A nice, if soggy, way to start the new year.

Another picture-less post today. There will be a day when we have wi-fi easily accessible, but it is not this day. This day, we contend with weirdly restricted hotel internet. Bonus points if you recognize the reference (Cindy, you don't get to play).

The previously mentioned cultural presentation for New Year's turned out to be pretty awesome -- classical Indian music, as well as Indian dance. The performers were good and highly enthusiastic, and one of the dancers is apparently a doctor and just does this in her spare time. Lots of fun, and we were seated with a nice Canadian couple (Ruth and Brooke) about our parents' age who had been traveling in India and Nepal for 3 months already, and were going to be traveling for another 3! They had lots of stories, and we had a few of our own, and dinner was nice (and, indeed, included beer), so overall, it was a very nice way to ring in the new year.

The next day, we had a full day tour booked, which we were sharing with with Ruth and Brooke. When we woke up, it was gray and rainy and fairly miserable, though not actually very cold. If we had been normal people, we would've stayed in our rooms. But, of course, we're tourists, so we bundled up, brought hats and scarves, and off we went with our guide, Muna.

Muna turned out to be highly entertaining and very informative. His uncle owns Hotel Alka, where we're staying, and Muna came to Varanasi 4 years ago to learn English and get in the business. He is also a devout Hindu, so he was able to share a lot of stories and tidbits with us as we visited various holy sites. He took us to several temples, including the Monkey Temple (which, indeed, has loads of monkeys, but is named not for the monkeys themselves but for the monkey god who was a good friend of the god Rama). Photos were prohibited at many of the sites, and several did not allow bags inside for security reasons, but we'll post the pictures we did get. We also got to visit Sarnath, the place where Buddha gave his first sermon. Although Varanasi is a holy Hindu city, Buddha is also respected here -- he is said to be one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu. The only downside to all these places was that in the temples, one has to go barefoot, and it was not warm, and wet and gross. We tried not to think about this too much. :) We also got to see beautiful silks being made and got a gorgeous sheet for our bed back home.

We were pretty exhausted upon returning to the hotel, but the day was not yet over -- our guide suggested that we take a boat ride on the Ganges to see the puja, the daily prayer ceremony, and also look at the cremation point. Hindus cremate their dead (except for 5 categories: children, pregnant women, holy men, people with snakebites, and lepers), and the Ganges is considered the best place for this, because if you die and are cremated in Varanasi, it's believed that you get to escape the cycle of death and rebirth. I had mixed feelings about seeing the cremations. There is a very strong prohibition against it in Judaism, and while I have no issue with other people doing as they like, it felt a bit weird to see one happen in real life. Still, I felt like it was such an essential part of the cultural experience here, I'd be missing out. So, Ruth and Brooke and Mu and I were loaded on a boat, sent flowers and candles floating down the river for good luck (and had the boy attempt to charge us way more than he should've for the privilege), saw the puja and cremations (which happen 24 hours a day here), and then got caught on the way back in an honest-to-goodness downpour, where by the time we got back to the hotel, we were completely soaked. Our clothes are still damp today, which has led to Mu having to adopt a rather bizarre outfit of shorts and base layer, as he did not have a dry pair of pants. :) We also had adventures while taking a hot shower (much needed after being soaked) -- it wasn't grounded properly and gave us a small shock. Comforting. :)

Today, there was more walking around. We saw the Golden Temple, the most important temple in Varanasi, and perhaps (for Hindus) in all of India. Foreigners aren't allowed there on their own, but we could go in with our guide. The dome is made of 900kg of pure gold, and inside is a Shiva Lingam, which is considered very lucky. No cameras, of course, and no mobiles, electronic gadgets, cameras, pens, knives, or coconuts. Or shoes. It was an experience, for sure. We also mailed the first set of postcards (we still have about 10 more to write), purchased another pair of pants for Mu, got a cheap and poorly made duffel (it's fine for the price, and it only needs to last 2 weeks), and had an Indian cultural experience with a guy who helped us find the post office and then convinced us to come to his shop to smell incense and essential oils. We ended up getting a small box of incense for a friend back home, after a long process. :)

Now, we're passing time 'till we have to go to the train station in a few hours. We'll eat here at the hotel -- the restaurant is good and not very expensive, and completely vegetarian. Then, it's a not very long train ride to Agra, so we won't get a full night's sleep, but will at least get about 6 hours. And then, it's Agra and the Taj Mahal!

