Day 1: Varanasi

1.This trip would take us to two of the holiest spots in India. The city of Varnasi is the location of the holiest spot of the most sacred river in the Hindu world. Pilgrims come from across the country to bathe in its waters, and it is believed that being buried there assures a favorable rebirth. Especially fortunate is the individual whose corpse is burned in one of the several spots along the river where such events occur.
Followers of the Buddha journey to Bodhgaya not to be burned but for the not entirely unrelated goal of becoming enlightened, or at least to gain some ground on the path by visiting the spot where the founder of their religion himself achieved this ultimate spiritual state. In order to understand the significance, the closest comparison is St. Peter's Church in Rome. There is of course a contradiction here, namely, that a physical place/location should be of such importance to an essentially spiritual tradition. But given that we are undeniably in part human, it is understandable that our spiritual path will contain a material element

2.I never check luggage unless I absolutely have to, that is, unless they will physically bar me from taking my seat with what I have in hand. And as usually happens when I violate my deeply held beliefs, I paid a price. The conveyor belt transporting the luggage (including the one I had checked) broke down, and we were compelled to wait about twenty minutes while manual repairs were carried out. Lesson hopefully learned.

The ride we had reserved for the hotel was waiting when we arrived, and given what turned out to be the relatively hidden location of the hotel we had booked, the taxi turned out to be a good idea. However since we had arrived a day early and even though we were staying an extra day the hotel still decided to charge us for the taxi which was supposed to be included in the price of our stay. For my review of the hotel, see below.


3.We should really have taken the hotel's offer to have someone accompany us on our trip into town. It was probably the only reasonable suggestion to come out of the mouth of the hotel management--the equivalent of a stopped clock being right twice a day. Instead, we headed out with nothing more than an inadequate Lonely Plant map and the name of a restaurant I had hoped to find for dinner. This, it turned out, meant we were as ill-prepared for the chaos that is Varanasi as someone dropped into the middle of the Amazon jungle with a Swiss Army knife.

The tuk-tuk drive (may he rot in hell) claimed to know the restaurant we were trying to find, and to be able both to get us reasonably close and then to point us in the right direction to walk the rest of the way. Both claims turned out to be false, as I am sure was everything else he uttered during the ride. Fortunately we could not understand anything he said due to the blare of horns that were deafening and pervasive enough to be considered a form of torture under the Geneva convention.

After thirty harrowing minutes, he stopped the vehicle, said this is as far as he could go and that we could just keep walking and go left and we would find the place. We stepped out of the vehicle and were

Immediately engulfed in a swarm of humanity which was more overwhelming than I have ever encountered: cars, auto-rickshaws, bicycle taxis, pedestrians, cattle, goats—all crammed elbow-to-elbow. I am sure the chaos during the Haj in Mecca is worse, but I think that first night in Varanasi would be good preparation for anyone attempting that epic trip, just like running a half-marathon gets you ready for the full length race.

4. I had no idea where we were going, and no one seemed to understand English. It wasn’t as lost as I have ever been, but it was close. In traveling there are times when your faith in humanity is destroyed and then there are times when it is restored.  If the former ever begin to outnumber the latter, it is time to hang it up, I think. In any case, what happened next was an instance of the latter. A random vendor on the side of the road actually knew the restaurant name and took time to write out a detailed map on a sheet of paper and explain in detail how to get there. It wasn’t the clearest map, and his directions were punctuated by such vague terms as “turn where you will see a lot of policemen” and “you will see a water pump.” But the combination of picture and words managed to get us where we needed to: The Brown Bread Bakery.

5. This should have been the end of the story: a nice meal at a reasonably relaxing restaurant after a harrowing introduction to Varanasi. Lonely Planet restaurants recommendations usually have a very Western feel to them, comfortable, clean places with reliably tasty cuisine. This place had absolutely none of these characteristics. It felt creepy: the Bates Hotel of restaurants. The fact that we were the only ones in the place should have been a tipoff, as should the general squalor of the place. Indeed, I should have listened to my gut and left. Instead we sat down and ordered.

I was concerned enough, however, that I went back and reread the restaurant recommendation. The last few lines contained a warning that there was a fake “Brown Bread Bakery” that should be avoided. If there is not a rooftop, it emphatically declared, then you are not in the real Brown Bread Bakery.  I double checked: there was no rooftop here. What I thought might be a passageway to a rooftop was in fact a closet with a guy sleeping (at least I hope he was sleeping).

At that point I definitely should have paid the bill and walked out. But I decided to stick around in part because we hadn’t ordered anything that I thought would kill us. Pasta with olive oil or vegetable sauce. It came; it was disgusting.

It is simply not true that what does not kill you makes you stronger. What does not kill you can still give you diarrhea. And although the diarrhea that came a day later may have had another source; in fact, I am pretty certain it had another source. But it will always remind me of the fake Brown Bread Bakery