Before we could see the River Ganges we had to make our own journey down the River Styx--a trip through hell. But it wasn't the burning-fires-of-damnation sort of hell, but rather an underworld inhabited by extreme boredom, enormous rats, creepy men under sheets, and hotel double bookings.
At 7pm we arrived at the Tundla train station. This is a few miles outside of Agra and is the sort of place where an American crime drama might be filmed. Or perhaps a horror flick: perched on wires and beams above the platforms were thousands of birds, all noisily cooing and flapping wings; the cement below has been bleached white by so many years of bird droppings. No sooner had we commented (with a smug chuckle!) on the decrepit conditions of the place, than we discovered that our train was delayed...by nine hours. Jillian almost fainted, but then she noticed that she would land in a pile of cow crap (on the station floor!) and promptly snapped to attention.
A couple of hours later we were in the Upperclass Gents Waiting Room with some Germans and Belgians, commiserating. Believe me, "upperclass" refers only to the ticket, not the clientele--more on that in a sec. I had been unceremoniously ejected from the Ladies Waiting Room for not paying a shamelessly demanded bribe. So we moved to the Gents area. The seats were metal, the bathroom was vile, and a cold breeze blew in whenever the door opened. Occasionally we would step outside to stretch our legs and watch the huge rats run along the platform and tracks. At one point we could count ten rodents in our sight.
It was boring. I was too tired to read and listening to my iPod was pointless--every twenty seconds the nearby speaker would blast an announcement about the latest delay. It seemed every train was delayed. The Gents Room began to fill up and soon we tourists were outnumbered by the Indian men, many of whom began pulling sheets from their bags and sleeping on the floor. Experienced at this, I take it. One man--and I wish I were making this up--fixed his gaze on the gaggle of Western women in the corner and quite obviously began to masturbate under his sheet.
The train arrived and we boarded, exhausted. There were men in our beds, so we first had to kick them out and find some clean sheets before we could finally be horizontal. A few hours later we awoke to men speaking at normal volume and cell phones ringing (thanks guys!). For the next several hours we sat looking out the window, pretending we weren't being stared at by everyone around us. And I mean staring, like they're watching TV or looking at a fish tank. You look back, they keep staring.
Then we arrived in Veranasi, the holiest city for Hindus. After our rickshaw driver took us to the wrong hotel we walked for twenty minutes, dodging cows and mopeds in the city's narrow alleys and finally stumbled upon, and into, our hotel. Except the manager had accidentally given our room to someone else. The place was booked. Do you remember Al Pacino's silent scream in The Godfather, Part III? That was Jillian at this point in the journey, except she wasn't silent.
Well, that situation was mostly resolved and the next morning we took to the Ganges. It is estimated that 60,000 people daily make a pilgrimage to this river, to either bathe (mostly men) or dip their feet (mostly women). Along the banks of the river are hundreds of ghats, or broad steps leading down to the river. The most elaborate of the ghats were built by powerful maharajahs from all over India. The pilgrims come by the thousands because the Ganges is believed to flow from the feet of Vishnu, who protects all that is good in the world.
More like Vishnu's toilet: in Varanasi, the Ganges is septic. As in zero dissolved oxygen. As in nothing could live in it. Wide sewer pipes empty into the river beside the ghats. At some of theghats, cremations are carried out over open fires (we saw one) and the remains are thrown in the river. Dead cows are thrown in. And men were bathing and swimming. Women were doing their daily laundry.
Bathing in the Ganges...got your tetanus shot ready?
We boarded a small boat at sunrise and took in the whole scene. It was very quiet; the most prominent sound was the splashing water around the pilgrims. When I think about it--bathing in fecal water--I'm as grossed out as I was seeing that man under his sheet in the train station. But there was something so peaceful and focused about these pilgrims, so intense about their reason for being in Varanasi, so strong as to brush aside the Indian government's warnings about the river, that a small part of me wanted to reach down from the boat and feel the river for myself.
Naaaah.
Boats and ghats on the River Ganges
Yogis (spiritual advisors) on the steps of a ghat
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