WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! I couldn’t have eaten those words any quicker than I did when I got off the train station in Varanasi. Yes, India has it’s own culture and chaos but Varanasi is the epitome of India lifestyle, culture, beliefs, and traditions all lumped into one city. It was 6:00am in the morning and our eyes were still have filled with sleep. The morning started with a rickshaw ride to a guesthouse. Once we settled on a price, the driver set off constantly honking, swerving around cows, nearly running people and dogs over, and almost being crushed by large pinata-like decorated Indian trucks. We stopped unexpectedly within 10 minutes of our destination for a chai (Indian culture is to offer tea to all guests/newcomers). I didn’t know what we were stopping for as there was only a small rickety wooden shed in which there was a man sitting on the table next to a boiling kettle, but I couldn’t be more happy. My eyes burned from the think smog and pollution that setteled on the streets and I did everything I could to remove the burn for the short time we were standing still. The driver brought us back two small cups of chai in clay/mud-like cups. We were told to NEVER drink the water in India and while it was hot tea, I was still hesitant. We drank the chai to be polite, and afterwards handed the cups to the driver, who then instructed us to throw them into the ground. He said they would smash to pieces and decompose overtime. “OK,” I said as my mind still wondered if this tea would make me sick.  The driver jumped back into his autorickshaw and we zoomed onward toward the guesthouse.

We settled in, dropped our bags, and took off on foot to gain our bearings of the sacred city. Upon walking down the alley from our guesthouse to the main road, we stumbled upon several “interesting” things: a man peeing right in front of us, a goat roped up to a door eating the trash it was surrounded by, fresh cow dung (which I slipped in), as well as some not-as-fresh human dung, dog dung and goat dung (after India, we were experts in spotting dung). We also saw a litter of five 1-week old puppies sleeping in the piles and piles of moldy, fly infested trash. I noticed several other dogs roaming the streets. Oh my!!! They all looked the exact same minus the coloring of a few. They were also all wild and what looked to be imbred. I was expecting stray cats everywhere but stray dogs, this was a new experience.  We wandered around Varanasi aimlessly the rest of the day looking to soak up whatever it was that lured people to this spiritual place.

The next morning, we took a 6:15am boat down the Ganges to see the riverfront from the water. The Ganges is considered to be the most holy river to Hindus and represents life, purity, and the Goddess Ganga Ma, therefore it is where most daily routines and rituals occur. It draws thousands of worshiper’s, locals, and tourists each day. We climbed aboard the boat and were steered down the shores of Varanasi only to try to take in part of what the busy shoreline offered. To begin, there are temples situated every few meters which are decked out in delicate detail, design, and color. Everywhere you looked, there were men, women and children performing their habitual bathing routines with the women clustered together bathing in their full saris while the men stripped down to their loin cloth or tightie whities. There were people brushing their teeth with the water, while others right next to them were doing laundry or scattering the ashes and bodies of their loved ones.

With Varanasi being one of the most religious place to die, millions of people are cremated every year and their ashes are strewn about the water. And it’s all open for anyone’s eyes to view. It’s beautiful in a way because it allowed me to think about the idea of a natural life cycle and acceptance of death, however coming from the US, it was extremely difficult to watch bodies be set on fire and then continue to watch copses burn into nothing. The ritual itself is a charming yet catastrophic experience. Plumes of dark smoke would drift above the sacred river, while bodies of animals, children and others who aren’t cremated would be drown in the the river, yet locals would be bathing and brushing their teeth right next to all of it. The whole experience shocked me. It appalled me. It intrigued me. It disgusted me. Yet, there was a strange and inexplicable beauty to it all.

Our boat paddler pointed out some temples, ceremonies and the massive water tanks on the side of the river. He explained how during monsoon season when the Ganges swells, the city of Varanasi stores the water in the water holding tanks, filters it, and distributes it out to a majority of the community. Ok, I think I might be sick! For locals, by touching and drinking the water, they are thought to be cleansed of all their sins, but I could do nothing more than try to not vomit right then and there. To think that I’ve had chai tea flavored with water that once contained human remains, people’s dirty laundry, trash, and spit got the best of me. I know… I allowed my mind to wander to the extreme but I couldn’t help it. I was impressed with their water storage capabilities, but  I myself would have been better off not knowing all the details. Soon after that conversation, we floated upon a dead goat dressed in a raggedy old t-shirt that had most likely been sacrificed.  The sacrificed animals are sunk with a large rock placed over them, but this stone didn’t stay put. I asked the boat driver if he’s ever gotten sick from drinking the water and he replied, “Of course not. It’s what makes us pure. It’s holy water.”

By the time we got off the boat, there were huge colorful swaths of clothing laid about on the ghats following down to the river. This is how most of the local’s clothes dry from the morning wash. Upon walking back toward the city center, we passed several women in colorful silks, gold jewelry and bangles decorating their skin, and their long braided hair falling along their spines. There was such a unique, ravishing beauty in the midst of this strange, poverty ridden, chaotic area that was all too much for me to make sense of.

We spent about one month in India before departing and I must say that the country is entirely too rich in history and culture for me to have truly gotten a grasp of the day to day life, the beliefs and the culture. I will admit that there were times that I wanted to get away from it all (as sections of the trip in India were disgusting and overwhelming) but looking back, I had an experience of a lifetime and I’m fortunate to have experienced Varanasi when thousands of Hindu’s dream of visiting this place and may never get the chance.