We flew into Varanasi at 10 PM at night, and immediately caught a cab into town. We learned that the cabs could not actually drive to where our guest house was located. We were told the street had been blocked off from traffic since there were so many pedestrians and street vendors. The cab ride from the Varanasi airport into town was the scariest ride our lives. Morgan was clinching the seat, and we almost got into multiple wrecks. It seemed as if we were playing Mario Kart all over town, and our driver did not seem to care. He did not get a tip. The taxi driver pulled into some sort of square in the middle of town, and our car was surrounded by locals who were peering into the backseat. He said that this as far as he could take us, and that we had to walk the rest of the way. We tried to tell him we had no way of knowing where our guest house was located, and he grabbed some guy off the street and put in the car with us. They spoke in Hindi for a few minutes, and finally the guy said that he could walk us to the hotel….. For a fee of course. I explained that I did not want to be taken anywhere except for our guesthouse. I gave him the name and the address, and we were on our way. Locals will sometimes say they will take you to your hotel, and explain that “it is closed”, when they are getting close to arrival. This is their way of taking you to a friend’s hotel that will pay them a referral fee.  He walked us through the streets for 15 minutes, and we zigzagged through the dark alleys and side streets. We were dodging motorbikes, dog and cow poo, and small fires lining the roads. We turned a corner and had a warm greeting from our guest house owners. We tipped the guy 200 rupees, and he said thank you while red beetlenut juice was running down his mouth. All the men in India chew beetlenut, which is like a tobacco, but red in color. When they talk, red juice oozes from the sides, and their teeth are stained red, a lovely sight.

Varanasi was like the wild west of India. The sights, smells and sounds were extremely intense. The city is located on the Ganges River, and there are about 180 Ghats on a 3-4 mile stretch of river. Ghats are a flight of steps leading down to a river, and they usually had some sort of temple around to worship. The Hindus believe that the river is holy, and there are thousands of people that come to bathe in the river each day. It is hard to put into words exactly what it was like to be in that city so I will just describe it in a typical day.  We would wake up at 7 and eat breakfast on our rooftop restaurant. The kitchen was 5ft.x 5ft., and the smell of curry would soon fill the small restaurant. I would take a coffee on the terrace, and carry my monkey stick. The monkey stick is a real thing. Most hotels have large sticks that they carry around to beat off the monkeys that are EVERYWHERE, and they are slightly aggressive. Monkeys stole my chapstick, socks, and water bottle while I was enjoying my coffee one morning.  We would then venture out into the narrow streets where we would step beside 5-10 cows and 4 goats working our way down to the river. There were also dogs literally sleeping in the coals of smothering fires just to stay warm. Once down by the river, we would walk up and down the river taking in all the sights. We would push aside vendors wanting to sell us boat rides on the river, and watched as the sadhus did yoga and smoked weed on the steps of the Ghats. Sadhus are the Hindu holy men that can do no wrong and are sacred. We would then arrive at the Ghat where they cremate bodies. They burn about 200-300 bodies a day down by the river as people believe this is a ritual cleansing that will prepare them for the afterlife. The ashes of the bodies are then tossed into the river. Children under five, sadhus (holy men) and pregnant women are considered pure and do not need to be cleansed by the sacred fire. They are simply set adrift on the Ganges. Downriver of the burning Ghats is where the locals take baths, wash their clothes and dishes, and men groom themselves. Even further downriver is the water processing plant where the pump out the water for the city. The river is so dirty that in some places life cannot even exist. In the afternoon, we would take a boat ride out on the river on our own terms. It was actually quite calming to have someone row us around and view all the chaos from afar.  The late afternoons consisted of us watching the kite flyers. Children all over India fly kites as their favorite pastime. They usually consisted of a spool of string and a cheap piece of wood and paper. It was very cool to see thousands of kites soaring through the air in the mid-day sun. Dinner would consist of another meal from our guesthouse, and in the evenings, we went down to the square close to our guesthouse. Every night there was a religious ceremony around 6 pm that consisted of songs, chanting, and fires. We would watch that for about an hour, and then venture back to our hotel and head to bed. Varanasi was my favorite city just for the pure fact that there was so much energy.

After Varanasi, we took a flight to Jaisalmer on the western portion of India near the Thar Desert.  This city was the calmest and cleanest in India that we had visited. It reminded us of Morocco, but the people were friendlier. We stayed in the fort that was in the center of the city, and contained about 30 guesthouses. The restaurant and rooftop provided the best views we had seen in all of India. We could sit on top of the fort and look out over the desert for miles. It was quite relaxing and soothing for me and Morgan. On our second day in Jaisalmer, we took a camel outing overnight in the Thar Desert. A safari jeep picked us up at 8 in the morning, and drove us out 60 miles in the desert with 5 other tourists. This was my first time riding a camel, and it was quite the adventure. Once we got into the desert, we had two guides that would take us via camel to our camping spot for the night via camel. The older man who drove us there, took the jeep and met us at a rendezvous spot where he had the supplies for dinner and sleeping. When we arrived to camp, they prepared chai tea for us, and we all watched the sunset over the desert before we ate dinner. The 3 men cooked our dinner over a small fire with 2 pots. It was amazing to see what they could prepare with just a couple of pots, spices, and vegetables. We ate dinner, sang songs (I did not sing), and then they prepared our beds for us. Our beds consisted of 2 blankets on the sand, and 2 blankets on top of us for warmth. No tent or covering, just sleeping under the stars. The stars seemed to go on for ages, and there were no lights to be found anywhere. We slept hard, and woke up at 7 to the sound of breakfast cooking and the heat of the sun. After breakfast, we rode the camels back to the village, and took our jeep back into town. Our last day in Jaisalmer, we just walked around the city, and relaxed on the rooftop of our restaurant. Morgan taught me to play solitaire, so we played cards a good portion of the afternoon. I am the worst card player because I just get extremely mad when I don’t win. I typically don’t play with Morgan because it just causes an argument.

From Jaisalmer, we took a train for 6 hours to the town of Jodhpur where we spent a few nights. This is the blue city, and all the buildings were painted blue. Jodhpur had a nice fort to visit, palaces, temples, and other historic monuments. We became close with the family at this guesthouse, and we got to spend a lot of time speaking with the cousins and sons of the owner. The wife cleaned the rooms, grandma did her thing, the daughter sewed and offered henna tattoos, the younger boys were the chefs, and the dad ran the show. It was cool to see how everyone worked together to make the guesthouse work. They had 5 rooms, and we calculated they made about $75 a night if they booked all their rooms.  Once we got to Jodhpur, we felt as if we had seen everything that we had come to see in India for this trip. There was really nothing that we felt we had left off our trip or missed that was on our list. We took a flight from Jodhpur back to Delhi, and had to wait 12 hours for our flight back to the US. We got a hotel inside the airport for 6 hours just so we could rest, and woke up refreshed at 1 am for our 4 am flight. Twenty hours later, we made it back to the USA and drove our car back from Atlanta to Memphis.

Reflecting back on the India trip, the one thing that was made apparent to me is how many people are in India. With 1.3 billion people, they were still kind, and we rarely came across anyone or any situation that made us uncomfortable. There is just a lot going on in India, and people have to be prepared for that when traveling. It is not really a wander down the street and have a coffee in a café sort of place. I loved that about India though.

We always get asked “where is your next trip?” Morgan and I would like to go to Oman and Israel or somewhere else in South America. We will keep everyone posted, but I will continue to post from time to time or travel topics that I think people would be interested to read.