Varanasi Favorites

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Favorite thing: Around where my hotel was located was fairly run down although I came to realise that this was normal for Varanasi. I was a little concerned wandering around on my own but I didn’t venture too far from the hotel. Rickshaw drivers wanted to take me sightseeing but I only wanted to walk. Shop owners tried to entice me into their stores. I went into one, the lights and air conditioners were turned off but the moment I walked in, everyone leapt to attention and everything was switched on. I was taken up stairs and had a brief moment of wondering if I was doing the right thing. With little time to spent, I was quickly shown a variety of silk goods. As in another couple of stores I was later to go into, I was quizzed as to how many were in my group and asked to bring them back to visit. The shops all seemed to be open until 8.30pm or even 10.00pm in some cases.

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Fondest memory: The cows are considered the most sacred animal for the Hindus, and this is most obvious in Varanasi, where the holy river Ganges is located..

Cows are everywhere, be in on the road, in the water of Ganges, outside your guesthouses/hotels/dorms etc, even peeping into the restaurants while you're having your meal..

Where there is a cow, there's bound to be some 'leftoevers'.. hehe which is pretty obvious the moment you step foot into the holy land..... the distinctive scent followed by residues on the sole of your shoes...

cheers...

Favorite thing: Here you can look at the road of Varanasi, this road is not the small ghat alleys, this one is the big main road. It was this road along the ghats, in each of the small alleys, you can walk in to search for the river, but be careful, not easy and sometimes you will not find the way.

Favorite thing: Perhaps after looking at this street scene, I should keep silence on what happened on the street in my country. I think almost every big or small town of India, the situation of traffics are about the same. Drivers here must learn how to punch the horn more than how to drive properly, what do you think?

Favorite thing: This is a goat eating the flowers that peoples put on the dead people, the moment they dumped into the river, the goat can eat as breakfast perhaps. Then worldwide tourists can take their boat ride here to snap photos insanely, with video cam, digi cam, SLR, compact etc. I was here too, on the central platform looking at all these, 3000 years of tradition unchanged.

Fondest memory: You can see my shadow on the cremation site, the sunlight was strong, good photo opportunity. There's a goat waiting there to eat whatever possible, nobody care, they care more on the fire I guessed. Temperature here was quite high, not so comfortable to stand too long but for taking photos.

Favorite thing: At first I thought to look at such thing was very difficult, but when I was there, I saw they did this endlessly and open to public. I walked here many times to look what they have and I saw some rich peoples performing some cremation rituals of pouring water into the dead people's mouth and while they do this, other peoples busy washing clothes less than 20 feet beside and goats waiting to eat the flowers which they had on the deap people, two peoples busy searching the river nearby this crematorium, for probably valuable stuffs. I put my digital camera close to my jacket partly hidden to snap all the photos.

Favorite thing: Picture is a school and young hopeful students are busy going home after class. The reason I upload this picture was the boat boy that morning told me his father died when he was very young, so he could not read write and had to wash plate at small age until now. Now he can speak simple English and he worked for the hotel in the restaurant for some 3000Rs a month but 1000Rs only after new boss came. So he had to take boat as side income, 200Rs for 2 hours of ride and share 50-50 with boat owner.