From the Ganga, into the clouds...

a sort of "evening mass"

So we made it to Darjeeling, finally, from Varanasi and life couldn't be better. The cool, intoxicating mountain air is just the refresher we needed from the polluted, overpopulated yet blissfully typical India that was Varanasi. The peace of the mountains, and some long uninterrupted walks, have given us our first chance to really debrief and look back on our trip.

Varanasi was really quite special. The Holy City is supposed to be as old as other ancient cities like Jerusalem, Mecca and Athens (according to a postcard, an ever reliable source) and it feels such, walking through the narrow labyrinth of corridors known as the old city. The Ganga and the entire buzz around it is truly beautiful. We saw a nighttime service, with the Brahmins performing puja on the riverside at night. We also took a couple boat rides which gives you the true sense of how important this river really is to the people. They do it all in there. At any time of the day you have people swimming, bathing, brushing their teeth, doing their laundry and of course, cremating their dead, all in the same 6 km stretch of fresh water. All of this makes for one hell of a murky, dirty, milky brown holy river! There have been efforts to revive it, but as long as all of this continues, it seems hopeless. Which nevertheless seems to be OK with the people of Varanasi, so try to argue that.

We still dipped our feet in.


We took an evening boat ride to one of the burning ghats to watch the riverside cremation, which is honestly more somber and low key than weird or whacky as it sounds. I once even had to side step a funeral procession through the streets. Only the men of the family participate in the ceremony, where they carry the body to the ghats, make a fire with logs provided, slather the body in ghee (animal fat) and place the body in the fire. After that they seemingly just stand around chatting and remembering the deceased. The whole procedure is quite peaceful and eerily tranquill and serene and lasts a total of a couple hours.

The city also proved to be the most draining of all we’ve encountered so far, which may be why Darjeeling seems almost Zen like. But even with what seemed like every second person trying to usher you into their shop, sell you some hash or get you in their rickshaw, or all the, pardon my french, shit everywhere! (as cows run and roam free through every little street) the city truly had a cool vibe, with lots of little hippie café’s and music shops and hippies and cheap clothes everywhere.

Getting out of the city was another story though, one I’ll leave up to Cass. Til then...

PS these pics were supposed to be on cass' post but the camera died, i feel bad taking credit for the them. Thanks again uncle bill for letting us borrow yr digi! its really quite nice and great.
in the clouds...