Trip to city of Lord Shiva (Varanasi)

It was a planned trip, my 5^th semester of engineering got over on 17^th June and then it was around 1 month full off and my granny was insisting us to take her to Varanasi. Although it was just 4 hours journey from Patna but all the members at home were occupied with there work so I decided to take her to Varanasi provided she has to wait till my exams gets over. She agreed and we booked the tickets beforehand via shramjeevi express from Patna to Varanasi, which costed us 740 for 2 persons, 3^rd AC.

As per the schedule, the day came and we boarded in the train, it started somewhere around 10:50 am from Patna and by 3 pm we reached Varanasi. As soon as we stepped out we were covered by a group of guest house/hotel people asking us if we need some hotel or guest house. Getting a guest house is very easy in Varanasi, as soon as you step out from railway station you will find lot of guest houses and irrespective you go in any season the fare difference will not be more then 100-200/- rupees. There are lots of guest houses, hotels around the city and depending on your budget one can easily get a guest house. The starting fare of an okay type guest house is 250/- rupees. Also, in Varanasi there are lots of dharamsalas are there and they give a room starting from 100/- rupees for a day.

Though it was a planned trip so we have already booked a dharamsala where my granny used to go and stay. The dharamsala was located near Assi Ghat in Varanasi. As we stepped out from the railway station, the car send by the dharamsala people was waiting for us. Transportation in Varanasi is not a problem, you can easily get a rickshaw, tempos, buses.

Around 4 pm we were reached dharamsala and had our lunch. Once it was done, I went for a nap whereas my granny went to listen some bhajans in a temple nearby. Around 5 pm I woke up and went to see my granny and from there we headed to Assi ghat to do pooja of holy river ganga. The view of river ganga in evening is overwhelming, you will find lot of people performing there poojas with diyas in there hands. Bhajans, Sanskrit shaloks were going on in some places, as a whole the view is so soothing that you can not think of anything else.

After performing the pooja we went to Ram Mandir Chowk, there is a kachori wala by name Ram Lal Kachori Wala and it is very famous for its kachoris. If you come to Varanasi and don’t have his kachoris then your trip to varanasi is not completed. After having kachoris we headed back to dhramsala, had our dinner and went for a good sleep.

I was taking good dreams when noise of bells inside the temple located in the dharamsala itself woke me up. I took my bath and went to temple, after performing our poojas and breakfast we headed to Assi gaht. Basically Assi ghat is a place where river ganga and asi river are joining and it’s one of the famous ghats in Varanasi. After reaching there once again my granny performed pooja and I was buddy taking photographs of near by places. After finishing off from there, we were on to dasaswamedh ghat which is the oldest ghat of varanasi, again reaching here my granny started her pooja and I again got busy in clicking photographs. Interestingly I found that ghat to be clean, good. My granny was done with her pooja and she insisted me to take her to tulsi ghat, again one of the oldest and famous ghats in Varansi, I retaliated. I told her that since morning we are going around the ghats lets go and do some thing else.

Suddenly striked in my grannie’s mind about the upcoming wedding so she asked me take to Thatheri market. Thatheri market is famous for banarsi sarees shops. Apart from Thateri market there are places like gyan wapi market, dasaswamedh gali, vishwanath gali. These are the place were you can get good variety of banarasi silk sarees starting from rupees 250/- to more then 1 lakh. Basically Varanasi is famous for silk saree and hand made carpets. Actually I hate doing shopping with ladies but that too with old ladies but left with no choice I took my granny to dasawamedh gali as it was close by but after spending couple of hours my granny was not convinced, finally I took her to thatheri market. On the way we went to Sindhi restaurant which is located at Hanuman ghat, I must say whosever coming to Varanasi must visit Sindhi restaurant. Apart from this restaurant I have heard a lot about other restaurants but never got a chance to visit so I can’t comment on that. After having our lunch we went to Thatheri market where again my granny spent couple of hours selecting sarees and after couple of hours hard work she selected 4 sarees and again we headed back to Aasi ghat for our evening pooja. Apart from these ghat there are other ghats as well but those are mainly used for cremation.

After we were done with our pooja we again headed to Ram Lal Kachori wala for Kachoris and after having that we came to dharamsala as usual and had dinner and went back to bed.

Next day as usual we waked up early, my granny did her pooja and we left for station as we were having a train at 9:30 am back to patna.