Post - Varanasi 3/19/10
In Varanasi I went hippie. At some point if I travel long enough in India, I give into the heat in favor of comfort and exchange my jeans for something else (always silky and flowy). So after a day shopping with Anna, I have become psychedelic hippy queen. For $30 I now have 3 dresses and 2 shirts (that make me look like a psychedelic clown) and some I Dream of Genie balloon pants (that finish off the clown look)... have exchanged cool for cool (hahaha... THAT can be interpreted as you will)
Yesterday was a good day.... Anna and I (Kata and Eric disappeared on separate journeys in the morning and we didn’t cross paths again until evening) wandered the streets of Varanasi...
Had chai with kids running the family shop (many shops are run by kids between the ages of 8 to 20)... the younger boy watched Avatar on his I-Pod while the 10 year old girl decorated Anna and I with tiny stamps dipped in colorful powdered dyes....
Spent an annoying half hour being tracked by an overly aggressive Indian guy that was “in love” with Anna and called her “honey” and professed his desire by assuring her that he was “very strong” and didn’t sleep with “many women.” In final desperation, he told her he had “a big banana.” (However, a couple of young boys took me aside and told me he was an undercover policeman .... In Varanasi, police try to sell travelers drugs and then bust them and make them pay NOT to put them in jail...of course, any astute traveler will hear about the scam within 10 minutes of arrival in town...
Flew a paper kite with some young boys (every evening the skies are filled with colorful paper kites soaring and plunging through the air)...
Ended up at the Varansi waterworks (much to Anna’s delight... her art project is about water in all its aspects). The workers at the water plant were also delighted... few Westerners visit the waterworks and ask for a tour, much less two white women. They proudly showed us around. The city’s water is pulled directly from the (very polluted) Ganga River. There was an article in the newspaper detailing the incredible levels of pollution... in addition, of course, they dump numerous dead bodies in the river each day as part of their rituals of death.
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