Falling asleep in Agra and Waking up in Varanassi! We survived our first sleeper train!

So after being awake for over 19 hours we finally arrived at the train station. Immediately upon pulling into the restaurant people started running toward our bus with bracelets and postcards to sell and more little kids with open arms and hungry faces came too. We were completely surrounded, little hands tapping us, other men screaming prices at us and half feeling so sad for them and half staying on guard and being scared we were going to get mugged. As we walked toward the station people were laying on the ground sleeping everywhere. They were lying in the streets with the muddy puddles and garbage. Once inside the station families and people were everywhere laying on mats and sharing food, women were carrying big packages on their heads, and the stench was nearly unbearable. It smelled like every possible terrible smell you could imagine, I don't feel the need to describe it to you. It would come in waves with the breeze and just hit you in the face with its stench. While waiting for our train I looked over across the platform at a different train and saw a section with 6 beds similar to what Kathryn had told me our train would look like. It was incredibly dirty and the beds were basically tiny hard metal benches...oh my, what have I gotten myself in to?

When we finally got on the train after standing on the platform with our heavy backpacks we were so ready to sit down we hardly cared what it looked like. Luckily it looked better than we imagined. But don't get the wrong idea, it was still filthy. We took some wet wipes to our lightly padded beds (thank God since it was a 13 hour train ride) and they only came back a little bit dirty. Kathryn had what looked like a half eaten taco in her bed, but the rest were okay. We discussed if one of us should be awake at all times for safety but decided that was a bit over the top. Instead we decided we should keep our luggage in our beds and leave the light on so people would think we were awake and not try to steal our stuff. We set up our beds which were 2 sets of triple bunks about 3 feet apart from each other and with a narrow aisle down the middle. A thick curtain (that didn't shut all the way) separated our "berth" from the train’s walkway and the other berths. Before setting up our beds we debated thoroughly over which bed would be most auspicious. The top bunk had the most space for sitting up if need be, but the fumes were definitely rising and unbearable especially when driving through other train stations. The middle bunk seemed the safest because you were shielded between two other people. But the bottom you could get up to pee with ease whenever you want and it would most likely stay cooler. I opted for the bottom bunk (as I'm sure Baby Katy would have too) which turned out perfect because there was space under my bed for my pack. Since I have an unnaturally long body for a female I barely fit in the bed with my toes hanging off juuuust a smidge, no way would I have been able to keep my backpack in bed with me. (Don't worry mom, I slept with my purse.)

Knowing my capacity for crankiness on little sleep, I popped a Benadryl and a melatonin and didn't wake up for 10 hours :) perfect. Everyone else was complaining they were up all night with the babies crying and uncomfortable beds, but with my hunter orange Winchester ear plugs and my eye mask, I slept like a rock. A couple hours later we arrived in Varanassi. We almost had a little premature departure onto the train tracks when we thought we had passed the station but a nice Indian man laughed at us and said we were still a few minutes away.

So, to reorient you, today is Wednesday June 30th and we arrived in Varanassi around 12:30 in the afternoon...right in the heat of the day. Aside from the heat, Varanassi is much unlike any city in India we've seen so far. The children come up right next to you and tug on your skirt or tap your arm making the saddest hungriest little faces, then they bang on your bus windows as you drive away. Also a lot more of them are running naked. There are WAY less cars and WAY more motorcycles, auto rickshaws, and bicycle rickshaws. They display goat heads still bleeding on top of their food carts like they’re apples or something. They hang entire goat bodies skinned and gutted from the tops of their carts...yes that means they're out in the open without refrigeration. The cows are the epitome of "free range" in that we even saw one inside a saree shop today. There are a lot more pigs around here and people peeing anywhere and everywhere. Though there's still way more men out than women, we see more and more women out alone or with each other without men. Lastly, there are a lot more Muslims here. We know this because the women wear black burkas covering their faces and bodies.

We spent the afternoon and evening today visiting a number of Buddhist temples because Varanassi is home to the area called Sarnath which was the first preaching place of Buddha. I don't know why but Buddhism just doesn't interest me as much as Hinduism so it was difficult to pay much attention, plus a lot of the temples were remade due to vandalism or enemy destruction so they were relatively new. It was hard to appreciate them after seeing that temple on the way to Ooty.

After visiting the temples we were told we would witness a special ceremony on the Ganges (pronounced Ganga here) at sundown. It wouldn't be possible to take our bus so we rode 2 to a bike rickshaw through the crowded market streets of Varanassi. It was suuuch a great experience. It’s so hard to actually see people and places from a bus window, but riding in a rickshaw out in the open you can see everything. And you never feel bad for staring at people because man oh man are they staring right back at us. The streets were soooo overcrowded eventually we had to get off and walk the rest of the way. It was still fairly light out so we could find our way without losing anybody but it was still quite the experience navigating through people and cows and trying not to step in anything disgusting.

Once we arrived at the Ganges people had already started gathering for the evening prayer. Now what I thought was just going to be a group prayer song like what the nursing students in the hostel sang turned out to be an hour long production of music and song and dance and prayer.

We were told that the ceremony and prayer were meant to clean the water of the Ganges for future generations. I had to assume they meant a spiritual cleanliness because a lot more than dancing and song would be needed to clean that river. Along the river bank were lots of long skinny boats full of people. They had placed candles on the water around them. On the "boardwalk" (for lack of a better term) were 7 large platforms with little altars covered in orange silk with plants on either side. Above each platform were 2 orange flags, green and orange umbrella like lights, and pink flagged archways with bells attached. Once the sun was down 7 male dancers came out in light pink tops with an off-white/gold sash and pants. The crowd was seated right up next to the platforms and standing around in rows beyond that.

First a song came on over the loud speakers and the crowd and dancers were clapping along. Next was a faster song with faster claps. Then the ceremony began. Each dancer had one of those huge shells where you blow into the top and it makes a horn-like sound. They blew into their horns with as much breath as they could muster and the crowd cheered the longer they went on. The dancing was next with a series of hand dances and movements with objects. The entire time the bells on the arch ways were ringing, the dancers each held a bell to ring, and there was a drummer and cymbal player keeping the beat for the dancers. The objects included burning incense, smoking golden cups, flower petals, and large burning metal cups with a fan-like metal piece shielding the flame from the dancers’ faces. The dancers used each object, one at a time in a circle motion, sometimes standing, sometimes kneeling, and sometimes alternating directions to face the sides of the river or the crowd. The ceremony ended with the dancers sprinkling water on their platform, throwing a huge handful of flower petals into the air, then dancing more with an orange cloth then a grass fan. They threw more rose petals then knelt to pray and concluded with blowing the shells again. It was such a beautiful ceremony and everyone watching seemed so moved by it.


Afterward we walked back to where the bike rickshaws picked us up. If we thought walking there was hectic...walking back was like a scene from a movie where it’s so crowded one of the girls gets abducted and nobody notices...plus at one point the power went out and only the stores with backup generators were lighting the streets. Around 9pm we finally made it back to the hotel, ate dinner and hit the sack...only to set our alarms for 3:30 am for our sunrise boat tour on the Ganges...oh my it’s going to be another long day tomorrow as we board our second sleeper train at 4 in the afternoon. Oh, to have naptime again.