Varanasi The Holiest City of India

The sharp tug pulls me from sleep. I lift the seat dirty and tired eyes I see the bus driver. "Varanasi" - I ask, "Yes, Varanasi" - is responsible and gets out, slamming the door. I asked what time. There are only four in the morning, outside the dark. We hear cries rikszarzy who run with the hope that they succeed so early to earn a few rupees. They are lucky. This morning, in addition to us, the bus is a young boy from Japan, and every rickshaw driver knows that the Japanese pay a lot more than other tourists coming to India. We are so tired of the twelve-hour journey, "government bus" that after a minute making by the offer of one of the beaters - cheap hotel in the old part of town, right on the Ganges. The course requires 30 rupees, which is a fair price. Perhaps it is our view that makes us peel the last money. We are dirty, smelly, sleepy and inches "broken". Travelling by coach is the government's great adventure, but the power of impressions, which provides the horse is not able to compensate for pain, buttocks and spine. On the spot for two people sitting sometimes four passengers. The chance to straighten the legs is small, and change of position to a more convenient measure is the art of advanced yoga exercises. With relief we jump into a rickshaw, compose our backpacks on their knees and think of the hotel. We dream of a warm shower and soft bed.

From the bus station to the old part of Varanasi (Varanasi, Kashi or Benaresu - your choice) is going to motorikszą about 15-20 minutes, which are enough to already feel the atmosphere of this city. Dark streets and buildings, sleeping directly on the asphalt people everywhere wandering dogs and penetrating silence of the morning chanting priests starting the day in their ashrams - so we welcome and tries to charm the first moment of Varanasi.

He gets up here very early, before sunrise in order to be able to greet a new day washing in the sacred waters of Mother Ganga - how to define the Indians fondly river Ganges. Fortunately for us, not everyone manages to break up before dawn and reached the shore, so that we avoid the crowd. We use this fact and decide to go to the Ghats - ceremonial staircase, which is made ablution. Welcome to a new day in Benaresie, just as they do the local "early birds". What we see makes us stunned. The vastness of the river simply overwhelming. Opposite bank lost in the fog that slowly begins to disperse gangs showing great face.

It begins to dawn on the first pilgrims descend Ghats. Despite the morning chill, most of them wearing only a loincloth hip. In small zawiniątkach bring soap and washing powder for the teeth. We hear prayers, and faithful, then whispering the sacred texts, slowly submerged to the waist in water. Then, steep head several times. After the obligatory prayers followed by thorough scrubbing of the entire body.

Every day, countless numbers of believers (followers of Hinduism, Jainism, Hare-Krishna, and many other religions of India) gather at the bank of the Ganges in order to serve a purifying bath. They believe that water washes away the sins of the whole world. Every Hindu, at least once in their life should make a ritual bath in the Ganges and the majority of dreams about that after the death of his ashes flowed from the mainstream of this very river. Apparently, death in the depths of human releases of water from the wheel of samsara, or subsequent births. Benares is considered the holiest city in India, so the traffic on the Ghats is huge.

Drinking raw water is also a fairly common practice and most of the faithful does not seem to notice the fact that the fecal concentration exceeds global standards several thousand times. Asked once the carrier, sitting in his old boat, and also consume water from the river, surprised, says - "Of course. After all, it is my mother." Driven by curiosity, I ask if it does not bother him that it is so polluted. In this "stupid" question is not getting. Well - this is one of the moments when I am convinced a colossal difference separating our culture. Apparently, specific, hitherto unexplored chemical compounds found in the Ganges make any pollution dangerous to human life are neutralized. It is possible that consumption of such water from early childhood simply immunizes the body. For a Hindu one thing is certain - that faith works miracles.

"The city of Shiva" from over two thousand years is a center of science and religion in this part of the world. It is also one of the oldest settlements inhabited until our times. Despite its long and rich history, most of the buildings is little more than two hundred years. This is due to a number of Muslim invasions that have plagued India since the sixteenth century. Only a few old temples (including the god Shiva, the holiest in the city, unfortunately, not available to followers of other religions) and some of the Ghats. Walk the narrow streets is an unforgettable experience. Hundreds of colors and smells, crowds of locals and pilgrims "overflowing" the walls of buildings, temples, shrines, sacred cows, ashrams, which are within the spiritual community, shops, stalls, workshops and manufactories - here everything takes on other dimensions and makes the feels like a stranger backed away years ago. The present mixed with the past. One day, sitting in an internet cafe (too much is actually said - there is a few computers and a few chairs), across the narrow street I see a woman pressing clothes. He uses an enormous size, cast-iron iron on carbon. We used the same great-grandmother's grandmother and when my grandfather had to iron a shirt on Sunday. Only two meters are divided into the nineteenth century from the twentieth. Now I can answer the question, what fascinates hikers in the city