The ride to Varanasi in sleeper class was torturous. I was crammed onto the top bunk with my pack, and at one point, the breeze during the night was too cool for me, so I ended up sleeping on my side and my full backpack was also on it’s side. It’s like we were spooning. Mind you, the bunk is about 21” wide, so I was basically glued in place. Once the sun arose, the heat started building. By 10am it was past hot. And the heat continued to build until about 2:30 or so or at least that’s when I stopped noticing. It was so hot, it was affecting my consciousness. No lie, I couldn’t really tell when I was dreaming and when I was awake; it was all like a lucid dream and everything seemed to melt into one awareness that didn’t change whether I was dozing or wake. One of the only cogent thoughts I remember thinking was that if I were to have gotten food poisoning from Mehboob’s I would have already been sick, and I felt grateful that I wasn’t ill.
Sweat came out of every pore I had. I had asked for two 1 liter bottles of water from the Corbett Motel before I left because I figured I would need to drink this amount on the way. When it actually came time to drink, I didn’t want to. It was like drinking hot bath water. In the end, I ended up choking down about 1.75 liters, but couldn’t do the last bit. I think I would have vomited.
The trip in itself was miserable due to the heat. And most of the people on the train seemed to be in a bit of a bad mood, probably also because of the oppressive heat. Sleeper class (non-ac) is not where I want to be as I travel through the south, that is for sure.
I arrive in Varanasi, not feeling strong at all because of the heat and probably some degree of electrolyte imbalance from the extreme sweating. I get off into a sea of people and realize I’m on platform 9, and it seems like this place goes on for ever. I’m just following a line of people who look like they’re headed out and not in… I get maybe 300 yards or so, and a guy comes up to me, and in pretty good English says to get out, I need to go up and turn “right” as he bends his hand to the left. I say, “left?” and mimic his hand, and he says yes. Of course he has a tuk-tuk there, and knows exactly where my hotel is, and he quotes me 100rs ($2) which I accept without hesitation despite probably overpaying by twice. We make our way out and none of the touts approach me because I am with Shankar (his name, he says, means Shiva, a Hindu deity, and patron saint of Varanasi), and they apparently respect each other’s catches.
On the way, he says my hotel is too expensive and quotes 3k-4k rupees ($60/80) a night, which I know isn’t true because the guidebook says about 1000 ($20, and about what I’ve been paying every night so far). He says he knows another place which has AC rooms for 1000. I tell him I’ve already booked and confirmed the reservation and to take me Hotel Ganges View which he does without argument.
I get out and pay Shankar, and he offers to help me with my bag, which I refuse, simply because I’ll have to tip again, and I don’t have the energy to dig around in my pocket for more money, and also because I don’t want Shankar to know that I don’t have a reservation here. I want my lie to be private! I climb the couple flights up to the reservation office and sure enough Shankar was right, they are quoting me between 3k and 5k a night. I ask if they have something cheaper, they said yes, but it was just taken. I think they could see my exhaustion and overall condition, and figured it was like shooting fish in a barrel. They could have named 6k and I would have taken it because I needed it. However, I wasn’t going to do it. I told them thanks, but no thanks, and walked my slightly wobbly body back down the stairs into 109 degrees. Shankar had waited down there for some reason, and came back for me. I asked him if the place he was recommending was clean and verified that it had AC, he told me to trust him, and we headed to the Singh Guest House, where I checked into a reasonably clean AC room for 950rs. (Note: it is possible that my perception was incorrect here, and that the Hotel Ganges View really only did have rooms for that price. For that matter, the price on the guidebook and other places online seem to be inaccurate in a good number of cases overall.)
The air-conditioner blew cold air hard, though it was so loud, I would have believed there was an empty Folgers can bouncing around inside the fan casing. Even with the AC in full, it seemed to be losing ground in the overall heat. Well, that, and the fact that the power (and therefore AC) went out for the 6 hottest hours of the day. The guest house had a generator, but it didn’t have enough “umph” to power the AC units also. At least the Folgers can stopped for that period of time.
I basically try to recover for the duration of the day except for a trip downstairs for some food not too long after I checked in. There I met a guy from Pennsylvania who was a devotee of Maharajji. He had been in India before for 6 months, and this time for 3 so far, but planned to be here for a year (6 months is the max continuous stay, so he’d have to go to Nepal for two months, and then re-enter). He said in all his time and travels in India, he had never met another person with a Maharajji connection.
