We arrive by cab from the train station. We're sharing our old white cab from the 1950's with two Germans that Olivier doesn't like. They're apparently very rude but I don't understand
German so I'm just watching the craziness going on outside of our rickety cab (pictured). We know of a guesthouse right on the river so we ask our cab driver to take us there. He takes us as close on the streets as he can get us and then orders us out of the car to follow him to it by foot. What a walk this is. I don't even know if this qualifies as a walk so much as it does an excursion. We wind through the ancient alley ways, dodging piles of cow feces swarmed by flies. Smells to melt our faces waft around us. We pass stray dogs, cows, trash mounds, people coughing, spitting, cooking, and trying to sell us various items. Men sit tucked away in their little huts in the wall cooking and crafting in their tattered clothes. After the five minute walk through the serpentine walkways we arrive at the guesthouse only to find that they will have a room available in four hours. We're too tired to kill time so we make our way back to the cab and go find a new one that we settle on. We relax and nap in our hotel the entire day. Traveling this country really takes it out of you. That evening we head to the roof for our dinner. We are five stories high on this terrace as we look out among the other rooftop terraces. We notice children all over Varanasi on their rooftops flying kites. Nothing fancy, no trick kites made to look like birds, sharks, or fish. Just standard single-color kites that have been cast into the sky to fly proudly among the hundreds of other kids' kites. It's a simple thing that brings these children so much joy. They're not tethered to an XBox by a controller cord trying to beat their brother to the top level. They are, instead, on the top level of a local building with a kite tethered to their hand by its string, standing next to their brothers taking turns to keep the shared kite aloft. It makes us realize how minimal their lives are and how something so simple can bring them so much joy and pride. We sit down and order some food from the man in the sweat-stained tank top. The sun is finally setting on our lazy day as we eat our dinner on the rooftop. Suddenly we hear cheering and chanting in the distance. As it grows closer we look over the railing down at the crumbling street below. A group of men march into view yelling and hollering. A wide plank is resting on their shoulders and on that plank is a man lying down wrapped in yellow cloth that seems to glow against the poorly lit street. His mouth is concave and his head is shaved and bobbling violently from side to side as these men jog him through the streets. "Is he dead!?" I ask some other hotel guests in horror. "Oh yeah, that's definitely a body" they reply in a morbidly fascinated tone. I'm suddenly filled with a mix of amusement and horror. The body is only in view for about ten seconds and then they whisk him away toward the Ganges River where he will be cremated and dumped in the river. We later learn that if a person lives over eighty years, then his life is celebrated by his body being paraded through the streets. "You obviously haven't been down to the river yet," the hotel guests assume. We tell them we will be going tomorrow or the next day, and they proceed to tell us that this is just the beginning. The rest of the night I feel a bit uneasy about seeing this dead body, yet very intrigued. If there is one moment on this trip that has truly left a mark on me, it's this one. We don't speak very much for the rest of our meal.We spend the following day not doing very much. Just hunting down food is exhausting. We want to go to a specific restaurant so we head out to battle the dusty streets. India is really exhausting. Everybody wants something from us it seems. They always approach Olivier
instead of me since he's the male. They talk and talk and never let us go on our way. Often I just
want to shout, "For God's sake leave us alone we don't want to go to your scarf shop!" Even the children badger us. We spend way too much time waiting for each person to stop talking.
The
following morning we awake to watch the sun rise over Varanassi.
We climb into a rowboat and our rower fights his way upstream. We watch women beautifully adorned in all colors of the spectrum as they take their morning dip in the Ganges. Husbands ritually dunk their wives, people brush their teeth. The sun casts a morning glow over the crumbling buildings and the people praying to Shiva. We are rowed to a funeral on some stairs that lead into the water. An old man cries as he grips the shoulders of his deceased loved one.
His wife crouches a few stairs above, crying. We think it may be their son or daughter but the body is already wrapped in white plastic. The man boards a small boat and the body is slung over the tip of the boat. A cinderblock is twined around the legs of the dead body. A monkey is also prepared and placed in the boat. The man is rowed only about twenty yards into the river where he offloads the body into the water where it instantly disappears into the murky abyss. The mood is heavy and we are rowed away and dropped back off.
That evening we get in another rowboat and are taken to the burning ghats where bodies are burned twenty-four-hours-a-day. We are greeted by a priest who is draped in white cloth and
has a blessing mark on his forehead. Even though we know he'll eventually ask us for money, we're so relieved he is going to show us around the cremations instead of us braving this alone.
