Roaring Through My Twenties

Almost three weeks back in NY, I’m (finally) here to share my last couple of adventures in India. In between all the family/friend reunions, recovering from jetlag, and managing the slight reverse culture-shock, writing these last few posts have helped me a ton towards closing a really exciting, fulfilling chapter of my life…and reminding me of all the things I have to be grateful for. 

Better late than never, right?

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At the end of May, my Fulbright research grant came to its official end. In celebration, I decided to stay a couple of extra weeks in India to do some traveling.

So, after packing two-weeks worth of clothes into one (heavy) backpack, I was on my way.

A Reunion in Mumbai

My adventure first begins in Mumbai with my friend Caleb (yes, I was back in Mumbai again. And surprisingly, it wasn’t even the last time I’d be there). 

Back in March when Savannah and I took our short weekend trip to North Goa, we met a lot of really fun travelers at our hostel. Caleb was among this group of people. Though, like myself, Caleb wasn’t just in India for a couple of weeks to do some backpacking. Rather, he had moved from Australia to live for some time in Mumbai for work. We bonded quickly over this.

After our Goa trip, Savannah and I were in Mumbai for another short vacation and we met Caleb here again. During this visit is when Caleb and I decided we’d take a trip together. Since I was already planning my end-of-research trip, it was easy to convince him to join me when going to Varanasi. 

I spent only two days in Mumbai, hanging out and catching up with Caleb, before we took a late flight to Varanasi Friday evening. 

On our way to the airport, Caleb and I were talking about some recent traveling we had done. I had told him that through all of this traveling, I had begun to feel like there was nothing about India that could shock me anymore – I had seen it all (or so I thought…).

A Brief Overview of Varanasi

Varanasi is in the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh. It’s both culturally and religiously appealing as it’s one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities as well as a sacred city in Hinduism.

For Hindus, it is believed that dying in Varanasi will release you from the cycle of reincarnation. Many people from all over India will make the journey to the holy city to participate in sacred end-of-life death rituals, ending with their ashes being spread into the Ganges river for salvation. The Ganges, which begins from the Himalaya Mountains and flows all the way down to the Bay of Bengal, is not only a lifeline to the millions of people who live amongst it but is also the most sacred river in the Hindu religion. 

The Ganges and Goddess Ganga, the personification of this river, is mentioned several times throughout Hindu scripture. One variation of scripture describes the birth of Ganga where Vamana (an incarnation of Lord Vishnu) extended his left foot to the end of the universe, piercing a hole in its covering and causing the pure ocean water to fill it. Another tells the story of her transformation into the river itself: one of Lord Vishnu’s wives, Saraswati, is offended by Ganga’s flirtatious glances towards her husband. Cursing her to be incarnated as a river on earth, Ganga’s water was to be used to cleanse the sins of men. 

The goddess of purification and forgiveness, many Hindus refer to the river as Ganga Mata (mother) and she is revered for her ability to forgive sins and cleanse mankind.

Taking Several Wrong Turns in Varanasi (Night #1, Day #1, & Night #2)

Before landing in Varanasi, our hostel requested that we call them fifteen minutes before arriving. “We usually send someone to meet you. People tend to get lost finding the location.” Caleb and I, both at this point had traveled quite extensively through different parts of India, thought “Pfft, we are pros, we can totally do it on our own.” I won’t exactly say this was the wrong mindset to have, but I will say I completely understand why the folks at the hostel warn guests of this. 

The closer you get to the actual ghats of the river the narrower the streets become (think alley-like). Although the Uber dropped us as close as he could, we still had about a twelve minute walk until we made it to our hostel. I’m pretty directionally challenged, so I made Caleb navigate for us. Every few steps, we’d have to stop for our GPS to recalculate and we’d sort of have to guess which turn to take. Tired and a little bit hot, the only thing that kept me from not becoming severely frustrated was the fact that Caleb had brought a carry-on suitcase instead of a backpack. The sound and sight of his suitcase being wheeled through these uneven, narrow roads provided the perfect comedic relief for me to remain in good spirits. 

Two thoughts persisted as we made our way to our hostel: 1) I’m so glad I’m not doing this alone and 2) I spoke too soon – this is a complete shock. Not to say that this short journey was particularly scary (even as late as it was) or challenging, but I wasn’t prepared as I should have been. The very narrow streets are not only houses for families but also cafes, shops, kitchens, etc. (and during the day – the perfect place for kids to play cricket). Sometimes we’d even turn the corner and be face-to-face with a cow or two. 

Only a couple of wrong turns later, we eventually made it to our hostel. As late as it was and even though we had plans to get up very early the next morning, our excitement kept us up even later into the night talking about our weekend adventure. 

