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| One of the Mazed Streets ready for the Diwali Festival |
Varanasi is known for a criminal underworld where walking the labyrinth streets at night is a no go area. One of the hotels staff therefore offered to take us to the Ghats of the River Ganges to help find our bearings but nothing could have prepared us for our introduction to Varanasi.
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| Our first view of the Ganges River |
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| Next to the small cremation Ghat. Not ready for what came next |
We entered at the small cremation Ghat for what turned out to be an amazingly overpowering emotional experience, as we watched family and friends carry their loved ones on ceremonial prepared stretches. The bodies were then submerged into the Ganges to be cleansed before being placed on the wood previously bought by the family with the amount of wood depending on the family’s wealth. The families try to hide their emotion as not to disturb the karma before the ritual followed by the lighting of the wood where the cremation then takes place on the bank of the River Ganges or locally known as the Ganga.
It was important for us to have somebody with us that could explain the significance of what was happening to give it important meaning. People travel from all over the world to both wash in the Ganges and to die in Varanasi. We were told about a lady who is now 105 years old. She has been waiting for 35 years.
It was incredibly moving and emotional and showed the power of religious faith. Throwing us all off our stride for the rest of the evening we processed what we had seen and decided to get some shut eye. It’s my 31st birthday tomorrow.
Happy birthday Reedy as the alarm sounded at 4am, for our sunrise boat trip along the Ganges River. The sunrise over the Ganges was wonderful watching people go about their daily business of washing, bathing and prayer. Again life and death become one as a new day begins with the most amazing sunrise we had ever seen. We were also able to light floating candles down the river in remembrance for loved ones lost. The spirituality of Varanasi is just so powerful it absorbs you every minute and will surely be a life changing experience for the four of us.
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| Just about to head out for Sunrise on the Ganges River |
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| 5am, candles burning and good to go... |
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| Making our Spiritual Offerings |
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| The Most Amazing Sunrise You Will Ever See |
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| The local's day starts at the river |
Back to my 31st Birthday, my early midlife crisis in full swing. A great day was had by everyone full of surprises for the birthday boy from gifts at breakfast and chocolate pancake as a birthday cake for lunch with an oversized candle attached. The gang had been busy sneaking around behind my back for the past couple of weeks to buy presents. No wonder Danny took me for a beer while the girls went for a wonder in Karma Sutra!!!
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| Prezzie Time. The sneaky buggers!!! |
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| Getting around the hard way! Please don't fall I don't think the water is very clean! |
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| Happy Birthday to Me! That Candle is MASSIVE... |
Evening celebrations was a splash out for the backpackers heading to a swanky hotel called Saya where we dined in the picturesque gardens with amazing food, Mojito cocktails and some new beers for sampling. We even ended up in the bar to enjoy a hookah pipe.
Haywards 5000
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| Looks at us living it up. POSH TIMES |
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| Bindi Time & The Cocktails are just out of shot |
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| The Boys enjoying everything. We have seriously got to communicate what we are going to wear! |
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| Removing labels even on my birthday. Now there's dedication to the cause. You shouls see the scrap book! |
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| A great Birthday. Cheers guys xx |
Haywards 5000
This brand brewed by SABMiller India was launched in 1983 and is most well known for its Haywards 5000 label. The most popular of the portfolio. Synonymous with strong beer in India that has a 7% Abv. Brewed with Indian Malt and 6 Row Hops this golden yellow brew has a full bodied malty flavour.
Haywards also produces Haywards 2000, a mild beer with 5.5% Abv, and the rarer super strong Haywards 10000. Lovers of stout beer may be interested in Haywards Black. India's first genuine Stout Beer. It has a strong dark colour, with 8% Abv, and a heavy sweet malty taste that apparently hints of caramel. Unfortunately I have not managed to sample that one yet!!!
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| Haywards 5000 & The Birthday Eye's following a Mojito! |
Kingfisher Red
Until now, beer lovers like us maybe thought we couldn’t drink the same beer 365 days of the year. No matter how much you wished, there may have been occasions when you felt like having a beer but not something chilled. What am I talking about? Beer lovers like us would drink many different types of beers all year long. That’s the point!!! So taking another angle! An idea from Kingfisher for people who don’t like different types of beers was to produce a fermented beverage you can drink 365 days of the year! Whenever, wherever, irrespective of the season and the weather. This beer would be Kingfisher Red. ‘The first all year round beer’, whatever that means?