We step off our wooden boat on to the steps and begin our grim tour around the dark ominous building. He tells us that people are in this stone building waiting to die. They pray every day in the river while they await their fate. Once they die, they are taken to the burning platform
which is right next to the building. We wind
along the back of the building where men lean against huge heaps of special burning wood. The oldest sons have shaven heads and are draped in white cloth. Women are not allowed at the burnings since they are too emotional and this is said to inhibit the spirit from crossing seamlessly into the new world. We squint and cough through the asphyxiating smoke that billows off the platform. He takes us to the ground level floor of the building that sits in open air right over the river. We pass people lying on the ground and look at each other in horror wondering if these people are dead or alive. This is so grim. We can see about seven bonfires on the adjacent platform. These fires are burning bodies under heaps of wood. As we stand listening to him talk about the facility, we squint through the smoke. Dead bodies are prepared and dipped in the ganges. We're trying to act reverent and interested but every twenty seconds or so, a firework goes off scaring the bejesus out of us. Already feeling a bit sensitive because of this whole thing, the fireworks are frightening me even more than they normally would. We watch the burnings and are then asked, of course, for a small donation for his services. We oblige, and walk back past bodies, mourners, and diseased people near death.
The next days are spent exploring Varanassi by rickshaw bike (pictured at left). I've grown to really like these things.
I feel like I'm on the back of a chariot and viewing the world from a platform of esteem, like the queen in a parade. People look at us because we're white and some even shout "hello" just like they have all throughout Asia. We eat lunch at various places suggested to us by the Lonely Planet travel guide. Olivier is an expert traveler and is never afraid to ask any questions to get exactly what he wants. At one point Olivier decides to get his face shaven at a roadside barber next to a pile of bricks in an old rickety chair. He gets the ultimate treatment and decides to give them the most generous tip they will ever receive. I stand by and take pictures with his beautiful camera as a 12-year-old joins in on Olivier's impromptu massage. Apparently he's receiving the deluxe pamper package. The 12-year-old tries to get me to go to his scarf shop.
We head back to New Delhi on the night train and arrive early in the morning. We go to the famous Lotus Temple. Indian guys approach me because they want me to take pictures of them
in front of the temple-- with my camera. Every country seems to have a different request with westerners wielding cameras. This one is the most odd to me. If you'll recall, I've been
hassled for group photos in my swimsuit in Indonesia, held babies in pictures as if I were the Pope in China, and later in Egypt I will be practically torn to shreds by hoards of teenagers by the pyramids for their westerner photo op.
Today is my and Olivier's last day together in India, so we take it easy. We walk around old Delhi. I have huge ambitions for us to go see a Bollywood movie, but I have a massive headache so we keep it low key. In the morning we will say goodbye not knowing when or where we will see each other next, but we always manage.
I arise early in the morning to figure out how to get to the airport by eight o'clock. I see a young guy arguing with the guy behind the counter of my hotel. He is trying to check out and it's not a pretty argument. I ask him if he wants to share a rickshaw to the airport, so we go do some early morning haggling and off to the airport we go. I nearly miss my plain due to India International's TSA Changing of The Guard. MY GOD THIS COUNTRY! They couldn't resist one last dig at me.
Our train is really wide,a room almost, and just has padded benches for us to sit on. We try to sleep but our bench is a bit too small to get comfortable and I have a lady on my right leaned against the train wall. There's no air conditioning just fans and open windows. Every few minutes men pace down the isles yelling out what they are selling. The most common is "Chai, chai!" repeated at nauseum. Suddenly a bongo drum rings out from behind us in the doorway to our cart. A little boy in the isle comes into view. He suddenly starts dancing and girateing to the beat in the isles. He shakes his shoulders up and down and then leans foreword to orbit the ball attached to a rope pinned in the center of his baseball cap. As he turns toward us I realize his tiny face has a mustache painted across it and little circles for rosy cheeks have been added to complete the circus look.He continues his little act and suddenly I'm so tickled that I start to silently chuckle. I can no longer keep silent as the laughter grows into a painful belly laugh. My eyes begin to tear and my face starts to hurt. Olivier looks at me unable to figure out what is so funny. As I continue to laugh, the tears turn to tears of sadness.
I realize that this boy has to do this for a living while his mother plays the drums for him to dance, and then I'm filled with sorrow for this child and the many just like him. I've been told that India can make you laugh and cry all in one minute but I couldn't picture the scenario that could possibly reduce me to such a mess. Now I'm pretty sure I hold the record for quickest elation to sorrow time in the Indian tourism category.This sudden burst of emotion could also be due to a serious lack of sleep. He finishes this two minute act by passing his little body through a hoop and then comes around with a pan for a bit of money (as pictured). He is one of very few children I have given money to on this trip. He deserves a few rupees for his show and for making me go through such an extreme roller coaster of emotions. 