Maruti was a name given to him by a teacher and means Hanuman (the Hindu monkey deity, helper of man). Maruti had been travelling with a girl he met in Rishikesh for the last few weeks and they seem to be getting along pretty well. We ate breakfast together and she left to tend to something and Maruti and I talked for a few hours. He is basically a Western sadhu, which is a wondering ascetic with very little possessions, whose main purpose in life is to know God. Before coming here again, he hitchhiked out West for a few months, having been taught the rules of the road by hobos he met along the way. In the US, he carried a tarp which he said, they taught him how to roll into a bivy for when it rained, or as a tent cover, or a few other things. He had money to eat (he was doing this by choice and/or calling), so he didn’t rely on scraps, though he accepted food people offered. He felt called back to India, and people starting giving him money; things were falling into place. He went “home” for a friends wedding and headed back over here to India where he had been travelling around.
He was travelling much closer to to the ground than I ever anticipated, travelling mainly in second-class unreserved trains or finding rides. His beard was unkempt and so was his hair. In a few months time it will be matted. His eyes were bright blue and filled with life. His zeal was for God and nothing else. In America we would take one look and call him a bum or a drifter, and immediately distrust him. He was a genuine guy, his quest was real and his heart was pure. He will probably be a baba or a yogi, he will make it.
He was talking about Rishikesh also, saying that I should go there (like the guy at the Evelyn in Nainital), and I tell him that it doesn’t appear to be in the cards for this time around.
We finish up and head back, and I feel like some meditation, especially on the Rishikesh deal, as it keeps coming up.
Varanasi has a vibration to it, the energy below the chaos is palpable. The river has power too. There is a slightly seductive feeling to the energy, like to yield to it or to be absorbed by it. I can see how people end up here forever. It’s like a magnetic energy that so subtly draws you in. At the beginning I kind of liked that feeling, but after a while, I didn’t like it anymore.
After I sat for while, I got clear on a couple of things: 1) Whatever the reason I came to Varanasi, it was complete (I think it was to meet Maruti), and 2) Rishikesh was my next destination. This meant I would have to rebook my trains and skip the Taj Mahal and possibly all of Rajasthan. It didn’t matter though, because the message I was receiving was not ambiguous.
Once I had this new info, I felt more and more uncomfortable staying in Varanasi.
I met up with Maruti and Becky later, and I told him I was heading to Rishikesh. He told me if I waited a few days, we could travel together, but that he was waiting for Becky to leave for Nepal on the evening of the 9th, which was yet a couple days away. I told him I didn’t think I could wait that long, but he was planning on heading there after she left, so we would probably meet up there anyway.
I decided on a boat ride on the Ganges for the evening Ganga Aarti ceremony (a Hindu ceremony with ghee/butter lamps which is done in honor of the great “mother” river). I was looking forward to this. The river definitely has an energy to it and it was one thing I wanted to do on the itinerary. I go downstairs and ask which way to go to the ghats. The manager on duty tells me to sit down and he will explain. I ask again, and he says, turn left and you’re there, or some equivalent, which I know is BS, because it is a rat maze here, and nothing is one turn away. The galis (tiny alley-ways) are about four feet wide in some places, and are filled with cows, people, sleeping dogs, piles of excrement and trash, and puddles of something. I have no choice but to listen to manager dude.
He busts out a map and starts talking about seeing this and that, and oh yeah, the Ganga aarti, and then tomorrow, the Benares University lingam, etc. He’s basically telling me the tour he will sell me. I tell him I don’t want to see any of that stuff probably, and I just want to know how much for the boat ride to the aarti. He tells me sharply to listen, and continues his schpeil. I listen for about another 30 seconds and tell him sharply that I only want to know how much for the aarti boat ride, and he says, oh, for that “200rs only.” What is it that every quoted price has to be followed with “only.” It immediately makes me think of smarmy salesman and I become suspicious every time. Maybe it’s just what they think goes after a number. It certainly is cultural at this point, and as much as I try to withhold judgment of many things that rub me the wrong way, the “only” bit is getting on my nerves.
I agree to 200rs because I’m now rationalizing not arguing, by determining cost in terms of US dollars, and not what it should cost here. So, for 4 dollars, a man will row me up and down the Ganges river with his own power, to witness a special and sacred ceremony that I really want to see. Ok. That works for me, and gets me out of the haggle, which I despise. I mean really. What truthful argument could I have about not paying 4 dollars for that. So what if it goes for $1.50 somewhere else. I probably have 100 dollars sitting in coins on the dresser at home. What legitimate reason do I have for bargaining it down. I’m not out of money, and I’m not in hardship, and I don’t enjoy the process unless I could really take it or leave it. I thought I would enjoy bargaining, but once again, I was wrong about my pre-conceptions.
He says wait here there’s a German going too. I have a seat on the old and dusty couch.
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