Varanasi - the holiest Hindu city in the world

        After Khajuraho, I flew to the ancient city of Varanasi, thought to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world - around 3,000 years old, and considered the center of the Earth in Hindu cosmology. For a town this important, I had high expectations and Varanasi turned out to be all I expected and more.

        The holiness of Varanasi was very different from spiritual holiness of Rishikesh. The Ganges River is much more of a part of people's daily and religious lives in Varanasi. People are born on the river, spend each and every day on the river, and are even cremated on the river. On each end of the river are areas designated as burning ghats where cremations occur around the clock. According to Hindu belief, if one dies and is cremated in Varanasi, their soul is released from the cycle of reincarnation.

        The ghats, or stairs leading down to the river, are used by people for bathing, praying, washing, and socializing. Varanasi is a large and crowded city and the streets near the river are a maze of alleyways very similar to Seville, Spain.

         Life revolves on the river on the best way to experience the start of a day on the Ganges is by boat at sunrise.

 

My last adventure in Khajuraho

     My last adventure in Khajuraho was to visit an Indian village. I went on a 1/2 hour bike ride to the village where a worker from the hotel lives. I met his family, nieces, and nephews, and his mother served a simple and delicious home cooked vegetarian Indian meal. The experience was great and it was nice to have the opportunity to see life in a small Indian village.

Khajuraho - touring a revitalized Rajput garden estate

        I met a gentleman from Belgium who took me on a tour of one of the gardens he is helping Indian farmers revitalize. The Indian government is working with international groups on a project referred to as the "Lost gardens in Khajuraho."  These "gardens" are actually large farming estates previously owned by the Rajput Kingdom and used by the prince and his family as vacation estates. These gardens at one time produced vegetables, fruits, and grains. The estates have a Hindu temple and a small palace, and part of the revitalization project is to restore the temples and palaces.

       These photographs are from my day spent at the garden estate learning about efforts to help the Indian landowners learn about sustainable farming practices. The elderly woman in the photos is the owner of the land and she explained to us that her great-grandfather was given the land from the Rajput prince, and it has been held in her family ever since. Some of the pictures are of the cane grown on the farm which is soaked in water, stripped, and then made into rope.

Photos around Khajuraho

Next stop - Khajuraho, India

        After leaving Rishikesh I traveled by overnight train to the small northern India town of Khajuraho. Khajuraho has the largest group of medieval Hindu and Jain temples, famous for their explicit depiction of sexual life during medieval times. The Khajuraho temples were built over a span of 200 years, from 950 to 1150. These temples are considered to be one of the "seven wonders" of India, and when you see the graphic and explicit kamasutra carvings one "wonders" what that is all about! One theory is that an ancient Hindu king constructed the temples as a way of enticing his disinterested son into manhood. Whatever the reason, the temples are quite a sight.