Posted by Catherine

Today was our last day in Varanasi. We were up very early & in the hotel lobby at 5:30am. It was still quite dark outside so there were lots of sleepy eyes in our group.

We loaded up into motorized auto-rickshaws & headed off towards the Ganges. Traveling through the city at this early hour was much different than at other times of the day. There was far less traffic & we saw lots of people starting their day in shops & in all sorts of vehicles delivering various food & other products to all the stores along the way.

As we got closer to the river the traffic got a bit heavier with lots of people just like us – going to see the sunrise.We arrived at the riverbank just as the sky was beginning to get light.

Manu had us all board the boat he had hired along with his special surprise! He had arranged for two local musicians – a master sitar player and his nephew who played the tabla – to serenade us as the sun was rising.

It was simply beautiful! The sun rose over the far bank of the river & a full moon still hung in the air over the city. (One of our travel group colleagues took the photo below).

Needless to say, there were lots of oooos & ahhhs to the spectacular sunrise complimented by the beautiful music.

Plus there was chai tea served from a metal tea pot into freshly made clay cups! Manu certainly “hit this one out of the park”. Everyone on the tour will remember this for the rest of our lives.

After the sun was rising well into the sky our group returned to the hotel for breakfast. It was still only 8:30am & we had until 12:30 noon to check out of our room.

After enlightenment, the laundry. We saw laundry workers doing the hotel laundry in the Ganges and hanging it up to dry along with several saris spread out on the walkway.

We had the luxury of getting laundry done at the hotel which we were pretty sure wasn’t beaten on a board in the river. It came back crisply folded around stiff sheets of paper.

Better than new! I’m hoping my roommate will do the same thing for me at home but she says – dream on buddy!

The group members all had free time until 1:30pm when the plan was to go out to a nearby restaurant for lunch. I was feeling a little “off” so Catherine & I decided to stay at the hotel & have a light lunch at their restaurant.

After lunch we took some comfortable seats in the lobby & began to check our emails & to start writing this blog entry. Shortly after we sat down there was a commotion in the lobby as large Indian wedding party arrived for a post wedding ceremony celebration in the hotel’s event dining room.

After the main wedding party passed through several smartly dressed teenage boys sat down on the couches adjacent to where we were. One of them came over to us, extended his hand & said hello. When he realized that we were open to conversation with him he politely asked many questions: why are you here, where are you from, what are your names, how old are you, do you have children?

Then his buddies came over for photo ops with us. There was such a happy commotion that the noise & chatter enticed many others from the wedding party to meet & be photographed with us. Grandfather of the groom, aunt & uncle of the groom, nieces, nephews & cousins of the bride & groom. One of the uncles was a minister in the Indian government & another relative was an MP for the region. So many people – it was like a party but it was also like trying to drink water from a fire hose!

Someone behind us sprinkled us with Marigold petals & gave us each a rose which enhanced the photo ops.

Once things quieted down a bit a woman & a young girl, both wearing beautiful dresses came over, sat with Catherine & had a small conversation while many more photos were taken. I wonder if any will end up in the bride & groom’s wedding photo album 🙂

Serenity at sunrise, happy wedding chaos in the afternoon. What could possibly be next? Oh yes, I almost forgot – an 16 hour overnight train journey from Varanasi to Orchha!

It was an epic voyage! The train station was only a five minute walk from the hotel and teeming with people. Our luggage was carried by porters Manu had arranged for us. These men work hard for their wages (100 rupees per bag – $2.00), are proud of what they do and appreciated our business.

There are 5 classes of travel on Indian trains and we were smack dab in the middle.

We were assigned seats facing each other on one side of the compartment. The bottom seats folded into a narrow bed and there was a bunk above.

On the other side of the compartment were benches that folded down into three tiers of bunks, for six beds altogether. The lads from London were across from us

The rest of the group were in other compartments.

We were each given two clean white sheets wrapped in brown paper while there already was a blanket and small pillow on the bunk.

I sat up for awhile but Cath made up her bunk – just like being on the sailboat!

Bedtime was 10:00 pm. People were coming and going all night.

The train was fairly smooth and quiet so we managed a bit of sleep. I have no idea how people knew where they were as there were no announcements, only about 30 stops!

Manu appeared around 6:00 am to tell us that the train was about 3 hours late, and we would arrive in Jhansi around 10:00 am. Give or take. We are on IST – not Indian Standard Time but Indian Stretchable Time.

We got in around 10:00 am, hopped into an auto-rickshaw for a half hour ride to Orchha. This is what greeted us when we got in. Stunning & right beside our hotel!

Ahoy all;

We are in Jaipur today. Sorry that we are falling behind in our blog posts. The last few places we have stayed at have had very slow internet connections – much too slow for all the photos we want to share.

We have been writing up our stories each day & have lots of photos to post as well.

Don’t give up on us! We will be in Delhi tomorrow – our last stop on this adventure & should have a much higher speed connection at that hotel.

