Varanasi - a city of mystical awesome wonderment. My awareness of Varanasi was awakened by our friend Jason, with whom we shared Sevastopol in our Peace Corps days. He traveled to India in 2008 and wrote about Varanasi on his travel blog. Jason captured me with his comment about smelling barbecue.
This is the most holy city for Hindus and I have to say that the spiritualism in this city is palpable, even to an irreligious non-believing cynic like me. At times I believed the dense air here consisted of a haze of mysticism. And the sights - the crowds of pilgrims walking the streets, bathing in the Ganges, preparing bodies for the funeral pyres of the burning ghats. My daunting task now is to try to convey what about this city is so special.
After the congestion of Delhi, we were told we would enjoy the relative quiet of Varanasi since it was a much smaller city. I wonder if the person who told us that has ever been to Varanasi. This "smaller" city has 1.8 million people and not a single stop light. The crowds in the street are equivalent to leaving Grant Park after the July 3 fireworks display. This video doesn't quite capture it but you'll get the idea.
The streets are so narrow that the tour eschewed our usual tour bus in favor of 4 five-passenger SUVs. Driving was harrowing, to say the least. This video doesn't come close to the eye-closing terror of sitting in the front passenger seat but here it is, since I went to the trouble of filming it.
Entry and closet doors
Our hotel in Varanasi is the Palace on The Ganges. It is not a palace, but it is two or three steps up from our hotel in Delhi - and it sits pretty much on the Ganges, way upriver from the active ghats and ritual bathing areas. The hotel is lushly and interestingly decorated, as you can see. The rooms were warm and stuffy and had a unique method of climate control - there was one air-conditioner remote for the entire hotel. We had to call the front desk if we wanted the temperature in our room adjusted. They responded in less than a minute but it still seems like an eccentric way to save on electricity. Our check in went without a hitch, even though it was only mid-morning. We had only a short time to settle in and resume the obligations thrust upon tourists.
I took several additional photos of the hotel, available with this link, including a group shot of two for downloading for you interested tour members.
Our tour of Chandni Chowk completed, we boarded our bus to drop by the Ghandi assassination site to see if we could get in and tour the museum. As we suspected, this site was closed because of the upcoming visit by President Obama, leading one to speculate whether the disruption caused by an American presidential visit is worth the hassle. I remember how they used to close I-90, the main thoroughfare between downtown Chicago and O'Hare. Talk about a mess.
And so we headed off to a late lunch at Restaurant Chor Bizaare, billed as Delhi's finest Kashmiri restaurant. This was a treat for me and Carol - an ethnic food we had not experienced before. It was much like regular Indian food, mostly coming from the tandoor. The dishes included Kashmiri Roganjosh, Haak (like braised spinach), chicken from the tandoor, Kambargah (deep fried lamb joint), and Rajma (kidney beans), all served around a bed of rice. The Kashmiri roganjosh was not as saucy as the Indian style and there was an emphasis on meat not evident in the other Indian meals we had since our arrival. In fact, I realized this was the first meat we have eaten since we left Florida. All in all, this was one of our great meal experiences, and will be a classic as we remember the adventure of our first Kashmiri meal. We left stuffed to the gills.
Today was our last day in Delhi; we were to take an overnight train to Varanasi this evening. We returned to the Hotel Good Times to hang out with the remaining Diwali Fosters until it was time to go to the train station. We arrived at the Delhi train station after dark. We exited the bus to an overpowering stench of urine - the bus had stopped next to a round building lined with men peeing against the wall. What was this, an outdoor latrine? To make matters worse, the effluent from this wall was flowing all over the side walk we were supposed to wheel our bags over. (Great argument for bags without wheels.) I saw this ahead of time and moved into the street but half our group walked through the sidewalk sewer before noticing the source of the dampness or the stench. Eww.
