Varanasi: A city of contrasts and extremes!

It is quite possible that India is the real world,

 and that the white man lives in a madhouse of abstractions...

~ Carl Jung, 1939

Beautiful brightly coloured sarees and dust, smoke, spit and cow poop on the ground.
Temples, rituals, ceremonies, puja and honking, yelling, spitting, tobacco chewing.
Taking your shoes off before entering a house, yet throwing all garbage out the window to the street below.
A cow taking a nap in the middle of the road -- autorickshaws, bicycle rickshaws, motorbikes, cars and people zooming around it.
Food vendors and chai wallahs, with men peeing on the wall right next door....

I have really been enjoying getting to know this city, or at least a small corner of it.  Each day I have been getting lost in the narrow alleyways and market areas...finding places I haven't seen before.  I met Lola from Mexico on the early morning boat trip down the Ganges; she was also staying at my guest house and we have spent the last 4 days hanging out and exploring/getting lost together (she left this morning for Boddhgaya).

As the sun rose over the Ganga, we were rowed along by boat with little Rahul as our guide. The misty morning shrouded the ghats and made the burning ghats look even more eerie.  [This is where they cremate people pretty much round the clock.  It is not uncommon to be passed on the street by a group of men chanting, carrying a dead body shrouded in cloth and flowers towards the burning ghat.]  We were able to light a little candle and send it off into the Ganga with our wishes.

After the boat ride Lola and I headed off to check out some of the temples. I think I'll save all my ponderings on temples and such for another post.
I'm sure glad I'm not in a rush to see this place as it allows me to have time to embrace the "indian-ness" of it all.  Lola and I spent a whole afternoon searching for a bank to exchange traveller's cheques.  Each bank declining, but sending us to the branch they were 100% sure would do it for us...I think we went to just about every bank in this city!  But all I could do was laugh...

After my somewhat harried entrance to Varanasi I realized I was totally being scammed on the price of my room, so I managed to bargain it down from Rps 600/night to 400/night...yay for small victories!  Also had my first yoga class here in India and it was about as chaotic as this city!  The sun salutations and asanas went by so fast...the instructor would explain and then say "just do it! no thinking, just doing!"  Hilarity!

[warning: next section contains maybe too much information!]  We've been trying to get recommendations from locals of good clean indian restaurants and it worked out fairly well, with one exception.  Had lunch at one place I think had never seen tourist before...we provided them with their entertainment for the day when us two Goras showed up and ate with our hands (after washing and alcohol sanitizing of course).  Well the Aloo Palak (potato and spinach) had so much oil...that evening I ended up losing my lunch on the street near our guest house.  I suppose if there's any street in the world to be throwing up on where no one would even blink...this would be it!  And to prove that everything can be made into something here in India...a small puppy showed up right away to eat what I had left on the street!

Went to a tailor today to have some clothing made for a concert I'll be going to in Kolkata (and for New Years)...amazing fabrics and scarves and shawls...I could spend all my money here!

Oh yeah!  So the water buffaloes here get brought to the ghats every day and so there's a section of one of the ghats that just gets covered in poop!  Well not for long...the other day we saw a man going around, scooping up the poop with his hands and putting it in bags...more fuel for stoves and incense!

We also hung out with some folks we met and one of them had filmed a documentary about Banares (Varanasi) which is absolutely amazing!  Check out a little bit of it here:
http://elementarypenguinsingingharekrishna.blogspot.com/search/label/about%20varanasi