Saturday, January 16, Day 9 (actually 7): Temples and Ganges

Day nine (seven): Khajuraho Temples in detail, and nighttime on the Ganges

Ah, the slightly world famous Khajuraho temples. (You've heard of them, right?) Or, more specifically, the erotica carved into the exterior walls. In brief, not much is new. The ladies are buxom times ten, and the gents are, well.....we'll...healthy looking. Everyone is mucho flexible and, if one partner wants to do it from a head stand, there are servants around to help make ends meet. In more than a few instances, the servants have erotic agendas of their own. Good for them. To be candid, seeing thousand year old carvings of stuff one can get on the Internet without travel or passport has a goofy appeal. (Oh, look what she's doing!) And, most of the crew grin as they search the walls for more variations. Even the quiet couple from Cambodia get lots of snapshots - everybody gets lots of snapshots - sometimes with one or both of them pointing at one of the friskier couples (or threesomes, foursomes, etc.) doing things we've all tried - or would if we could stand on one foot.

(Quick sidebar, then back to the nudies: The Cambodian husband mentions that they lived in New York City for 10 years. "Oh. What did you do there?" "I was the Cambodian ambassador to the U.N." "Oh........Good." He still does "government work" but doesn't elaborate. Seems like a nice fellow. He and his wife both have those "camera on a stick" things and take zillions of photos, including one of us that's a special favorite of us.)

Where were we? The guides like to point out that only two percent or three percent of the wall decorations are gods and goddesses at play. Maybe, but without them, this little town wouldn't exist. It barely exists as is. The local lake is a scummy, trashy eyesore. Sameer says people bathe in it; he doesn't say they get cleaner. This was once the capital of a local kingdom: Now it's a place where street hawkers peddle Kama Sutra picture books at 75 cents each. Local legend says this is the second most frequently visited place in India. Doubtful. It took us all day to get here because air service is infrequent. Eh. Seems like the chamber of commerce is missing the boat. Think of the slogans: Visit Khajuraho and Get a Boner!

Maybe not. Still, the truth is, those temples with the nudies on them are spectacular even without the gods and apsaras (Hindu for stacked babes). Hundreds builders hadn't discovered the arch back then so the temples taper to a top, looking a little like chewed over cobs of corn. Way different from Western churches, but well worth a look.

After a look - and lots of photos - we bus it to the Khujuraho airport for a puddle jump to Varanasi, the town that used to be Benares. The flight is advertised at 55 minutes, but lasts 35. Even so, the flight attendants are able to pass out mystery sandwiches to everyone - and collect the trash. United Airlines, are you listening?

Varanasi, at the junction of the Viruna, Asi, and Ganges Rivers, is where Buddha preached his first sermon. Not clear what he said, but it was probably cool. (Did he open with a topical joke? Think not.) This happened around 600 BC so records were skimpy back then. At first and second glance, Varanasi looks a lot like New Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra: crowded streets, horns honking, plenty of discarded trash, and almost nowhere to pee. (For you curious women, India has some "Western" toilets and plenty of squatters. Either way, there's often an attendant whose main job is to collect a small fee in exchange for handing out a tiny amount of toilet paper or paper towels. The paper towels are usually paper napkins and of little use after hand washing.)

We arrive at the hotel at about 4 pm and are whisked (we're being facetious here: Motorbikes dart and busses lumber, but no one whisks) to the Ganges, the Mother River of India which serves something like 500 million people. It is also a pilgrimage place where Hindus want, we are told, to bathe at least once. Based on the looks of the hovels we pass in the bus, there may be a far less spiritual reason: running water is not available in many residences. People don't just get wet, they lather up, too. The men wear shorts and maybe a t-shirt for this: Women (we actually saw none) are almost fully clothed. Gotta be fun hanging out in wet clothing on a cold day.