It was a great trek from the latrine bus stop to the train, over the mountain of steep nearly vertical stairs and into the valley of the train platform. Our train was ready to board and we made our way through the narrow aisle to our assigned places. We stowed our bags under the seats and made ourselves comfortable. The group was scattered throughout two adjacent cars. We sat on the not very comfortable bunks and I perused the seat assignments Reid had given us on the bus. I looked at the seating arrangement, saw the open compartments, noted with growing dismay that the bunks were not two, but three tiers and realized with horror that we had upper bunks. My God we are in platzkart.
Carol Posing in My Upper Bunk
Platzkart is Ukraine's third class overnight train service. Carol and I had managed 27 months of extensive overnight train travel in Peace Corps without ever traveling platzkart. And here we were, on a dream vacation about to sleep on a three-level bunk. A black cloud settled over my head and to this day I am ashamed that I could not shake it. Reid came by to see how we were doing and I snapped at him for not getting us a better class of service. Carol harangued me to grow up. But all evening I just stared at the top bunk, wondering how I would ever get up there. When finally clawed my way up I lay there for what seemed like half the night wondering how I was going to get down. Finally, when the bladder could hold no more, I managed to find the path down and the cloud began to dissipate. I guess I would make it to the morning after all.
Lilly and her mother
I woke up not really chipper but people could live with me again. I met Lilly and her family, who shared the compartment with us, Larry and Mary Kay. Lilly was a charming little girl I originally thought was a boy, even though she was dressed totally in pink, because of her very short hair. I remember thinking that I liked this cultural difference, where boys could wear pink if they wanted. It seemed to fit the love of colors so endemic in the Indian culture. I learned that Lilly was indeed a girl and that her hair was short because in Indian culture, the birth hair must be removed at some point. A kid's head is shaved at age 1, 3 or 5, parents' choice. Lilly was three when she lost her hair.
Lilly with her father
I also had a nice conversation with a young woman who had the lower bunk to my upper. She is a university student studying physics in Varanasi, returning from Delhi where she spent Diwali with her family. Lilly's father is a computer engineer who was able to converse with Larry in detail about tele-communications. As we exited the train into the Varanasi platform, virtually every member of our group were sharing similar engagements with their Indian seat mates. Despite my discomfort at the start of the journey, this chance to meet and get to know middle class Indians in their own environment is a highlight of our trip.
We disembarked in Varanasi, only 90 minutes behind schedule. The Varanasi train station was nearly as busy as Delhi's. I only just descended from our car when I confronted this amazing caravan of red-clothed porters transporting, Indian-style, some lucky travelers' bags. Although tempted, our group decided to wheel our own bags through the teeming crowd.
In Old Delhi, exit the Red Fort through the Lahore Gate, turn left and head due west and you will run into Chandni Chowk, the main street of Old Delhi and the name of the surrounding neighborhood. This is the heart of the old city teeming with little shops and hundreds of people. The exit from the Red Fort is a super-wide path in the middle of a grassy park fronting the fort. As you walk you are confronted with an impressive view of the Digambara Jain Temple, which sits at the intersection of Chandni Chowk and a major street that circles the Red Fort.
Path of Chandni Chowk Walk
Our next scheduled activity was billed as a city walk of the Chandni Chowk area. The word chowk means crossroads or intersection and often refers to an open square where markets often develop. Chandni Chowk was once the most important market in India. Today it remains a vibrant and important area of Delhi. Now, I didn't learn any of this from our city tour. Unlike the city walks we are accustomed to, this one had no commentary or explanations. It consisted of a forced march on a circular route along the main street and into the narrow winding lanes of the neighborhood, ending at the Jama Mosque. As we hustled with gape-jawed wonder at the unusual street scenes there was barely time to take pictures, but I did manage a few. Enjoy them on Flickr.