Cheers!

Wally & Catherine

We had a great sleep at our hotel & a leisurely breakfast. The program for the late morning & early afternoon was to visit the silk weaving sector of the city.

We were transported from our hotel to the silk sector by gas powered tuk-tuks. That was a pretty exciting experience all in itself!

The silk industry has been a part of Varanasi for centuries, primarily through the Muslim community. There are over 700 working looms still in the area, off of narrow alleyways and winding streets in a concentrated area of the city.

Manu had arranged for a local guide to take us through the manufacturing area where the silk threads are woven into a variety of colours & patterns.

The majority of the silk fabrics made in Varanasi are sold to retailers all over the world. Very little of their output is sold directly to the end customer in India.

Our first stop on the tour was to see one of the shops where the loom programming cards are punched out. This process has been around for well over 100 years. You could say that these looms were among the first programmable computers.

A separate design team lays out a pattern for the loom to weave. The pattern is converted into a series of holes punched into hard rectangular paper cards & the cards are then tied together into long series & are fed into the loom which uses this information to weave the threads into the fabric.

The small spools of silk threads are loaded onto a device that wraps the threads onto a single large spool that is then hooked up to the loom & ready for weaving.

Hundreds of spools of silk are rolled onto a big rack

Then all of the silk threads are fed onto another much larger wheel

Finally the threads are rolled onto a single large spool the feeds the loom. The spool is covered with cardboard to protect the silk while it is being transferred to the loom.

Once the design cards are complete they are fed into the loom & the threads a fed into the loom.

The sound of the looms in operation is deafening! It’s like something out of Dickens – small cramped workspaces, pieces of metal machinery whirling around, hardly any light. The looms work almost too fast to see the weaving process take place.

After visiting a few of the electric motor driven looms we were taken to a room where silk fabrics are woven by hand, using a manual loom. Our guide explained that these looms are used for very elaborate patterns & it could take a weaver over a month to make a meter of top quality & very expensive fabric. These looms are generally used for special orders only.

After touring the manufacturing operations our group was taken to a fabric display room where the manager of the co-operative showed us a variety of absolutely gorgeous finished products ranging from bolts of fabric for making clothing as well as finished bedspreads, table cloths & scarves.

The “silk guru” held the ladies’ full attention during his presentation

He did an excellent job explaining what makes different quality & value of silk and wool fabrics as compared to synthetics. Of course there was an opportunity to make purchases at very reasonable prices. The group really appreciated the fact that there was no pressure to buy anything. We were offered chai as part of the presentation ritual! Several of us made purchases, to support the local economy and buy Fair Trade products. Luckily they take Visa!

After the tour we returned to the hotel by tuk-tuks again & had a few hours to rest up before our next activity of the day.

At 4:30pm we assembled in the hotel lobby. Manu explained that we would be traveling by bicycle rickshaws to the banks of the Ganges River for a brief walking tour & then a boat ride on the river to watch the sunset. We would get a chance to watch a sunset ceremony or “aarti” performed by 7 Brahmin priests.

Manu did an excellent job describing the history of Varanasi & the importance of the Ganges to Hindus. There are 84 ghats or sets of stone steps leading to the water spread out along about a two kilometer stretch of the western shore of the river.

This site has been performing ritual cremations for many centuries. The fires that are used to light the funeral pyres have also been burning continuously for several hundred years. Cremations take place 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

While we were waiting to board the boat, a holy man came along offering blessings to us. Manu assured us that he was the real deal so for 100 rupees each ($2.00) we received the tika red mark for the third eye chakra and three horizontal stripes of sandalwood paste denoting a blessing from Lord Shiva for a long life. Om Namah Shivaya.

Our boat was a large rowboat with no engine that could hold about 15 passengers. It was rowed by one person!

We went past one of the main cremation sites, where several huge cremation fires were burning. Our boat stayed about 100 meters from shore & Manu asked the group to kindly not take any photos of these particular activities as respect for the grieving families.

Once our boat had gone past the cremation ghats we proceeded to head towards the main “stage” on shore where the priests performed the evening ritual ritual accompanied by conch shells, bells, incense, lights, peacock feathers and chanting.

There were probably more than 100 boats like ours that came close to shore to witness the service. We had chai tea on board and then we each sent a small offering of a candle and marigolds on a little paper plate into the water. It was a fascinating & very moving evening, especially with the pink sunset & a full moon that rose dark red in the sky framing the spectacle.

The ceremony went on for about an hour & then we returned to our rickshaws to go to a restaurant nearby our hotel for a late dinner. We were delighted to find “dosas” or large thin pancakes that we had enjoyed in South India on the menu. Then, back to the hotel for bed.

The next day we had a 5:30am start to go back to the same place to watch the sunrise over the Ganges.

Namaste 🙏

It seemed like a good idea at the time…

When we began planning this trip early last spring it seemed to make sense to us that if we were going to travel halfway around the world to visit Nepal then we might as well go to India too because it’s just next door! OK I said let’s do it.