The bus parks and we walk a gauntlet of hawkers selling the usual beads, postcards, etc. Many speak English well and counter we say with a well-reasoned retort. "Don't say 'no, no, no': say 'yes, yes, yes!' " There are a few beggars, mothers with babes in arms, cripples, and lepers, but the hawkers are the vast majority, both industrious and persistent. Yet, after trailing us for a hundred yards, they almost become part of the group, pointing out cow shit so we don't step in it and advising us, when Sameer briefly departed, that he'd gone to get the boat and would be back in a moment. There are pickpockets, of course, and persistence becomes annoyance fairly soon, but it isn't a swarm or a filthy horde or anything like that.

We walk the gauntlet to get to our luxury yacht trip on the Ganges (facetious again: It's a loud and laboring put-put operated by a couple of fifteen year olds.) The Ganges is wide with "ghats" (pronounced "cots") that is stone steps leading down to it from the city streets. The steps - usually thirty or so - can be covered with water when the Ganges rises during the monsoon. The monsoon is thus a problem for two key businesses on the ghats: washermen who beat clothing, linens, etc., on designated rocks in the river and spread it to dry on the steps, and the "dome," the Hindu equivalent of a funeral director. The story gets a little creepy here. Hindus cremate their dead, feeling that the body is just a house for the spirit. Crews of dome workers build fires on the ghats to consume the flesh. There are more steps to it than we'lol share, but, in brief, the dearly-departed is reduced to ash on a wood fire in about three and a half hours. Cost : $500 or up to ten times that amount depending on the fire wood used (fragrant sandalwood costs more, Presto-logs presumably less). The deceased is then dumped in the Ganges. Note: this is the same Ganges that 70 million Hindus bathe in yearly (the "holy dip" Sameer calls it). The economy version of this is electric furnace cremation. Also, since putting the ashes in the Ganges is the key element of the funeral, if someone died a distance away from the river, the cremation part can occur back home. The ashes can be Fed-Exed to any town on the river for dumping. (The word they prefer is "spreading" but who is kidding who?)

In a nice show of respect for an ancient culture that we know so little about, our boat - and other boats full of tourists - moves in close to see the fires. There were ten at this location on this night. The tangle of firewood pieces prevented any specific sight of the corpse (oh, look at how that head burns!), but we knew what was in there. One could view this episode as educational or as the tour company making a buck off grief with the tourists as callous observers. Either way, watching ten cremations at once isn't a prospect one wants to think about too much. (Likewise, roasting marshmallows over them just seemed so wrong.) Note also that weeping is a no-no, so, as in many other situations here, women are seldom present. The bereaved stand back, presumably dry-eyed while the fire makers work.

After way too much of this, we are taken further down stream to a nightly Hindu ceremony affirming life. This consists of an estimated three thousand participants singing, playing instruments, and some dancing. That sounds like a lot, but, at 1.3 billion people, it isn't tough to get a crowd here. Lots of fire, bright lights, costumes, and hypnotic, repetitive music. Easy to get a trance going with this stuff. We're off shore for this, too, making it easier to get the panorama - and also making it easier to see a second similar ceremony a few hundred yards away. Also visible in the other direction are the funeral pyres. Circle of life, dudes.

We're parked there watching the show long enough that our little boat (25 on board is about the max) is joined by a dozen others, all wedged in together to afford the best possible view of the ceremony. This also permits kids selling snacks to make their way from boat to boat without difficulty. As we depart, we light and set afloat tiny votives (a tinfoil dish just big enough for a marigold blossom with a lit mini-candle inside). This follows a brief prayer in Hindi, basically "om shanti shanti" which means "it's late, I'm cold, and I have to pee." (Of course, a true native would just pee over the side of the boat. Kidding! No one really does that....in a town with a total of 3 public toilets.) We set the little lights in the water and watch them move slowly downstream on the Ganges, a nice sight on the black water.

A few more pictures of the temples mentioned above, in addition to hose few posted a few days earlier in our "hint."

And, here are a few of our nighttime ride on the Ganges.

Before setting in the water

Sameer explains

Subject cremations

Later affirming of life ceremony

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