Our route was circuitous, I think, because Janesh was leading us to an intriguing food experience. I had asked Janesh yesterday about a snack vendor at India Gate who was selling little puffy pastries, fresh fried in his cart, filled with some sort of liquid. Janesh told me this wasn't for us as the filling was made with local unfiltered and unboiled water. Reid overheard this exchange and I heard him tell Janesh that if he noticed a food vendor where it would be safe, the group would appreciate the experience. Today Janesh marched us to this funky little place that made common Indian food and specialized in Paranthas, one of the panfried, stuffed Indian flat breads. Best food yet. We weren't even two hours past breakfast so the whole group, which filled up the little seating area of the food shop, shared a couple plates of the curries. Anyway, the food was very authentic and way too hot for most of the group. Here is a picture of the kitchen (at the front of the restaurant), our chef and cooking crew.
Our walk ended at the Jama Mosque, an active 17th century mosque that is still the largest and most important one in Delhi. Structurally, the mosque was a repeat of the more interesting Qutb Minar. Culturally, we had to endure the zenophobia, antipathy and mysogyny of modern (and ancient?) Islam.Of all the mosques I have visited this was the worst for how they treated un infidels. All the women in the group were made to wear these ridiculous looking clown smocks, even though most of them, Carol especially, were dressed modestly. Carol for example, was wearing a skirt almost to her ankles and had a shawl that completely covered her shoulders and head. Still they made her wear this smock. Outwardly, we all took this in stride and with good humor, as you can see, but as I was snapping this picture it came to me that the officials at this mosque were deliberately insulting and humiliating our women. I also witnessed one of the hall monitors in the mosque severely berating a young woman for not wearing her clown smock in a proper manner. I was so disgusted that I left without seeing everything. I vowed this was the last active mosque I would ever visit. But what to do about Egypt; I do want to see the pyramids before I die.
We left the Jama Mosque to climb into bicycle rickshaws to tour the rest of Chandni Chowk in style. We went two to a rickshaw, except for me, who had one all to myself. Pity the poor soul who would have had to squeeze into the spare space left by my fat butt. But alas, the way around the neighborhood was blocked by a traffic jam that had everything at a dead stop, forcing our caravan to back out and proceed to the bus parking area. But Carol and I got some interesting pictures, available here along with photos of the mosque and restaurant.
Today was the day to experience Old Delhi. Not the old, old Delhi, just the Delhi that is older than New Delhi. There have actually been 7 iterations of Delhi. It seems like this area is an ideal place for the capitol of a great kingdom so each of the dynasties would establish a new city bigger and better than the last on a site near where the older, less magnificent city stood. Kind of like a newly dominant male dog lifting his leg over the spot the previous top dog had marked. The British were the last dog to baptize the area with the building of New Delhi. We would visit the Delhi that the Moghuls established in the 16th and 17th centuries. We had two sites to visit - the Red Fort and Jama Mosque - and a neighborhood - Chadni Chowk - to walk.
But first we had the fascinating bus ride through the streets of Delhi. I know I will say this many times in this blog: the streets of India are absolutely mesmerizing, offering sights totally foreign and somewhat shocking to my well-traveled Western eyes. Like this picture of an open air urinal. These are all over Delhi. What's unique about this one is that there are actually two men using it. Usually we see men peeing against any old building wall. I witnessed this several times within 50 yards of one of these latrines. When I would see these toilets, though, I always wondered if women could use them. Not that you see that many women on the street. Everything out of doors seems to be totally dominated by men.
Nearly as fascinating are the modes of transport used in this city. Let's see, here we have a taxicycle, a truckcycle, a motorickshaw - all competing for the street with cars. I guess I've seen similar vehicles before, just not on this scale. But, like I said, just fascinating; I'll never be bored in India as long as I have a window to look out of.
Our first stop was the Red Fort, completed in 1648 after 10 years of construction. The fort was built by Shah Jahan, the same guy who built the Taj Mahal. The Red Fort remained the capitol of Moghul-ruled India until 1847 when the British ousted the last ruler. Security at the Fort was even heavier than what we experienced on the Metro, but without the sandbagged bunkers. The line to go through security looked long but it moved quickly. There were separate lines for men and women, because after you went through a non-functioning metal detector you had to endure a pretty thorough pat-down. The manual search through our bags was also quite thorough.
