It’s dawn. An eerie mist grips the buildings on the banks of the River Ganges and drifts aimlessly across the water. Spired, almost Gothic-style buildings and arched frontages reminiscent of Venice, punctuate the otherwise drab bankside architecture. Run-down hotels and restaurants squeeze through the gaps of stonework to peer at the holy river. In the distance smoke from wood fires mingles with the mist and devout worshippers take to the water either fully or partially dressed to cleanse themselves of their sins. Such is the scene that greeted us aboard our ‘thugging’ diesel boat as we rocked with the gentle current past various ghats (or steps) down to the river.
Our short excursion to the quayside had been through a muddy, urine-ripe marketplace with stalls that appeared to double as living spaces for their ‘holders’. Pilgrims were already gravitating to the water as we climbed aboard with our camera crew.
This is the most peculiar place I have ever visited. I didn’t find Varanasi or the rites being performed on the banks of the Ganges spiritual personally, but I was astounded at the ‘otherness’ of the scene we were witnessing. This would not have been out of place in some post-apocalyptic Ridley Scott movie, with white-faced yogis performing blessings and rituals, the occasional bloated animal corpse floating by our boat as well as bathing pilgrims, and funeral pyres roaring away at the burning ghats where the dead bodies are openly cremated and offered to the river.
The people who visit the Ganges and work here are a world and a half away from my western civilisation. This is a chaotic city of beggars, worshippers, salesmen, mystics and tourists. Remove the combustion engine from the scene and you could have fallen into cultural landscape any time from the middle ages to the 19th century. Quite incredible. I look around me for symbols that I can reference as if I'm dreaming, but there is nothing. Yet, this place is one of the most symbolic locations in India.
Following a late morning snooze after our 4am ‘call’ to see dawn on the Ganges, we left Varanasi pondering just how different our life experiences were from those we had just witnessed. This is the incredible side to India.
With only a few hours of daylight left we headed for Mau – what appeared to be a suitable stop-over for our journey towards the Nepalese border tomorrow. We pulled up at our accommodation and located our rooms. Now, we’re all pretty easygoing, but this place was something else: within the first hour the power had gone off about four times – which isn’t the most conducive to filming our end-of-day interviews. The bathroom in our room had no bath, or shower, or toilet seat, or running water to start with. It did have a friendly cockroach and a family of spiders hanging from the ceiling. The carpet, bedsheets and pillow cases were stained with years of partial laundering and drying after partial washing. And the mattresses were bumpier than some of the potholed roads we’d driven into town on. The plan: stick it out, get to bed, leave asap in the morning. We have a long day of driving ahead towards the border.
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