Well, our Nepal adventure is formally over & today we crossed over the border into India.

Up at 5:30am for breakfast at 6:00 & on the bus at 6:30. Manu cautioned the group that we would have a very long day due to formalities at the Nepal & India borders plus a very slow 300 kilometer drive over incredibly rough roads! We thought he was exaggerating a bit.

We arrived at the border at 7:30 and everyone had to get off the bus because we had to walk across the border and pick up a new India-licensed tourist bus on the other side.

First we had to be checked out of Nepal, passports stamped, then we walked along a two lane road crowded with hundreds of transport trucks waiting to get into Nepal.

Our luggage was piled high onto cycle rickshaws which were pushed behind us.

We came to another inspection station with one man at a desk who looked over our passports and visas and then waved us through.

Manu went ahead with the luggage while we walked about 500 meters to yet another checkpoint in a very small building on the opposite side of the road. There goes Manu with our luggage!

Next checkpoint was easy to miss!

All of this took about 2 hours which was an indication of what lay ahead. We boarded a large highway coach (same size as Greyhound at home) and off we went.

The driver immediately started the non-stop horn honking which went on for the next 15 hours, with small breaks for lunch and toilets. Manu called it death defying driving and this was not an over statement. Thankfully with this bus – size matters, so the driver accomplished a lot of passing maneuvers that people in smaller vehicles would never dare.

And we thought the ride down the mountain from Ghandruk was rough! It was, but the worst of it only lasted 90 minutes. Today it was just as rough for over 10 hours! Almost impossible to stand up on the bus when it was moving.

Photo below: a welcome break

In fairness to India, most of the rough roads were due to the fact that long stretches of the highway are under construction. The parts that are completed are very good but they are few and far between.

We went through many towns with large produce markets and street food stalls, as well as a few very fresh chicken stands.

Traffic at times was very very heavy.

At other times we just sat parked bumper to bumper on the road. Once we got stopped on a bridge at sunset which turned out to be a great photo op.

At the next bathroom break Manu told us we had travelled 150 kms over the previous 8 hours and we were only half way. ETA for our hotel was well past 10:00 pm so Manu decided to postpone our sunrise boat ride on the Ganges as he wisely realized that he would had a mutiny on the ship.

One advantage of traveling at night is to see Temple areas lit up at night with oil lamps.

When we finally reached our destination around 10:00pm we had to walk the last 500 meters because the road was too narrow for the bus. The walk was no big deal for any of us as we were all soooooo happy to finally be off the bus!

Varanasi was hopping as there was another festival related to Diwali going on, with lights, music and gatherings on the street. Once we got our room, it didn’t take long to get to sleep! Stationary and horizontal never felt so good!

Cheers!

Posted by Catherine

We had a pleasant evening in our little cottage “Tara.” We were serenaded in the early evening by loud dance music from a wedding across the village from us.

Each cottage is named after the woman who owns it and this is a photo of Tara.

After breakfast we boarded the bus with a farewell from our hosts.

Well, most of us got on the bus. Four members of our tour found out last night that they had the wrong kind of visa for India and can only enter India through an airport. The four young men had to take a cab back to Kathmandu, overnight there, fly to New Delhi in the morning and then fly on to Varanasi to meet up with the tour. It was an unfortunate turn of events. The process of getting a visa for India is very confusing. Ours are affixed in our passports and are the right ones to enter into India by land.

We traveled through a more mountainous area again and stopped for an early lunch at a roadside restaurant frequented by truckers. Lots of local colour!

From there, the terrain flattened out again with farm lands interspersed with large factories for processing grain and brick making.

Around 1:00 p.m. we arrived at our first destination of Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha and a revered pilgrimage place for Buddhists from all over the world.

It is a massive complex (2 kms x 3 kms) of temples, gardens and parks. There were endless busloads of people coming and going. Two different groups of people wanted to have a photo with me!

I guess they don’t see too many tall women here. I felt like a famous person! No blending in with the locals here either!

We only had time to visit the Maya Devi Temple which marks the actual birthplace of the Buddha around 563 BC.

No photos are allowed inside, where it was fairly quiet and reverential. There were several ruins from the 2nd century and under some plexiglass a stone reputed to show the Buddha’s first step on the earth. People touched the surrounding stones with their hands and foreheads for a brief moment. It was powerful and poignant to be here and contemplate all the millions of people who have visited this sacred site over the centuries.

The outdoor courtyards were brilliant with prayer flags and the colourful clothing of the visitors.

We saw several large groups of pilgrims in various processions with drums and horns – very impressive.

After a brief rest, we found our shoes and made our way back to the bus. It was another hour of traveling to get to our hotel. After a lovely Indian meal, we enjoyed the first hot shower we’ve had in days. Early start tomorrow as we leave Nepal, cross into India and head for Varanasi, about 12 hours of traveling!

Namaste 🙏