The Fort itself is well worth visiting, actually a must see in Delhi, but there isn't a lot to comment about in this blog. The one building that really caught my attention was the Diwan-i-Khas where the Sultan held his private audiences. It is the only building in the Fort constructed entirely of marble and has beautiful panels inlaid with semi precious stones. I was impressed with the size of the Fort and the peacefulness of its gardens. We enjoyed our visit here very much. Beyond this description, I'll let you peruse my pictures on Flickr.
We returned to the hotel from our visit to India Gate, Humayan's Tomb and Qutb Minar at about 2:30 for a late buffet lunch of yellow dal, paneer (fresh cheese) in a creamy curry sauce and curried cauliflower. Rather than eating on the rooftop terrace, we were relegated to a basement banquet room, I don't know why. The food is very good at the Good Times. I don't know how they do it because there is not a recognizable restaurant or kitchen, only the rooftop terrace. Maybe there is a cooking area nearby. But every meal we ordered here was tasty; this one, however, was spiced for a Western palate and could have used a little more heat.
We were all a little jet-lagged so the plan for the rest of the day was to rest until 6:00 this evening when the group would meet to find and participate in the festival of Diwali. Diwali was one of the two reasons we were traveling to India at this time. By coming now, we would be able to experience both Diwali and the Pushkar Camel Fair, scheduled for later in the month. The appeal of the camel fair is self-explanatory; Diwali was a mystery. I have never heard of it before.
When we arrived in India all we knew about Diwali is that it is the "Festival of Lights" and is one of the most important festivals on the Hindu calendar. But when I asked our airport taxi driver about his plans for Diwali, he responded that he would be working; Diwali was for rich people, not working people. Further questioning only revealed that Diwali was a multi-day holiday.
From the hotel staff, I learned that during Diwali many of the buildings and streets were decorated with lights and that people set off fireworks and firecrackers. From our guide Janesh, we learned that Diwali lasted 5 days and was the Hindu equivalent of Christmas, that people exchanged gifts during this holiday, and that everyone wanted to be with their families. And from the shopkeeper Pramod we learned that it is customary to share special Diwali candies, when he kindly shared several delicious pieces with us when Carol bought her suit.
Before I could relax, I needed to deal with THE PACKAGES. Three times yesterday, the front desk guy pointed to 3 large, rather heavy, gift-wrapped boxes in the front lobby and indicated that those packages were for our group to help us celebrate Diwali. (Evidently he thought I must have some leadership position on the tour - maybe because I was the first male from the group to check in.) He kept referring to Diwali crackers, which I took to mean some sort of food treat. I tried to assure the guy that Reid would handle it in the morning (Reid would not arrive until early this morning), but the 4th time he mentioned it to me I took the hint and had them brought to our room. Reid had no clue about the boxes; he assumed they must be from the booking company he was using to handle the tour logistics.
Reid had the honor of opening the first box, revealing a case labeled Fosters Beer. Wondering what could possibly be inside, he opened the box to find, to our amazement, it really was a case of Fosters Beer in those huge Fosters Beer cans. There were two of these cases. The third box contained a box of the Diwali candies and bunch of fireworks. Well, maybe we didn't have our Ritz crackers but we did have something to ignite a Diwali celebration.
The group met in the hotel lobby to begin our search for Diwali. We found a young lady making a rangoli, a floor design usually made from colored flour or crushed rice. It is the custom in India to decorate areas in this way for festivals and celebrations.
