This weekend I journeyed to a hill station where it was 70 degrees. That is right!! Be jealous heatwavers and otherwise fellow melting people. Alas, all good things must come to an end so I am back in Varanasi where I took pictures of adorable kids for ten minutes and was actually drenched. On the plus side if your sweat circles actually connect no one can tell what color your shirt is supposed to be. More from my trip soon. So many beautiful pictures and moments.
At the Indian temple, there was a tree that had been planted from a branch of the tree Budda attained enlightenment under. Wow, was that a real sentence, I honestly cannot tell. My English and Hindi has gotten so jumbled up, that I can never figure out if the word order I am using is correct. Most of the time this does not cause any difficulty. The one exception is our new French friends, or the Frenchies as we affectionately call them. They have a hard enough time understand English, so adding my ridiculous grammar and complete lack of pronunciation, after I say something they often just give me a puzzled look and then say .... WHAT? I immediately apologize and try again, but sometimes I just cannot manage at all. Anyhow, after that brief speech failure related tangent, I will go back to the photos. As I mentioned we visited a lot of different temples. It was like an Asian architectural tour. I enjoyed it a lot despite the gazillion degree temperature (yes, as you might have guess it actually does get that hot here. Although here we use Celsius. So it hovers around (a gazillion - 32) x 5/9 degrees C, to be exact and culturally appropriate. Despite the architectural diversity, the human diversity was the same. There were neither Chinese nor Japanese people at the temples, and we were the only tourists that decided to brave the heat. 
One of the first weekends I was in Varanasi (I know, super late in putting up pictures. P.S. Happy Varanasi Monthiversary to meee!), we went to Sarnath, which is the place where Budda gave his first sermon. To commemorate the occasion they put up a gigantic stupa, which roughly translates to gigantic stone hump (my own translation). The carvings on the side were very beautiful, and there were chanting monks scattered on the lawns around it, despite the sunny, 100 degree weather. In my opinion, the coolest thing about the area is that different countries constructed temples in their own style because of the importance of the site. The first one we went to was the thai temple (pictured above). We also went to the Indian temple, the Chinese temple, the Japanese temple and my favorite, the Tibetan temple. All I will be posting about later. At the temples, and on the stupa, people put little pieces of gold foil (you can kind of see this in our group photo. The result is a collaged effect on most surfaces, which shows all the people that have come here over the years. It would have been quite a moving experience, if I had not been drowning in my own sweat. Story of my life in India! How am I supposed to have my stereotypical religious awakening if I am melting into the pavement. 
The internet is back, for now. Here is the next installation of the arti extravaganza. We rented a boat, as one should when viewing the puja. The first picture shows candles that one is supposed to light. You make a wish and put them into the water. When they are all floating out there with the boats, and the music and all the tourists and religious pilgrims mixed up on colorful boats, the result is truly breath taking. It is not hard to see why the river was deified. More arti later and maybe even video if I can manage it! 
Here we are at the edge of the Ganga, at Dashashwamedh Ghat before the prayer started. In the third picture you can see the brahmin priests getting ready for the production, which is truly the right word for it. This is by far the most touristy place in Varanasi. Which is why we were accosted by various people trying to buy things. It is very common to have at least 5 people at a time asking you to visit their shop, buy postcards, or buy other souvenirs, they all tell you that they have the best prices, the best quality, the most selection. So when a guy came up to us to advertise his "shitty shop",we were shocked. Let me remind everyone that Indian people are not known for their sarcasm. This guy had clearly been taught this trick, sort of like the hobos on the street whose signs ask for beer, so he did not have the intonation down quite right. Between that and being accustomed enough to India, it is as if he actually came up to us and told us he sold horse shit and cow shit and other shitty things. I was scandalized. Luckily we were ushered on to a boat before too long. More on that tomorrow. 
