Henry’s (Legendary) Holiday Season in India (The Finale)

Written during New Year’s Day on a train en route back to Mumbai

Varanasi: The City of Stairs. And Laundry

Dominated by the River Ganges, Varanasi is the famous epicentre of Hindu rituals and activities. The river is believed to be the mother of life and is used extensively to cleanse both spiritually and physically. From birth, Varanasi’s people bathe, clean their clothes and brush their teeth with its holy waters. At the end of their lives, are cremated at the riverbanks (or, in some circumstances, tied to stones and cast into the river). Holy men and cows, as avatar of the gods, litter the city scape.

Alluring Varanasi

Despite what it’s famous for, two things impressed me about Varanasi. First, its staircases. Because the water levels of the River Ganges changes drastically between dry and wet season, a lot of freakin’ stairs are needed in this city. Some were magnificently painted with bright colors which provided real unique sightseeing and photo opportunities.

Stairs galore

 Goats on stairs

Dads on stairs

Bored girls on stairs 

 Dawgs on stairs

Holy men on stairs

Secondly, the laundry of Varanasi impressed me. The people of Varanasi must work up quite a stinky sweat making their way up and down the stairs, creating huge demand for river-side laundry services (this is a strictly unconfirmed Henry theory). I have a strange fascination with Indian laundry. It is the most beautiful laundry I have seen in the world.

Bedsheets on stairs

More bedsheets on stairs 

Even more bedsheets on stairs 

Sarees on stairs

Pants, bedsheets, sarees, shirts, underwear and socks on stairs. How I managed to hold in my excitement at this point is beyond me

Henry’s Morning Dip in the Ganges

Since I was young, I always wanted to bathe in the Ganges but upon seeing how disgusting the river was, this bucket-list item nearly got dropped off my list. Notwithstanding the holy cleansing attributes of the water, it was littered with garbage, filled with cremated human ashes from two different cremation ghats, and seeping with sewage water flowing into the river from the city. Oh, and did I forget to mention where the urban cows sometimes poop?

It took inspiration to give me the courage to hop in. As often happens in a man’s life, I met a beautiful Japanese girl who gave me that inspiration. Her name was Kie and she looked like an archetypical high maintenance Asian gal. I couldn't believe she dipped in the Ganges until she showed me pictures on her camera. By logical deduction, if a high maintenance Asian babe could do it, so could a low maintenance Asian dude. Minus a lack of swim trunks, conditions were optimal for a dip.

Initial scepticism. I almost wiped out while making my way in from stepping on slippery green mould growing on the riverbanks

I washed my face and my hair in its holy cleansing waters. It was surprisingly extremely refreshing

Chilling like a boss who just bathed in the Ganges in his underwear

I am Not Afraid of Death, But Deathly Afraid of Not Living

Warning for any sensitive readers: this section of the entry is a bit morbid.

The River Ganges is believed to have an ability to spiritually cleanse the soul before it moves on to the afterlife, making Varanasi a real auspicious place for the dead to be cremated. A local told me that the two most expensive events in an Indian’s life are marriage and death. The wealthy will even fly in the corpses of their loved ones from afar for their funeral ceremony.

This is the Manikarnika Ghat where 500 bodies per day are cremated. The Haris Chandra Ghat with roughly half the cremation capacity is 1km upstream

Out of decency and respect in a time of mourning, photos are not allowed in close proximity to the cremation ghats. I don’t need a 16gb SD card to capture what I saw there. I will never forget the sight of a burning human corpse getting prodded and turned over by a stick. Or the pedicured feet of a woman sticking out of a pile of cremation wood, with the flames yet to reach that part of her body. Or the many people, locals and tourists alike, observing the ghats with a shared fascination of death.  It was mesmerizing, not because of the completely different cultural practices for funerals, but because what I saw was a glaring reminder of my own mortality.

I don’t fear death. We all have to face it. What death really means to me is that I have a finite amount of time on this planet. I tick closer to death every second that passes and one of my greatest fears is that I spend too many of those ticks not living my life to its fullest.

I spent an evening meditating beside the Manikarnika Ghat and contemplating my own mortality. I find it strange that found my own sense of aliveness in proximity to a place of death. I don’t know when or where, but someday, I will be a corpse as well. What I do until then is the question that torments me.

When Tourist-fication of a Place Isn't Tastefully Done

More ads than an online porn site

I swear someone took the Lonely Planet guide book and regurgitated it all over the walls of Varanasi’s old city. Even the main walls of the main concourse are littered with advertisements for guest houses, lassi joints and restaurants. It really bothers me when a place that is so historical and spiritually significant becomes a zoo for Asian guys with big cameras. Desperation for monetization should never take away from what makes a place special to begin with.

I kept seeing a fake sadhu who was a total tool. He clearly made a living off naïve tourists. He made begging gestures upon eye contact and was often spotted at all the main tourist events. He literally got angry at me several times for not giving him money when my camera was pointed at him. I’m not religious by any means but becoming a fake holy man just to make money off tourist photographer wannabes is approaching an unprecedented level of low.

He even had a habit of putting his hand up to block any photo attempts

I really wanted to get a picture of him just to troll him. So I slung my camera off to my side, turned on its good ol’ timed machine gun mode, and snagged this photo while unsuspectingly walking past him. BAM. Take that, asshole.

In contrast, here’s a real holy man who let me take this photo. He is a Ram Babu which means he is so pure he is legally certified to run around naked like a boss. He ran a small shrine on the Ganges and had a no-pressure donation request for visiting his shrine. I can’t describe in words the mystical presence that he had to him. Plus he was smoking up as we chatted so he’s all-around a super cool dude.

Needing a break from the touts and madness of Varanasi, I took a day trip to another place of Buddhist pilgrimage: Sarnath. Behind me is the place where Buddha delivered his first sermon ever.

The Unstoppable Backpacking Machine Takes a Pause

I got real sick during my last day in Varanasi. Total lethargy. A fever to the state of mild hallucination. Upset stomach. Nausea. I’m not sure what did it. It could have been caused by all the street food I’ve been eating to save money because I misplaced my bank card. Or exhaustion. Or my dip in the Ganges. Or the beating sun. Or adjusting to my new vegetarian diet. Or carrying around heavy camera gear all the time. Or maybe I climbed a few too many stairs.

Anyways, I spent 14 hours sleeping through New Years Eve. My own 2014 countdown was done while curled up in the foetal position in bed and missed a great fireworks show in the process. My brain was producing crazy imagery throughout the night so I applied some of my meditation training and accepted nothing as truth but my breathe. It worked. I managed through the night and woke up feeling a sufficient state of health.

For the last 30 hours I have eaten nothing but soups and fruits to avoid risking a relapse into a pathetic state, or even worse, having to use the toilet on the train (yuck).

Hello to you too, 2014.