Not only two hours after falling asleep, the alarm went off at 4:45am (Sidenote: We had decided, because of the extreme summer heat, that the best plan of action was to do things really early in the morning and later in the evening to avoid exhaustion the best we could).

There’s 88 ghats (steps leading down to the river) in Varanasi to explore. Even as early as it was, there were already several groups of people swimming and bathing in the river. I mentioned above that the Ganges is used by many Hindus in death rituals. Therefore, there are certain ghats that are designated for burning bodies. Once the bodies are burned their ashes are spread into the river. In Varanasi specifically, the most famous ghat for this ritual is the Manikarnika Ghat. I googled this ahead of time to make sure we didn’t accidentally stumble upon it without some sort of mental/emotional preparation (for me, at least). 

This precaution failed. About forty minutes into our walk along the river, Caleb and I eventually got to a point where we could see several small fires. I blame this next part on the combination of us being a little tired, overly curious, and a tad ignorant. Caleb, walking ahead of me through (what I can best describe as) concrete rubble, turned a corner and abruptly stopped. He turned around and, quite calmly, said to me: “Oh…that’s a body burning.” I gasped (…as if it’s the most unbelievable thing in the world despite knowing exactly where I was) and turned to my right to avoid viewing the scene only to realize on the ground next to me was a body. It was laying on top of a pyre and wrapped fully in orange cloth with a couple of flowers draped across the chest. It was nothing particularly gory, but I did start to panic. 

Caleb, the one who actually came face-to-face with the burning body, was very gently trying to tell me we had to walk through the five or six burning bodies to get to the next ghat. I made it about three steps before I announced that I wouldn’t walk any further. We found a different route. 

After walking a ways away, we sat down alongside one of the ghats. I asked Caleb to describe to me more of what he saw. We talked about all the sights, sounds, and smells we were experiencing as more and more people began to show up to swim and bathe in the river. 

Sunrise on the Ganges River

Eventually, we decided it was time to head back to our hostel to have breakfast. 

However, this is when we realized we made a silly mistake. This particular weekend elections were taking place across India resulting in a lot of businesses being closed. Usually this would not be a huge obstacle considering that our hostel had a kitchen and served breakfast. Except, when we asked the front desk when they started serving breakfast and the response was a hesitant “...uhhh, the Chef will come around 9am…” we suspected it would be awhile longer until we were able to eat. We both knew better than to expect the Chef to actually arrive at 9am.  

After about forty minutes of waiting patiently and digging into my stash of emergency cashews, we excitedly headed up to the kitchen for breakfast only to be met with disappointment. The Chef had still not arrived. All of the sudden, I was overcome by the top three worst feelings to ever have while traveling; I was hungry, hot, and tired. On top of that, and as much as I trusted Caleb as a travel partner, I realized that we don’t know each other that well yet. When you know someone well enough or have traveled with them before, it’s easier to take your frustrations out on them if you know later on you can just say “oopsies, my bad, I was just hangry” and they’ll accept it as an apology. Caleb and I weren’t at this stage just yet. 

We exchanged some small-talk (that we both thought was necessary in order to avoid awkwardness) until we both accepted that sitting in silence was more peaceful. Finally the Chef arrived and we were able to eat breakfast, of course feeling a lot better within a matter of minutes. 

(Sidenote: A couple of weeks later, when I was back in Mumbai, Caleb and I talked about this morning and laughed. In general, Varanasi was a pretty intense place to travel to with someone you only just met. If you are ever looking to test a new friendship/relationship, go to Varanasi in the dead of summer and accidentally forget to eat for twelve hours. It’s the fastest way to learn if you can function with someone in a high-stress situation and still like them afterwards). 

I’d like to mention once again that it was deadly hot in Varanasi, reaching almost 100 degrees during peak afternoon hours. With all of our activities being outside, we made sure to stay indoors (with the AC) just before dark. 

At sunset, we took a boat ride on the Ganges. Our boat guide took us around to several different ghats before ending in front of Manikarnika Ghat (where our encounter was earlier that morning). This time we were far enough away from the ghat where I could observe the rituals without feeling uneasy. Our guide told us more about the ghat, which is when I learned that these rituals are ongoing (24/7 continuously) and nearly 300 – 400 bodies are burned daily (though I googled this to fact-check this information and it seems like the number is closer to 100/day).

Me and Caleb on the Ganges

Taking a quick walk through some street markets, we caught an auto-rickshaw to get some dinner and successfully ate before either of us fell victim to intense hunger. 

Traveling through India this time of year (a.k.a the dead of summer in the North or beginning of monsoon season in the South) means that meeting other foreigners/travelers becomes less and less likely. Instead, along the way you get to meet and connect more easily with locals. So, it wasn’t all that of a surprise when we went for drinks after dinner and inside the club on a Saturday night was just me, Caleb, and only about eight other locals. For a while, we watched this group of friends (impressively) dance to every song that played until they excitedly grabbed the both of us to join them. Teaching us the appropriate dance moves to go along with the most popular Hindi songs, by the end of the night Caleb and I had nearly mastered (sort of) each step. 

