Varanasi 2025
Varanasi is supposedly the oldest place on Earth where people live continuously for approximately 3000-5000 years without being interrupted by any diseases, wars or any natural disasters.
One of the extraordinary beautiful messages painted on the walls of Varanasi describes the vibes of the place and of the whole India.
There's an eternal flame that is also burning as long as the civilization is present in Varanasi cause of the Hindus beliefs that if they die in Varanasi, get their body burnt and ashes thrown into the holy Ganges river, they will stop reincarnation process of their souls being reborn in another form on this planet. Apparently, there are people who are born and destined to work with that eternal flame, feed it and keep it alive for all their life. We haven't seen the eternal flame cause Varanasi was so crowded and we were a bit weak cause of the stomach infection and diarrhea, that we just couldn't break through that mob of mostly primitive religious fanatics.
This is the way how we came from Prayagraj to Varanasi - by full loaded train.
We were in Prayagraj visiting Maha Kumbh Mela and it was not so bad. It was crowded but we managed to pass without any negative experiences. I wrote a blogpost about it just few days ago.
In the train we have seen the two faces of India: the greatest kindness and hospitality against the rough impolite physical behavior. First of all, I must admit that we had no tickets for the train and we didn't even try to buy them cause my previous attempts of buying a train ticket always failed. That was a bit rude from us. Still, we just entered the train without tickets but with the intention to get to Varanasi. Soon, everyone realized that we have no tickets but the people reorganized and gave us the seats for free so we arrived to Varanasi! But it was not all! As the train was fully loaded, on every station the Indian people acted like total idiots, worse than animals - the ones who were waiting on the stations were pushing violently into the train without letting those who needed to exit, to exit first so that some extra space is created for them to enter easily. Same happened when we were trying to exit in Varanasi. Fortunately, I'm a big boy from the Balkans where I've learnt to struggle and fight for my life so I just put the backpack on my back and lifted the suitcase on top of my head and pushed my way out. Sara was following me and afterwards blubbering all sorts of bullshit comments about that experience annoying me additionally. Nevertheless, I kept my colors of calmness, staying the real man and ignoring her typical, boring female complaints. Soon after we reached our amazing guest house on the shores of Ganges, had a large dinner and went to sleep early.
One of those moments in Varanasi while sipping chai next to a screaming naked fake sadhu.
Next morning, we were both sick with bad stomachs and diarrhea, Sara from before and me freshly. We realized that we needed to change the accommodation cause we booked only one night and in the meanwhile our room was booked by others so we needed to leave. Then the real horror started. So, weak and fucked up we needed to find our way through the mob of religious fanatics screaming, pushing, pissing, shitting, bathing, offering us all kinds of products and services, smoke in the air along with other bad smells and constantly asking us questions like where do we come from and if they can make a selfie with us, like brainless mechanical robots without any compassion or empathy. In the meanwhile, I booked another room and when we almost reached it, they informed us that they are full. The situation couldn't get any more miserable that it was actually funny! I almost fainted, so I remained sitting on the steps of the ghat in the shadow while Sara wondered into the labyrinth of the old town looking for the room. That lasted at least for an hour but she found even better room than we had before. She came back to pick me up totally frustrated and crying cause she got lost in between those walls few times and she didn't even know where she booked the room. That was even funnier to me but I again kept my mouth shut not to make the situation any worse. We loaded ourselves with our luggage and 15 min later arrived to our best accommodation without any big problems and we stayed there for the next few days recovering from the sickness and gathering the strength for moving forward with our voyage.
That was the view from our private balcony
I must write more about fanaticism and primitivism that we encountered widely in Prayagraj and Varanasi due to my deeper research on the topic in the last 10-15 years. I was born in the Christian mixed catholic-orthodox Balkan family where religion was never actively practiced but still we had family gatherings for the major holidays. I have also seen the primitive religious fanaticism in the Balkans, especially during the escalation of Yugoslavian war. In India this craziness is still widely present. Even though Hinduism is not really a religion, many practice it as it is making it like just another way of some people getting rich of other people's devotion while buying blessings and paying off sin. The truth is that the holy sanskrit scriptures Vede were brought to India by the nomadic Arian Slavic people from central Western Asia. Indian tribes practiced totally different varieties of devotion and deity warships but they accepted vedic philosophy and mixing it with their own traditions, the modern Hinduism was born. Slavic Arians never built temple but the Indians did. Slavic Arians also established themselves as brahmins, the highest caste in Indian society.
