After a 30 hour journey from Nepal involving a taxi, three busses, a rickshaw, a train and a tuc-tuc we arrived safely in Varanasi; tired but happy to be back in the Hindus' holiest of holy cities on the River Ganges, so called because the city lies between the tributary rivers Varuna and Assi. Although, the city has long since spread beyond these riparian boundaries. Apart from being the most auspicious place for someone of the Hindu faith to die ( it guarantees them a direct route to heaven and, thus, escaping the otherwise eternal cycle of reincarnation) it is also the oldest inhabited site in the world.
I was last here in '94/'95 for four months and so noticed a few changes: there is a lot more advertising and branding in the streets (even a sodding McDonalds!), there are many more guest houses and mid-range hotels and therefore a lot more tourists than I remember and a huge number of cars. I remember seeing very few cars when I was last here and so, with the narrow roads, this makes the place feel pretty crowded. Despite all this, the city has not, in essence, changed at all; its incredible, almost tangible energy is still here.
Varanasi has an infectious draw to it; a lot of travellers will come for a few days and spend weeks, a lot of westerners settle here for years at a time, some studying at the internationally renowned Benares Hindu University, some learning from many of the best music teachers in India and others involving themselves in charity work.
I revisited the Mother Theresa hospice where I worked and did a morning shift. The hospice is now also very much a hostel for the destitute and so those healthy enough get involved in the daily chores, so I decided to leave them to their routine. Through a series of chance meetings, I also managed to meet up with the other organisation I worked with, or at least, its replacement: a now much more efficient outfit which employs local people to do the job that I did, changing bandages on homeless lepers.
Another very serendipitous meeting was with an exceptional and formidable man called Father Francis, a Dutch priest from an order based in Mill Hill in north London. I met him when I was last here and did a bit of work for him at a school he had built. He has been in Varanasi for over thirty years, living and working with Dalits (formerly known as 'Untouchables'). He has transformed the slum area of Nagwa in the south of the city by putting in underground sewers, combatting TB and replacing shacks with concrete dwellings; he has founded schools, a clinic, a gardening co-operative and various training programmes to help the next generation lift themselves out of poverty. We were invited to attend a ceremony where a group of teenage girls were presented with sewing machines having completed a year's training course as seamstresses; each had paid for half of their machine and the foundation paid for the other. For more info on his work look at
www.ashray.org
All in all, we spent five weeks here and met a bunch of interesting people doing interesting things with their lives. There are plenty of opportunities here and I would not be surprised if Varanasi's infectious draw had its effect once again.
I'll leave Bex to tell you more, but here are a few of my chosen photos.......
 |
Tons of sediment deposited in the last monsoon are hosed back into the river
|
 |
| Giving the locals kids a great place to play! |
 |
| Do come in! |