Kingfisher Red, a Premium Gravity beer (7% Abv), is specially brewed to give you a distinctive taste with a slight caramelized, oaky woody flavour with some bitterness, which tastes great when chilled and even better when not chilled? It is an artistically crafted beer inspired by the traditional brewing practices of medieval European monks. The monks followed a typical process for making their beer & then matured it in oak barrels.
Kingfisher Red is so developed following a unique process whereby the beer is rich deep golden amber colour and can be consumed even at 14 to 17 Degree Celsius without any change in the taste of the beer. I must now admit that I only tried it chilled but was pleasantly surprised. By far the best tasting beer, from the Kingfisher conveyer belt.
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| Kingfisher Red. A little fuzzy but it was my Birthday! |
Royal Challenge
Royal Challenge Premium is a mild beer containing 5% Abv. It's most popular in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Orissa. The beer has a long brewing cycle, giving rise to its slogan of "Brewed Longer, Brewed Better". In comparison to many Indian beers, it's quite a full bodied and tasty beer. It's not as flavoursome as the Kalyani Black Label, but is still distinctive, which will get to in Darjeeling.
Another brand brewed by SABMiller in India launched in the year 1993. The Award Winning Royal Challenge Premium Lager is the second largest selling mild beer in India. Royal Challenge is brewed with the choicest six malt barley. Its long brew duration provides it with a distinct, smooth taste and rich flavour. It has all the hall marks of a great beer. Colour that is golden honey, taste that is smooth and crisp. Royal Challenge Premium Lager is said to be the beer for the discerning who have the confidence to make their choices based on their superior taste and knowledge rather than follow the crowd.
The brand has moved from strength to strength since its re-launch by SABMiller India and has set itself on a growth momentum that is well ahead of the mild beer industry.
The brand has moved from strength to strength since its re-launch by SABMiller India and has set itself on a growth momentum that is well ahead of the mild beer industry.
Overall not a bad brew. Quite enjoyable with a smooth flavour. Moves nicely away from the more watery blonde lagers.
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| Royal Challenge. Notice the Shirt Change! |
It was a great night and a good end to my birthday but apologies for saying we splashed out. The bill was about £9 each. We should do this every night.
Celebrations over and hangovers cured we pack up and move out to the train station for our onward journey towards Darjeeling in the eastern corner of India bordering Nepal. A 16 hour journey already mentally prepared for, or so we thought. Now let’s just take a minute as I know I have gone on about some bad journeys in the past. Let’s scrap them right now. Here goes.
A one hour 12km rickshaw journey to the station and we arrive at 7pm in time for our departure to Siliguri at 9.20pm, to find that straight away the Mahananda Express service was already delayed by 12 hours. Stuck for what to do now we head back to Varanasi to check back into the hotel (another hour with 4 people plus bags crammed into one rickshaw), to be told by the owner ‘why did you book that train it is always late’. Cheers for that mate. That might have helped us 3 weeks ago!!! It wasn’t all doom and gloom as tonight was the start of the Diwali festival, the festival of light where we ended up being able to see the thousands of fireworks being let off into the sky. We get bonfire night after all. Well we had to really with my middle name being Guy after Guy Faulks.
Up in the morning early doors the hotel owner informed us that he had phoned ahead and that the train was on time for 9.20am. That was very nice of him! Oh how wrong he was. We arrived once again on time to find out that the train was delayed a further 5 hours and so the fun began. We ended up spending 13 hours going out of minds with the local rats being told every half hour that it was on its way but they had no idea where it was. An AWOL train must be a first. But we were told that the driver was bad at time keeping. My guess is he was driving backwards. 10pm arrived and unbelievably just before deciding that it was never going to show up, it did. A full twenty five hours late. Hysteria had set in by this point and another couple from Russia that we had met watched that days train pass us by and jokingly said ’do you know what! I think I will wait for yesterdays train’. At least we still had some humour.
When we boarded the train it was clear this was the train that India had forgotten, before realising we were catching the same train back to Delhi in a week’s time. Panic set in but at least we were closer to visiting Darjeeling and a nice cup of tea. Or the best cup of tea in the world. Never mind the tea. A stiff drink or cold beer will be needed once we finally arrived. Sorry no pictures of the day from hell. Far to stressed out to even consider it.
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