I didn't, at first. Other travellers had told me to expect two things about Varanasi: beautiful scenery, and the most aggressive touts outside Agra and Delhi. Unfortunately, I quickly found myself experiencing the latter, leaving little patience to investigate the former. Within minutes of disembarking my train, I found myself somewhere in Godaulia, trying to explain to an autorickshaw driver that I really did not want to stay in his friend's hotel, and would quite like to go where I asked to go, thank you very much. After he pointed me in the direction of the river, it turned out that I was some four kilometres from where I wanted to be. What followed was a long walk in the middle of the day carrying a heavy backpack, and some serious bad vibes from me.
Which was a pity really, because Varanasi is an incredible city. Packed to the gunwales with tourists, touts, and pilgrims, it swarms with life, spirituality, colour, and death. My hotel is a five minute walk from Manikarnika Ghat, the most important cremation site in Hinduism. Five minutes in the other direction puts me firmly in the Muslim Quarter. Ten minutes walking leaves me at Dasaswamedh Ghat, home to the slightly tacky but still impressive Ganga Aarti ceremony, and after a few more minutes walk I can be in the middle of the Benares University campus.
You get used to the touts, too. There are several approaches to dealing with them, all interesting. Mostly you can ignore them and they'll stop following you after a couple of hundred metres. Alternatively, you can fuck with them - I have had several conversations about the quality of the camel polo players in Timbuktu (the obvious answer to "Hey my friend, what country you from?!"). But the most rewarding is to simply try and get past the hard sell to the human being underneath. After we'd established that I wasn't interested in purchasing silk, no matter what the price, one of the touts and I had a long and fascinating conversation over cups of chai about the economic difficulties involved in doing business in Varanasi, and the necessity of approaching tourists with such insistency.
The architecture and the ghats are stunning. The city feels ancient (which, of course, it is), and the air is one of cultured decay propped up by constant rebuilding. The Ganga (Ganges) is hideously polluted, and the Hindus manage to both revere and abuse it in equal amounts. A boat ride along the river at dawn, although touristy as hell, was still one of the most fascinating things I've done for quite a while.
That said, despite the beauty of the city, photography here is extremely difficult. The air pollution is prohibitive - visibility rarely gets beyond more than a couple of hundred metres, and the glare from the sky is frequently insurmountable. Many fantastic shots simply proved impossible - hundreds of kites flitting above the sunset skyline, for example, or the colours that run riot along the ghats as the pilgrims go down to bathe.
Now, my laptop battery is about to expire, and I must go pack for my trip to Lucknow. Until then!
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