The night train and Varanasi

Our next destination was Varanasi, this is a town that Shiva was supposed to have founded so is very important to Hindus. It is a very sacred place and is where a lot of Hindus go to get cremated, there are over 200 cremations there a day. There are hostels in the town of old and ill people who move there so they can die in Varanasi to get cremated. 

To get there we had to travel by night train, once more we headed back to the railway station, but I had convinced myself that by ten o'clock at night it would be cooler, less crowded and less smelly. Wrong, so wrong, well it was cooler. 

To get into the station we had to weave our way through people sat or lying on the pavements, then onto the platform where more people had settled for the night.  I did ask our tour guide if people lived on the station and he said some did but some were just waiting for trains which were often very late. 

A view of the platform, this is actually a quieter bit, can you see the cow wandering through and where there are cows there are cow pats, so these were dotted around. We also saw rats running around the tracks. At one point we saw a man pushing a large block of ice over the platform to the cafe, leaving a wet trail as it was directly on the pavement, was that going to be used in drinks? 

To get us of the platform, our tour guide put us into a waiting room and we were fine in there for over half an hour till one Indian lady came in, threw her bag down disappeared into the back section, came back grabbed her bag and stomped off. We weren't sure what that was about then she came back with her friends, shouting loudly in Indian. Well we didn't know what it was about but got the gist, she wasn't happy about the men being in there as it was supposed to be ladies only. We discretely left, other women and even a couple of Indian men were in there and seemed fine about us being there. 

In the waiting area was a list of prices for using the bathroom, it is cheaper to just have a wee, shall I say! What we were wondering was, how do they know what you do, in the cubicle? 

Once on the train we had to find our berths, each compartment had 6 beds, 3 tall on two walls facing each other then at the foot of the bed was a small aisle and on that wall was beds two high. Each person is provided a pillow, clean sheets and a blanket. Thankfully me and David were in a berth with other group members and were directly facing each other. One couple in our group were in with stroppy ladies from waiting room! They giggled and kept light on all night, we could hear them giggling from our compartment which was two away from them.

That's David's feet you can see. We were lucky in that we mainly had the compartment to our group but during the night an Indian came and slept on the empty bunk in the middle , just above David. Thankfully he was only there for a few hours as he kept trumpeting and at one point I woke up to find him sat staring across at me. We also had two Indians in the bunks at our feet one of them was a snorer, they obviously are more relaxed on train than we are. 

Surprisingly we all did manage to get some sleep, although I woke up a bit stiff and sore a few times 

and had to carefully try and turn around. I also woke up before anybody else in cabin but basically 

had to lie there as the space on bunk is not big enough to sit up on comfortably, you can do it hunched up hobbit style but a bit sore after a while, I know I tried it. 

Once in Varanasi, we settled into our hotel and then headed out early evening to see the sunset on the Ganges. To get there we took rickshaws, once again I felt sorry for our driver but at  least he was youngish! 

At the Ganges, we got a boat to sail out on the river so we could see the ghats which line the side, these are big stone steps, leading down to the river which are also used as seats for watching the sunrise and sunset ceremonies which are held every day. Walking down to the boat we watched them bale out water which was comforting then clambered aboard. I didn't take any photos as my iPad not good for night photos but also because of the cremations taken place along the river. You are not allowed to take photos of these and also I did feel we were invading their privacy. At one point the tourist boats stop very close and right beside the cremations which I felt was too much , we were right on the bank and you could see the families standing around the different pyres. I say families but only men attend cremations. 

Suddenly while we were there we saw flashes, like someone taking photos  close to one of the cremations. Grumbling started up and I could see a black camera sized box being taken from the person and handed along the family members until it got to one person, who looked at it more closely and promptly threw it in the fire.. At that there were heated voices and they all left, I can only presume that they were upset with camera owner and threw his camera on the fire. 

Once again we saw the sunset ceremony like we did in Rishikesh but this was on a much larger scale and we saw it from the river. It was lovely as there were more religious leaders doing the actions together along the bank and there were more people singing. As a group we also made our offerings to the water, once more flowers and a lit candle in bowl. This was nice as it was a lot darker than before and we all did it together. 

In the morning we went back to the same boat and saw the sunrise which was absolutely beautiful and so calm.

We also headed back to the main cremation point and once more was right on the bank. There were several boats there delivering wood for the cremations, and there was a huge woodpile in one area. You could also see ash piles from the night before, cremations are only supposed to take place between sunset and sunrise but because Varanasi is seen to be so holy it is alright to do it there after dark. Once more there were dogs and cows roaming amongst the ashes and there was one person swimming at the river bank with what I can only describe as what they use when panning for gold, and he was sifting through mud the mud there I can only presume for anything valuable that might be left after the fires. Our tour leader told us it takes about 4 to 5 hours for a total cremation but sometimes they run out of time for some people so after 2 to 3 hours they tip the cremation pile into the river but that some religious leaders will eat the meat of the bone, not sure if true or not!