Delhi & Varanasi

After we left India's North, we spent one day in Delhi before our Vipassana meditation class (which we described in a previous post). We were amazed how much we could see in one short day. We decided to hire a driver since we had such little time for a major city in India. Among other things, our tour took us past India's National Mall and main government buildings (Delhi is India's capital), the Gateway of India, gorgeous city parks, ancient mausoleums, the renowned Red Fort, the main Bazaar, and the Grand Mosque. We even had time to visit a snake charmer along the way. Rusty claims he wasn't scared when the pit viper struck at him, but we'll let you judge from the photograph (posted above).




We especially enjoyed our opportunity to spend over two hours at the Bahai Lotus Temple (see the picture above). It's a world famous building for it's lotus-flower-shaped architecture. It is a surprisingly peaceful place with the amount of visitors. We spent time in the visitors center learning a little more about the Bahai religion's attempted union of all core religious beliefs, and attended a prayer service consisting of Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Bahai prayers. That was really neat in the beautiful acoustics that are also renown at the Bahai Lotus Temple.

Following our flash-through of Delhi, we caught an evening train to Varanasi, where we were fortunate to spend two nights. As well as being an interesting place, Varanasi has some of the tastiest and most unique Indian food we had so far on our trip in India. We had a stuffed tomato, which was full of amazing bursts of flavor with a sauce we used to dip our Kashmiri Naan. Kashmiri Naan is a type of India flatbread stuffed with a sweet mixture of dried fruits and nuts (it tastes better than it sounds). The only thing we've had in Utah Indian restaurants that is similar to the Kashmiri Naan is Peshwari Naan. MMMM! Our other favorite was the Kashmiri stuffed potatoes . . . We could go on, but Varanasi had all sorts of YUMMY Indian food. In our opinion, India really rivals Thailand on amazing spices and food combinations!
In addition to great food, being in Varanasi for several days gave us time to enjoy a magical boat ride on the foggy Ganges River in the morning and to catch up on showers and laundry before our ten day meditation course. However, our laundry smelled so bad after washing that we wondered if it hadn't been washed in the Ganges... a very likely thing in this particular town.

The Ganges River is India's holiest river for the Hindu people, and Varanasi is the holiest town on the river. It is difficult to properly describe how heavily used and filthy the Ganges river is, so we will do our best. The easiest thing would be to simply say that they do EVERYTHING in the Ganges, but we'll elaborate on a few details of what EVERYTHING means.

In addition to the obvious things like swimming, religious bathing, and laundry, the Ganges is also used for helping the dead "stop the endless cycles of rebirth." At any hour, you can stroll past burning funeral pyres on the banks of the river with limbs and heads sticking out. However, before cremating a body, the body (often at the "stinketh" stage) must be washed in the river. You can only imagine that this isn't too wonderful for the water quality. However, on top of this, five classifications of dead are tied to a heavy stone slab and buried IN the river: pregnant women, holy men, animals (especially the many holy cows which wander their way around the narrow streets of Varanasi), children and one other we always forget. As if the dead aren't enough, the Ganges is also a flowing landfill, toxic industrial waste dump, and SEWER. Yep, all the sewage flows directly into the river. We read that the water contains several million fecal coliform parts per liter and the safe level for bathing (not drinking) is 500 parts per liter.

As the final and last thing to top it off, the Ganges is a PUNCH BOWL (take a look at the guy drinking the water from his hands in the preceding photo)! All the locals drink the holy Ganges River water as part of their ceremonies. We couldn't believe this without seeing it, so we had to take a picture to share with you all. All the same, this is holy water, and should be protected by the Hindu God Shiva (if the prevailing theory is correct). If anyone is interested in a bottle of holy drinking water from the Ganges just let us know and we'll see what we can do about getting that to you!