In Slavic languages today word sanskrit would mean hidden dream, and vede would mean to see or knowledge.
The only true original Indian philosophic practice is tantra which originated from the South and Southeast of India where the Slavic Arians never managed to force vedic practice. Even today, if you ask a brahmin about tantra they might get agitated and even aggressively attack the tantric practice.
And, of course, the most beautiful combinations have arise in cases where vedic and tantric practices come together.
We also had a very nice rooftop space - the view towards the Northeast
Furthermore, the belief that dying in Varanasi will save your soul from reincarnation, apparently is also wrong cause in sanskrit scriptures the word varanasi means the place on crossing of eyebrows and nose where is the famous third eye and the word is mentioned in the context like: the one lives and dies in the third eye, goes to heaven.
Therefore, why I call the mob fanatics and primitive cause they are fighting to have a bath in the holy river even though the Vedas promote peacefulness and not hurting anyone. Non of them knows what varanasi means and all of them are making so much trash and dumping it into the holy rivers of Yamuna and Ganges while Vedas instruct to warship Nature in every form. In the same time the naked sadhus are heavily smoking hashish even though Shiva instructed and ordered: Do not copy or imitate me! And there is a very bad newest fact: According to the Indian government report, 40 people lost their lives on the Maha Kumbh Mela 2025, while the unofficial sources are claiming 500 people died. So, imagine the primitive mob of fanatics trying to wash their sins and walking over and killing 500 people in the process. Is that devotion or what is it?
The view towards the Southeast
After a couple of days of resting while practicing yoga and sudarshan kriya along with ayurvedic pills, pomegranate seeds oil, fasting, psyllium tusk and baking soda, we finally recuperated and gathered some strength to exit for a short walk and ginger-lemon-honey tea. After just anorher day we made longer walks fighting our way through the religious fanatics mob and started enjoying Varanasi. We also started eating more food like plain porridge with banana, rice and lentils without spices. Then another miracle happened: WE MANAGED TO BUY TRAIN TICKETS!!! Incredible India! So, we soon ran away from the crazy crowd!
The day before we escaped, we felt really much better so we went for a boat ride to the other coast of Ganges to enjoy loneliness and admire the sunset along with the ancient town's riviera before it gets totally devastated and devoured by the religious tourism industry.
Here we are on the boat escaping the crazy mob.
And then Sara was again: Shoot me, shoot me, look how I'm beautiful!
All beauty will pass.
I wanted to make some photos of the riviere but I had no good quality camera so again I used Sara's phone.
And then there's me doing this stupid Hollywood faces...
Varanasi is indeed exceptional!
If I visit it again, I hope I'll have my professional camera and lenses.
I usually really admire the handmade wooden boats and there were plenty of them on Ganges going up and down the stream from the early morning to late evening. In the next shots I captured a lot of those boats.
There's me again with the stupid Hollywood face.
And more boats... Typically for India all the boats were painted so very different and colorful so that they create that especially joyful atmosphere that I really like and that makes India to be India.
Nothing can go without the good old smoke!
This nice shot might fool you cause it looks so attractive, archaic and exotic but actually all around us were all sorts of shit scattered in the sand including human and at the very moment at least 3 men were taking a shit just few hundred meters away from us.
These 2 sunrise shots were made by Sara but I needed to include them in this post cause they are extremely beautiful.
Even though there's 1,5 billion people living in India, there is still a chance to have a private silent moment.
I bought myself this great shirt made of exquisite light cotton and such nice sample while keeping safe distance from the crazy mob.
Something extra funny for me in Varanasi was this icecream stand named "Gaylord".
All in all, I LOVE INDIA AND PEOPLE OF INDIA AND I'M EXTREMELY GRATEFUL FOR ALL THAT INDIA GAVE TO ME.
I didn't want to offend anyone by writing the truth and nothing but the truth for the purpose of improving and not mocking or underestimating anyone or anyone's culture.
But we all can change, improve and become better for our own sake!