50 Year Adventure

These are the train tracks entering Varanasi which crosses the Ganges, we did the forbidden train track jumping act which resulted in this photo.

This is one of the small roads weaving thru Varanasi. In Hindi a small alley way is called a gully. It was amazing to see people zip thru these small alley ways on motorbikes even when people were jamming the alleys. Every alley was different and it must be one of the best mazes in the world as I felt lost every time I walked down an alley.

This is the place where we stayed while in Varanasi. It is the door way to Muktashawar Mut which was upstairs. I walked right by it as it was just another door way to me.

This is the elaborate BAPS Swaminarayan Temple in Varanasi.

This is yet another nicely kept temple in Varanasi but I wish I knew more about it.

Going down one of roads in Varanasi showed me how it is a bunch of cities within a city. When we walked down this road with vegetable sellers along both sides I thought I was in a small village market.

Even though this photo did not come out as I wanted and the colors are not very good, you get an idea of all of the ghats along in the Ganges in Varanasi. At this western most point of the ghats on a clear day the photo would have been amazing, especially if I were a good photographer.

I really like this photo. It is one of the many ghats all along the Ganges. This ghat is named for a lake in Tibet near Mt. Kailas which is a holy spot for Hindus and Tibetans. I like the red building on the top left as it was newly painted and looked so nice. Then you see the steep steps typical of the ghats. One of the best things of all is the Muslim man walking by, which I never expected to see. I always thought Varanasi would be the height of intense Hinduism with holy Naga Sadhus everywhere and super religious people everywhere. Quite a shock to see small kids trying to sell us pens, post cards and boat rides as we walked the ghats. Some parts of the ghats were like tourist traps. I should have known better than to try to fit anything in India into a mold.

This the King's ghat. I like this photo as all of the old men were following the priests commands in unison while the women watched intently. When I took the photo they were taking a break and no one seemed me to mind me admiring their devotion.

This is half way walking along the Varanasi ghats. It was early morning and activity was at a low point which made walking very easy for us.

This is the main ghat in Varanasi which means ten sacrificed horses. I like the cream and pink color buildings. I wanted to take a photo of the colorful vendor so walked up the steps to see what he was selling.

Once I reached I saw this colorful display, which his next door neighbor selling fresh flowers.

As we walked down the ghats we found a huge crowd assembled for a special out of town speaker. All of the monks and sadhus gathered under this tent to eat together. Even the tent was colorful and I like the light blue arches.

Near the main ghat we saw this interesting sight. The temple in the bottom middle of the photo is actually sinking in the silt of the Ganges river. It is tilted and it looks like just a matter of time until it collapses. The bottom of the temple is already under water. This is also the point when we did not walk along the ghats as this is where the cremation burning ghats began.

This was just half of this amazing building as it would not all fit in a single photo. I really like the multiple piller columns. For me this was the most special and unique ghat because of the architecture.

This is a great example of how buildings are stacked on each other as you look up the ghats towards Varanasi away from the Ganges.

This is the Queen's Ghat and was my favorite building of all of them in Varanasi. Nice place to hang up clothing for a quick morning dry.

This was at the very northern most part of the ghats. I like how each ghat has a unique character.

This was me at the start of the Ganges walk. Another thing that surprised me about Varanasi was the amount of laundry being done at both extreme ends of the ghats. This shows the colorful clothes being washed at the northern most end of the Varanasi ghats early in the morning as we set out on the first day.

This is the google map of the route the Ganges takes from Varanasi (lower left corner) to Saidpur (upper right hand corner).

This is the Google satelitte map for the same route from Varanasi (lower left corner) to Saidpur (upper right hand corner).

This is what we saw after leaving Varanasi and walking along the Ganges.

I like the activity in this photo. All of the women carrying their bundles of clothes to the Ganges to wash them, while the men have their water buffalos in the river already and are washing them.

We decided early on to follow the western branch of the Ganges and as we walked along the river became quite narrow. I wonder if it had something to do with the lack of the full monsoon rain this year in India. When we looked at the Google Earth satelitte photos before starting on our walk, we could see ancient oxbow lakes formed as the Ganges changed course over time. Maybe this one will be like that in the future.

As we left the river banks, we often saw water buffalo herders and the required dried cow paddies being dried for fuel.

After walking several hours, we decided it was time to take a break and rest. On the top of the bank we found this specially made sadhu's hut. The red hibiscus was really pretty and the gate on the left hand side of the photo gave it away as belonging to a sadhu. He was not home so we took a quick power nap in the shade of the trees around his hut.

