323. Day 1 – Varanasi

Since the flight was at 945am, we left the house at around 615am.  Whenever I travel by flight, I always have a meal at the airport, courtesy the facility offered by my bank’s debit card for lounge access😊.  There are 5 members in my immediate family, including me, and I have opened separate accounts for each one of them. So, that gives me 5 cards having lounge access😊!!  And since our current party was of 5 members for the trip, I took all the 5 cards.  We all had a sumptuous breakfast at the Hyderabad airport lounge and left for Varanasi.

We were supposed to check-in at the hotel first and then proceed for sight-seeing.  When the driver came to pick us up, we saw that the Innova car had only 2 seats in the middle row.  And there was no carriage on top for keeping luggage.  I spoke to the vendor and he too did not know about this as he had asked another vendor to send the car. He somehow convinced us to reach the hotel in that vehicle and keep the luggage at the hotel.  And he confirmed that he will provide us with a 3-seater in the middle seat and a carriage on the top from the next day onwards.

Through difficulty, we managed to keep our 3 big suitcases in the car and we too boarded it for a 15-20 minutes’ drive to the hotel.  When we reached the hotel, we found out that they didn’t have our 2 booked rooms and only have a family suite having a double bed and a triple bed.  Again, I reached out to the vendor and berated him.  The vendor’s owner spoke to the hotel owner.  Due to some employee’s mistake our 2 rooms had been given to someone else.  At least, that’s what we were told😊!  The suite was also a good one, but with only 1 washroom.  As a compensation, they said they will provide lunch as compensatory.  Having no other option, we agreed to it.  Our 1^st day itself was turning into a nightmare and we had six more days to go😊!!

After having lunch, we proceeded to Varanasi sightseeing.  Plan was to see Kashi Vishwanath Temple, Kaal Bhairav Temple, Ganga Aarti from a boat and a couple of more temples as we were told that some of the temples are open till 9pm at night.

Most of the roads in Varanasi are very narrow and in many of them, cars cannot enter.  So, the driver parked the car at a vacant place on a road and came with us to show directions to the temple.  I would never have had that much courage to park my car there. In case a big vehicle came, there was no way for it to pass without having to push this car away!  Anyways, that’s Varanasi traffic for you😊!

We went to Kaal Bhairav temple first.  There was a 2-3 kms line there.  I tried to talk to a pandit to see if we can be sent in through another door to the temple as I saw others being sent through there, of course by giving some “dakshina”.  But to no avail. I told him that we had come all the way from Hyderabad to visit and we had to visit other places too.  He still did not budge. I then showed him my brother-in-law’s The Hindu (newspaper) identity card, hoping that that might work.  That too did not help😊!!  I stood there beseeching him to let us go.  Suddenly, there was a gap in the line and he pushed us into the line and asked us to go in the line.  We were just about 20-30 meters from the entrance to the temple!  I don’t know what came over him, but we did save an enormous amount of time in seeing the Kaal Bhairav temple.

Starting this blog, I am attaching a small book on the photos taken during the trip.  You can visit these places just by seeing the pictures😊!

Then we proceeded to Ganga Aarti as the driver-cum-guide told us that we will get good seats if we go early.  We reached the boat at around 430pm.  The driver tried to influence the boat guy to charge us Rs 500 each, but I saw their facial communication and told him that I will pay only what others are paying.  When I checked with the other people on the boat, it seemed they were paying Rs 200 per person. I too paid the same when the guy came to collect the money.

The aarti started only at 630pm.  We were just sitting there whiling away the time! The boatman was waiting to fill up his boat (60-seater) before he ventured to the area from where we could see the aarti.  In hindsight, we should have taken a small boat.  In hindsight, even a smaller boat would not have sufficed if a bigger boat blocked its view😊!  We were on the top deck and view was clear, but we were very far from the aarti stage.

Anyways, if you want to see the aarti, just click on FULL GANGA AARTI VARANASI | BANARAS GHAT AARTI | Holy River Ganges Hindu Worship Ritual (youtube.com) and enjoy the same😊!!

The whole aarti took about 45 minutes.  After finishing the aarti, we were taken on a ride on the Ganaga to see other ghats that are there.  There are some 100+ ghats there and we were shown some 10-15 of them.  All of them are in line on the shore.  After the ride, we were dropped at the same place where we boarded.  We then proceeded to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.  We found that there was a huge line there. They had stopped further entry to the temple and were waiting for the crowd inside to finish and come out. We came out of the line and spoke to some shopkeeper.  He said there are online tickets too available for special darshan.  We then decided we will go that way and left the temple and headed for the hotel. Varanasi was also the itinerary for the last day.  Hence we thought we will see the rest of the places on that day.  Thus ended our Day 1 of the trip.

Cheers till next time😊!!

PS – Next blog à Day 2 – Ayodhya