Reid had questioned Janesh about the best place to go to see the Diwali festival. It was recommended that we go to Connaught Circle, the center of Delhi; Reid called it the "Times Square" of Delhi. We took the metro - a modern elevated train quite comfortable but heavy on security, with pat-downs, baggage conveyors and x-rays, and armed guards behind sand-bagged bunkers - to the Circle, exiting the subway station to find the area deserted and peaceful. Connaught Circle is defined by two concentric circular streets, with a huge park inside the inner-most circle. We walked around this inner circle to try to find the party. I was walking with Reid when we passed this old stooped guy who greeted us as we neared. I cheerfully called out, "Where are all the people?" He replied, "They're all at home celebrating Diwali."
So, like all good Hindu people on this night, we returned to our home, the Hotel Good Times, to celebrate Diwali. We drank our Fosters, enjoyed another buffet, even better than lunch, and listened in amazement to the cacophony of Diwali crackers going off all over the area. I have never heard anything like it; it began in late afternoon and was still going on when we went to bed. I woke up once at three in the morning and it had stopped, I don't know when. But here is a sample - a minute and a half of Diwali crackers. There aren't so many sky high, brilliant explosions so it is not as visually appealing as, say, Sevastopol on New Years. But awe-inspiring, nevertheless.
We were jet-lagged and about to call it a night when we remembered the box with the fireworks. We didn't know what to do with them and after some discussion decided to give them to the hotel staff. Surdh, our hotel guide from the previous day was on the terrace so I told him they could have the fireworks. He and another guy picked up one big package of fire crackers and started to walk away. "No, no." we cried, "All of them. the whole box." Well, they became as excited as, well, as kids on the fourth of July when presented with a moving-box full of fire crackers to set off themselves. We lost our entire staff of waiters when they took the box down to the street, returning several times to urge us to go down and watch them set off our "crackers." Diwali is a family festival; we were lucky to find a sort of family for the evening. Enjoy this video of our Diwali crackers.
This day, especially this evening, was one of the highlights of our travel experiences. Not only did we experience the exuberance of the hotel boys enjoying the box of fireworks, but the search for the Diwali celebrations is one of those experiences that exemplify the cultural differences that make travel so mystifying, rewarding and adventurous. We were looking for the 4th of July but found Christmas. I can't help thinking about what went through Janesh's mind when trying to tell Reid about the best place to experience Diwali. What would you say to an Indian guide if he asked you where to take his group to experience the festival of Christmas?
Traveling in India, we needed to get used to different but familiar-sounding terms for some of the sights we were visiting. For example, the the signs leading to a mosque show "masjid." What we know as a minaret, Indians refer to as "minar." So the next stop on our tour was India's tallest brick tower. Qutb Minar is a massive 238 foot minaret built in the 12th and 13th century. Separate from but associated with the minaret is a mosque (Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid) dating from the year 1198 and several other monuments. The main site is now a ruin, although it is beyond me how a structure this old can appear so well preserved. Our guide insisted the buildings are original, with only routine maintenance and renovations being done through the years.
Our bus dropped us at a parking lot and we walked through a small market to the entrance to the site. The market was teeming with people who appeared to be visitors to the complex and the vendors were catering to them. One particularly interesting stand was dispensing some sort of drink to a long line of waiting customers. There was an array of brightly colored syrups and also some lemons and limes but the main ingredient was unfiltered water. It was not a treat destined for our tummies. The most curious thing was that they were using glass glasses to hold the liquid. As a customer finished his drink, he handed his glass to a helper who rinsed it out and used it for another customer. Alas, we were moving too fast to get a picture.
The group gathered under a massive ficus tree that had its trunk entirely encased in concrete. This concrete based served as a convenient wall to sit on or lean against while Janesh briefed us on the history and significance of the Qutb Complex. Parts of the complex date from before the 4th century. Before this was a Muslim place, a massive Jain temple complex stood here. The Mullahs used a lot of the material from the disassembled temples to build the Qutb Complex.
We entered the interior of the masjid though a colonnade of stone pillars.
The mosque is open; it doesn't have, and never did have, a roof. It is the largest mosque in India (although I'm not sure the present tense is appropriate since it is no longer active). It consists of a courtyard
bordered on two sides by cloisters made up of a forest of carved columns.
At one end of the massive courtyard sits an iron pillar, named the Iron Pillar, made of 99.9% pure iron, according to our guide Janesh. This pillar is a metallurgical wonder even to modern science because even after 16 centuries it hasn't rusted. It is believed to be forged in the 4th century as a standard of the God Vishnu. I found it curious that a Muslim ruler would want a pillar closely associated with a Hindu god in his mosque.
We had about 20 minutes to wonder around the complex and snap pictures. In addition to the mosque the complex also contains the tomb of the Sultan Iltutmish, who built the two top stories of Qutb Minar in the early 13th century,
and the tomb and madrash of Sultan Ala-ud-din Khiji, dating from 1316.
This Sultan is important because he was responsible for greatly expanding the mosque and for authorising construction of the Alai Minar, which was abandoned after his death in 1316. The Alai Minar was supposed to twice as tall as Qutb Minar but only the first story was completed.
We got our pictures, then hung around in the shade of the ficus tree waiting for the rest of the group. Carol, Kathleen and Norma charmed a group of Indian youths who made a big deal of getting their picture. This was a recurring theme throughout our trip. Indian locals found us as fascinating as we found them and didn't miss any opportunities to use their cameras on us. We made all us feel less obtrusive about taking pictures of local people.
We spent the rest of the time enjoying the antics of the local squirrels, which were amazingly difficult to photograph. We couldn't decide exactly what kind of rodent these creatures were. They looked like extremely large chipmunks but acted like tiny squirrels. Janesh informed us that they were Indian Striped Squirrels, a fact validated by Wikipedia. They are also called Three-Striped Palm Squirrels and are pretty cute little guys.
The next stop was at Humayan's Tomb, the first of the Mughal (Muslim) garden tombs in India and one of the inspirations for the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan. Humayan was Jahan's great-grandfather and his tomb was commissioned by his wife.
To me, the most strikingly beautiful feature of this building is how the white marble juxtaposes with the red sandstone.
The interior of the tomb is every bit as impressive as the exterior.
Here is a detail of the stone filigree work present throughout the tomb.
The tomb includes the graves of Humayan, his wife who commissioned the tomb, the son of Shah Jahan and several other important Mughal rulers. Here are the tombs of Humayan and his wife.
But even a beautiful structure such as this is not immune to the plague of graffiti. I just cannot fathom what goes on in the mind of someone who would deface such a building like this.
The tomb was built in the middle of a 30 acre garden so the grounds of this site are quite extensive.
As you can see, the area was uncrowded and serene. We were again shocked by the lack of beggars and touts, even outside the walls of the tomb.
The site incorporates several other garden style monuments and tombs along the walkway to the main building. Here is the entrance gate to the Arab Serai, an enclosure to a retreat build in the 16th century for the craftsmen who came to do the construction work on the tomb.
The most extensive of the additional gardens is the tomb and mosque of Isa Khan, an Afghan noble who built this tomb 20 years before the Humayan tomb was built. When looking at these pictures, it's interesting to note that until the 1900s, there was an entire village situated in this enclosure, according to one of the inscriptions at the site.
Here is the gate to the Isa Khan enclosure - actually from the enclosure since people are on their way out.
This is the actual tomb of Isa Khan.
And this is his mosque.
Visiting this site was not without it's cultural moments. These workers were kind enough to let me take their picture while they were on their lunch break without asking for payment, something that occurred often on our trip. (Asking for payment for a picture, I mean. Later, we would tease the Indians who wanted to take our picture by asking them for a dollar.)
We found these brooms to be interesting. All through our trip we witnessed many people sweeping with this style of broom, but we never saw anyone with a dustpan picking up what they swept.
And also this portable pump. The first of many engeniously designed homemade mechanical devices we saw in India.