This was a beautiful bunyan tree growing right over the edge of the ridge at the top of the riverbank.

Half of our Ganges walk was on mud cracks like these. The cracks were any where from 8 to 12 inches deep. In some places the farmers sowed wheat in the cracks and we could see the wheat rising above the surface of the mud cracks. These mud cracks were visible for hundreds of feet from the water on both sides.

Often as we walked along the mud flats we came across a whole section of these where the farmers used their hand prints on top of the mounds after planting seeds. In some places we saw small plants growing right up in the middle of the hand prints. Such a unique and creative gesture from such simple farmers was touching to see.

This is a close up of the google satelitte photo of the region we walked near Varanasi. You can see how the farmers take over the Ganges mud flats and create small plots of land on them. The vertical line down the middle is a walk path to the Ganges itself which is just off the photo on the bottom.

Our next stop was at this incomplete pontoon bridge. The blue and white boat on the left hand side got stuck in the mud while we watched. Somehow it reversed out of the mud. We watched a very small boat fill up way beyond overflow with people who just kept getting on.

This was just a few of the people who walked by on the way down to the boat to cross the Ganges. My favorite thing was watching the motorbikes as they slid down the sand in a hurry to get to the boat before it left.

As the sun started setting at the end of our first day of walking on the Ganges, we started walking to find the nearest village. We saw a temple in the distance and headed for it. We also needed water so found a tube well by the tenple. We sat down and waited to see what would happen. The village priest eventually showed up and open the small temple and proceeded to ring the bells. Many village children collected around us to see what was going on at the temple. Eventually one of the villagers came to take us to his house. This was the path we walked to his house. We were both so tired that every step was difficult. We later learned we had walked around 12 miles the first day from 8:30am to 5:30pm.

I took this photo the next morning when we were preparing to leave after spending the night on the beds behind the red columns. I was amazed at how large and colorful the house was that we had been so graciously taken care of by our hosts. He was indeed a very well to do man in the village.

As we left the village where we spent the night, this was the sight we saw as the sun rose over the farmers fields.

This is the sight we saw on our second morning around 6:30am as we got back to the Ganges.

Just one of the many operations taking place on the Ganges. This was a location where workers were loading trucks with sand. We thought it must have been for making concrete nearby.

Unfornately we sometimes had guests trying to walk with us. We avoided walking close to the Ganges as the mud was quite thick and deep. The dogs did not mind doing it though. We tried to pretend their were not there and hopes they would just move away, which they did eventually.

Another operation taking place all along the Ganges. We often saw fisherman and sometimes just saw empty boats like these with their nets drying next to them. We had a couple of fisherman offer to sell us Tilapia fish, but we had no interest in fish at all.

As we walked thru a village near the Ganges I saw this very nice house. I had to think it was a wealthy farmer but we could not be sure how he acquired his wealth.

After eating breakfast in a village we found, we decided to walk on a road for a while. We often saw cell phone towers along the way. Below this cell tower was a large field of green pumpkins. I had not seen such odd looking melons before. At one place we saw stacks of them along the road obviously ready to send to a local market for selling.

Another common sight all along the way was stalks of sorghum. We saw field after field of them being harvested and them bundled into the stalks. The water buffalo is resting between the sorghum and dried cow paddies.

One of the highlights of our second day walk was coming up to this river merging into the Ganges. We wondered how we would get across and several people told us to keep walking up the small dirt path until it ended. This is what we saw when we reached the end of the path. A man pulling his boat across by hand along a rope. The water was visibly moving very quickly as it flowed into the Ganges. We hoped on for a ride when we reached our side of the shore.

This was a common sight along the Ganges river bed - farmers plowing the ground and planting crops.

As we neared the end of our second day's walk, we entered a field of lentils, but this photo shows the paths we often walked on to get thru farmers fields.

This was taken from the place where we sat to rest and comtemplated stopping our Ganges walk in Saidpur.

As we reached the middle of Saidpur town, a bunch of moneys started crossing the road. There had to be hundreds of them as they cross the road in large groups and then jumped up onto the roof tops.

Besides this being a nice house, this was typical as the monkeys cross the house balconies one house at a time as they moved down the street. We were told in Varanasi that monkeys were such a problem that people were closing in their roofs with metal grating to keep the monkeys out.