The thing about Banaras that you have to remember is that this city is over 5000 years old and to add to that this was ransacked by 10 times by Muslim invaders, all the temples were broken by Aurangzeb and made into Mosques and what not.
The point I am trying to make is that do not expect Banaras to be a planned city, expect nothing from it, Cleanliness, Hygiene….if anything else, expect the opposite, death, small streets a car a truck and a cow fighting for space to walk.
Not exactly on what I was getting at
This is city of temples and gullies, there is a temple in every gully…. there is a cow, a dog sleeping a few human beings trekking a path between them….Ah its fun.Its an Experience. You remember my Ladakh trip…..this one is exactly opposite to it
If you are like me and have zero expectations from the town then get ready to have some fun…
How you say? This town is one of the cheapest towns that I have seen in a while. People live here by paying a measerly amount of $50 a month. You read me right. If you are living near the ghats you will not be paying more the $50 a month. You will see a lot of foreign tourists lazying around here … That is for a reason…Where else on the planet can you live for $50 a month and with cheap Ganja? I am not too sure about the rates but I hear its cheap.
Things to do
Temples….In Banaras there is a temple in every gully, take some time and visit them. Also visit the Kashi Vishwanath temple, the main attraction.
A broken and possible a abandoned temple
Ghats… Do them…all of them… adjoining every ghat is a gully, go through them, drink some tea, have a pan, walk around the place.
Dhobi ghat........
Boating……hire a man powered boat to show you around the place… the mighty ganges and how it flows
Paddle power boats
Buddhism…I am not too much into buddhism but Sarnath is near by and there you will see something of grave importance to buddhism. I am not too sure as to what but it is.
Japnese buddha
Death…..its banaras…of course some one is either dead or dying. “Mama always said death is a part of dying” – Forrest Chump….I’d be damned if it wasn’t. It is believed that if some one dies or is cremated in Banaras he will directly go to heaven. So you will find score of people being cremated here. Think of the river ganga as the River Stix from the greek mythology.
On the bright side if you die doing drugs here……… then woo hoo!! You are going from one heaven to another.
Banaras is truely a global village, the people here speak all the languages spoken in the world.
Chinese, Japnese, Thai, French, Russian,Korean, Spanish and Portuguese, as if that was not enough…..they speak Hindi, Telugu, Oriya, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Gujju.
Working globally, living in a gully.
The best time to visit is in winters when the flow is people is a the lowest and the so is the water of ganga.
If you are thinking of living here that that is cheap too.. as i mentioned the rent a while ago …..the prices of vegetables here is cheap. Its seems that inflation forgot to hit this town. The reason is that the vegetables are grown locally and sold locally at local prices. That did not make much sense? Did it?
Veggy man
I only spent two days in banaras… I wish I could have spared some more time there but …some other time I think.
Before I conclude….Please remember that do not go into the city expecting any modern facilities.
Think of it as a place which survived thousands of years of systematic destruction but still keeping its head tall.
I will leave you with this picture that I clicked in one of the gullies. Looks like Jesus Christ was in banaras to see “whats up ?”
What's Up banaras.....?
“Go into the city expecting death and you will find life”
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