DAY 27, APRIL 17, VARANASI, LAST DAY

HOLY SWIMMERS

We conclude our India surface skimming
By watching holy swimming.
Can you imagine
Swimmers in the Ganges,
All with Karma brimming!


Would you believe, we set out at 5:15 AM for our major adventure of the day. That was to return to the Ganges River and check out what goes on and how it looks there early in the morning. We had no rickshaw ride, but on our return we walked quite a ways on the streets back to our bus. Starting from the same ghat in the same boat as last night, we went downstream (southeast) instead of upstream like last night. People were taking their dips or swims in the river. At one location cremations were in progress. There are only two locations for cremations, which are done 24 hours a day. We saw a couple of priests conducting a ritual, and we saw several young men emulating a priest as they're learning to be priests.

Then we visited the temple which is not a temple. It is the Mother India Temple, built in 1936. It features an impressive relief map of India and its neighbors, about 40 feet square and done in Makrana marble. It's made up of carved marble blocks about a foot square.

Then we returned to the hotel for breakfast followed by about three hours of free time before departing homeward.

Dick Opsahl led a half-mile walk to Nehru park. There were only five of us. It's a nice little green space with a playground, some nice trees, and a concrete sidewalk “track” around inside it which Dick used for jogging at 6 AM yesterday morning. I was disappointed in not finding a stature of Jawaharlal Nehru or even the name “Nehru Park” posted.

It turns out that we made the local newspaper. There is a single color photograph of some us from yesterday morning's walk in which we are examining the registration card held up by a voter. It's not an English language paper. Dick asked the waitress at breakfast to translate the caption. It says: “The foreigners are taking photos of the voter.”

We had free time till noon. In the afternoon we flew to Delhi. It was about a two-hour flight, and we arrived about 5 PM. We were served a real meal with, would you believe, metal silverware.

We were bused to a nice hotel near Delhi where we were given rooms and had the opportunity to buy dinner get a little rest. We got to meet Som's wife Manisha and his eigh-year-old son Siddhartha. They had driven about 1-1/2 hours from their home to meet Som. We all gathered in their hotel room and Som presented a slide show of a visit of his to Tibet. And we saw them no more. We left the hotel for the airport at 10:30 PM.


Bernie :-)