Day #2, Night #2

We decided that Day 2 wouldn’t begin as early as it did the day before. Though eventually making it outside before getting too hot, we were both really excited to see that the nearby cafes were open and that we didn’t have to spend our morning waiting for the hostel Chef to arrive. 

We ate breakfast. Once we were done, we ate more breakfast. Really. I think we were making up for the fact that we didn’t eat much the day before. But after having some eggs/omelets at one cafe, we hopped across the street to a German bakery and had some pastries and more coffee. 

In the afternoon, we decided to take a walk to see Kashi Vishwanath Temple. This temple, dedicated to Hindu god Shiva, is one of the most famous Hindu temples. However, we only partially succeeded in this endeavor. When we arrived, we realized there was a completely separate entrance for foreigners and the queue to enter was very long. We decided it would not be a good idea to stand in the sun for that long and instead, suggested to us by a bystander, we would only see the temple from the outside. From a nearby rooftop without any queue, or actually any other person besides us and a security guard, we were able to view the structure. The security guard was nice enough to let us recover from the heat under his tent which was also equipped with a huge fan. We sat and chatted with him for a while (even asking him to take a few pictures for us) before starting our walk back to our hostel, checking out the nearby street markets along the way. 

Me and Caleb in front of Kashi Vishwanath Temple

Walking through the narrow streets

Something that we both noticed about Varanasi was how friendly the locals were. Certainly some places are more intense than others, but most times when someone greets you you can anticipate that it will be followed with a request to visit their shop, an offer to give you a service, etc. This almost rarely happened to us in Varanasi. Locals would pass us on the streets and greet us, “hello, namaste”, and that’d be the end of the interaction. 

Traveling with a man, as opposed to traveling with other girls or even solo, was also so different for me. When people did have questions or inquired about where we were from etc. they would address Caleb only. This was a nice break for me and, for the time being, I became an Australian by association. 

Later that evening, we headed down to Assi Ghat to watch the Ganga Aarti. 

An aarti is performed in part of a puja, which is a Hindu worship ritual that offers prayer to one or more deities. So, at the Ganges river in Varanasi, this ritual is in dedication to goddess Ganga. The Ganga Aarti happens every evening before sunset at the Assi Ghat (and other ghats around the city) and attracts a massive audience. The aarti itself is led very skilfully by several pandits (priests). Each movement and item included in the aarti represents five elements (space, wind, fire, water, and earth). Performed in nearly perfect synchronicity and accompanied by the beat of drums and vocals, Ganga Aarti is certainly an intricate ritual to observe.

Ganga Aarti and the crowd (P.S. everyone in the background are actually viewing the ceremony on boats in the river)

After Ganga Aarti, Caleb and I headed to get dosas for dinner. Funnily enough, on our way to catch an auto-rickshaw, we ran into the group of men we had met at the club the night before. They were excited to see us again and snapped a selfie before heading off. 

Farewell Varanasi (& Caleb…(but for only about two weeks)…)

The next morning, Caleb and I had a huge breakfast at the German bakery before packing our bags and preparing ourselves to separate. 

Before heading to the airport to make his way back to Mumbai, Caleb came with me to the train station to see me off. We exchanged a very sorrowful goodbye before deciding that I should consider visiting Mumbai one last time before leaving for New York (which I ended up doing, no surprise). 

…and just like that, I was beginning my solo journey! 

Scorching Hot New Delhi

My travel journey to New Delhi from Varanasi was about eight hours. 

My stay in New Delhi was fleeting. I checked into my hostel close to midnight and the next morning I was checking out of my dorm by 11AM. Since my bus to my next destination wasn’t until 10PM, I had an entire day to hang around the city. 

A common theme that you’ll pick up on in these next few blog posts is the high temperature. Varanasi was hot. However, New Delhi was a kind of hot that almost hurt your skin. I was there actually a couple of days after it had hit its highest recorded temperature (126 degrees! But it was just around 106 for me). 

Anyways, because of the heat I spent most of the day in New Delhi bouncing around different cafes and eating good food. 

I did visit Khan Market, which has a lot of different eateries, upscale markets, and bookshops. 

Faqir-Chand Bookstore at Khan Market in New Delhi

Afterwards, I returned to my hostel to charge my phone before boarding an overnight bus to Mussoorie, Uttarakhand…

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Stay tuned for Part 2 to read about my journey to and adventures in Mussoorie, Rishikesh, and Amritsar. Check out my Photo Gallery to see extra photos from Varanasi.

Disclaimer: This blog is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State.  The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.