Holy cow!

This will be another no-picture post, because the internet continues to be unpredictable in its availability. Ah, well.

Today, we arrived in Varanasi! This was, however, less simple than that sentence makes it seem. We had another harrowing drive out of Darjeeling to the train station 3 hours away (it was worse on the way down, for some reason), and settled in for what we thought would be the next 2 hours. Which became 3. Which became 4. The train eventually did arrive, and then we realized that the labeling of the cars was weird and we weren't really sure which one we were in. Eventually, we figured that part out, got in, and discovered people in our berths. Sigh. Because we looked foreign and, presumably, helpless, the conductor (or someone else official, I'm not sure) took pity on us and had an argument on our behalf with the family in our berths. About 10 minutes later, half of them vacated, while the others remained (in their actual seats, to be sure) and glared at us for a while.

This was the first (of 2 total, thankfully) trains where we didn't have AC1 tickets, because AC1 cars don't exist on these trains. It turns out that AC2 is an inordinately large step down. The layout is such that there are "rooms" on one side of the wagon, with 2 berths facing each other, as you'd expect. On the other side are two more berths, going the long way along the corridor. All of this has curtains for a modicum of privacy, but there's nothing to secure the curtains with, which means people passing by can inadvertently open them because there's not much space, and vendors selling food, water, newspapers, tea, and randomness of all sorts can just step in. I kinda wanted a paper, but really didn't want to encourage this nonsense.

So anyways, we sat at the station for another 30 minutes or so (not sure why, but it was very annoying), bought dinner (the bread left much to be desired, but the curry and potatoes were pretty tasty), and finally the train started moving. At this point, a different person tried to convince us to buy dinner again, and while we tried to alternately just say "no" and explain to him that we'd already eaten, the Indian family, taking pity on us, jumped in to explain and make him go away. After then, they thawed towards us and chatted, and helped us figure out which one our station was the following morning.

Our train ended up arriving over 4 hours late (I feel bad for our hotel driver, who waited for us -- we couldn't call him because our phone wouldn't get service on the train!), and in to Varanasi we went. It's...crazy, but weirdly charming. There were cows everywhere! This is what I'd been expecting, but so far, hadn't actually seen -- Kolkata is too crowded and industrial, and Darjeeling too small and high up. But Varanasi sure has those cows! They meander or lay or stand obstinately while small children attempt to get them out of the middle of the road. It's pretty great. We also saw goats and pigs and lots of dogs, but the cows outnumber them all. The streets are very crowded, but there's much less vehicular traffic. There are bikes and some motorcycles and some rickshaws, but mostly, just a ton of people walking every which way. This kind of crowd is somehow easier to deal with than the crazy amount of cars in Kolkata, at least for me.

Our hotel is right on the Ganges River, and the noise around it, to me, sounds like a beach party. There are birds, yelling children, boats, a murmur of hundreds of people talking. It's not exactly soothing, but after a while, it kind of leaves one's notice. The weather is lovely, too -- warm but not sweltering, with a nice breeze from the river. We napped, and then Mu decided to internet, and I decided to go for a walk along the river to see some of the ghats. Ghats are steps leading down to the river, and some are huge. The one nearest the hotel is pretty quiet, but slightly further south are more popular ghats, with huge crowds. I sat for a bit on the steps, one of maybe several hundred people (with more floating in) and listened to music and took in the atmosphere. There were tons of tourists, but also lots and lots of devout Hindis come to worship at the Ganges. They were dressed in robes of all colors, and were frequently barefoot, which seems amazingly unpleasant to me. It was nice to just sit and observe the craziness. I wasn't as accosted by touts as I'd expected, either. Sure, there were inevitable people trying to get me to take a boat ride, but with a few exceptions, they weren't really persistent. There was also a nice tea stall where I had a glass of hot chai that cost me pennies, and lots of shops, none of which I went into. I meandered a bit down some small alleys, but the sun was starting to set, and the lighting here isn't very good, so I decided to save the alleys for tomorrow.

Now, we're relaxing some more, preparing for the New Year's celebration at our hotel, which we're told will include dinner, beer (this was highlighted many times as it is something of an oddity here), and a "cultural presentation." We'll see what that actually means, but it's not like we have any other plans.

Even though I said this before, have a happy and safe New Year's, everyone! May 2012 bring you lots of happiness and joy!