everything clean with their feet in a very very dirty Ganges river.
Where do the clothes come from?
Other dhobis do the pick-up and delivery. They begin at dawn, heading in all directions on bicycles to collect or deliver their customers’ laundry in big bags tied to the back fender. This is how is it is and how it’s been done for centuries (maybe not with bicycles, though). They bring the clothes in and after cruelly stomping on them they punish the clothes by scrubbing them with stiff brushes. Next, they flog them against cement walls… just to make sure they’re really clean. After that, they use heavy irons loaded with live coals to press out any stubborn wrinkles.
Why should we care about the dhobi-wallahs? Because they’re becoming extinct. They are being forced out of business by a tough competitor — the washing machine. You and I got one years ago, but the average Indian didn’t. They couldn’t afford one. It was cheaper to hire a dhobi. But today, Indians are buying washing machines by the thousands and the cleaner is losing his job.
Dhobi Wallahs at Lali Ghat
by Willettsworld
A Dhobi Wallah basically means a laundryman or washerman and wherever you find water in India, they'll be people washing clothes in it (however dirty the water looks). What is interesting is that next to Lali Ghat is a ghat where cremations are carried out. To reduce water pollution, and to keep pace with the number of corpses needed to be cremated in Varanasi, the government of Uttar Pradesh has constructed an electric crematorium here. The ghat was built in 1778 by the Raja of Banaras.
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rice & chappati plate
Ram Nagar Fort
Inside Tibetan Buddhist Monastery
Manikarnika Ghat
