the world is your adventure. explore the possibilities. challenge yourself.
push your limits. whatever doesn't kill you ... only makes you stronger.
seek the truth. knowledge is power. dare to be different.
speak your mind. endless passion and ambition.
sleep when you're dead. be extraordinary.

seize the day.

rr

 About ryanrowe.com




Small dose of Varanasi

November 29th, 2009
posted by Ryan Rowe

So I’m in Varanasi - one of the holiest cities in the Hindu religion - and I’m sick. :( I’d only been here a couple of hours when I started feeling the rumblings in my tummy. The prime suspect is a vegetarian meal I had at a local restaurant - I ordered bruschetta and I guess the chopped tomato is what done it for me! The restaurant is highly rated so I guess I let my guard down.

Before the shit hit the fan (so to speak) I managed to get in an hour watching part of a cool concert series happening at Assi Ghat. the group on stage had a great drummer/tambores player, an accordian-like instrument and some kind of strings instrument and finally a lead whose singing style sounded like he was speaking very rapidly . Eric I bet you’re curious :) I got photos and will post soon.

Since then I’ve spent the last 24 hours in my room in bed or on the toilet. :(

Except for a 20min walk I took tonight while trying to find an ATM. You know if I had to describe India in one word it would be ’shocking’. The filth, the noise, the poverty, the smell and the chaos. At night these are all magnified. The long creepy shadows in the streets, the incessant beeping of the motorcyclists and auto-rickshaws and the glare of their headlights cutting through the haze that hangs in the city air, the thick acrid smell of something burning (not bodies but more like wood - like a stove fire - and it burns the nose and the throat), stray cows EVERYWHERE yes stray cows, and of course the street-dwellers - the poor and homeless who beg, the street workers who sell - and the touts, those super-friendly random guys who walk up to say “Helloooooo, how are you? Where are you from?” as if a totally innocent question when they are really just trying to make a quick buck whatever way they can.

Varanasi had it all in that 20 min walk. I just hope that I get to see some more of the cool, cultural side of Varanasi in the one day I have left before I go to Kolkata (the side you keep telling me about Mick!). If I feel better tomorrow morning I plan to take a stroll along the ghats and maybe even a boat ride up the Ganges. We’ll see!

Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at 9:22 pmand is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply