हम गये बनारस - We visited Varanasi
This is a travel blog recount of our three and a half day visit to Varanasi. I won't bore you with the history of the city, as that can be read from other sources on the internet. Here I have narrated our pilgrimage along with names and/or contact details of hotels, restaurants, boat bookings, taxi drivers. I have also mentioned day wise places to visit along with applicable timings.
My mother wanted to visit Kashi and offer her prayers to the revered Shivji (Kashi Vishwanath) the presiding deity at Varanasi. She had expressed her desire a year back in 2022. As soon as I received the holiday calendar from my office I checked available long weekends and the nearest suitable date was during the Hindu new year of Gudi Padwa on 22nd March 2023 that fell on a Wednesday. Taking train from Bangalore was out of question as it would take 46 hours to reach. So we booked flight tickets. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11:50 am from Kempegowda International Airport Bangalore and reach Varanasi at around 2:30 PM. However, luckily for us, we reached half an hour early at 2 PM. Its a general practice of Indigo airlines to declare arrival timings 15 to 30 mins later so that they can claim they have landed before time.
I had done some internet search on how to visit the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, its timings, procedure, ticket bookings etc. There is a facility called "Sugam Darshan" which is VIP visit. You need to book tickets in advance online from this website. You need to create an account and enter your contact email address. The ticket will be emailed to you. The ticket price is 300 Rs per person. We had booked 3 tickets in the time slot of 5pm to 6pm. There are many services that the temple trust provides such as "Mangal Aarti" which takes place at 3 am in the morning, Bhog aarti etc. You can avail any of such services online from the same website mentioned above. Nowadays, Mangal Aarti can be booked only 15 days in advance. There is no facility of Immediate or same day booking. These rules and situations change and you can inquire about the same by sending a chat message on this Whats App number: +91 6393131608.
As we reached Varanasi airport by 2:15 pm on 22nd March, 2023, we had enough time to check-in to our Hotel room and change to the prescribed dress code to be followed to visit the shrine. We took a pre-paid taxi from the airport to our hotel which cost us 700 Rs. The taxi driver name is Mr. Pandey and his contact number is 8874031266. You can contact him to arrange for your rides to and from Varanasi to airport or nearby sight seeing. We did not avail his service as we had booked another taxi service (from my fathers office contacts). I cannot share details of that taxi service, but there are plenty of agencies in Varanasi that provide taxi. Our taxi driver charged us 10 Rs/Km with minimum run of 200 Kms per day. Thats 2000 Rs per day, which might seem costly but we can call up the taxi any time we want especially useful when you want to attend the mangal aarti at 3 am in the morning or start your morning boat ride at 6 am in the morning.
We stayed at Hotel Jade Inn on Central Jail road and the rooms cost us 3000 Rs per night including GST. Breakfast was included. The rooms were clean, toilet and bath was clean no foul smell, AC and geyser was functional. Breakfast was good. Service was good. Hotel was 5 kMs from the Temple. We took an auto-rickshaw which dropped us at "Maidagin" crossing. You can google it on maps. Vehicles are not allowed beyond this point and you need to either walk or take a hand rickshaw till the temple gates. Temple is around 800 mts from Maidagin crossing. We walked all the way to the temple Gate 4. Then went to the Vishwanath Trust Help center few metres from the temple gate 4. We showed our ticket print out to the in-charge and he assigned a Panditji to us to take us to the temple. They also provided a locker to keep our belongings. Mobile phones, purse, wallets belts, bags etc are not allowed inside the temple premises. They also gave us prasad boxes. By the time we started towards the temple it was 4 pm, and right on time for the "Sparsh Darshan" where devotees are allowed to touch the Shiv lingam. Panditji took us through security and asked us to join one of the devotee queues near the shrine. Here I must mention that the queue management is pathetic. instead of having a single queue for VIP darshan, they have 4-5 queues and all queues converge at a small gap near the shrine, where only one person is allowed to move forward. So there is utter chaos and chance of altercation at the gap and the police isn't interested in managing it. The trust employees themselves suggest devotees to fight it out instead of managing the rush. Somehow me and my parents managed to cross the gap and took darshan of the Lord. My mother however in the chaos couldn't touch the shivling, so panditji suggested us to request the police guard to allow my mother to have one more darshan. Luckily the guard obliged and mother could take another quick darshan. I would advise to take "Sugam Darshan" tickets instead of going for the common darshan, as there is lot of rush even for the VIP darshan. Many devotees are not able to complete there darshan in the common line due to the rush.
It was 6 pm and we had to go to the "Ganga Aarti" at dashashwamedh Ghat. We followed the sign boards through the narrow lanes of Varanasi going with the flow of heavy traffic. We reached Dashashwamedh Ghat and took a spot where we could clearly see the Ganga Aarti. The aarti happens daily and a huge crowd gathers to witness it. There are boats near the ghat that take devotees to see the aarti from the front. We did not see the complete aarti as it was becoming late and it was too crowded. We had already witnessed Ganga Aarti at Rishikesh and Haridwar so it was not something new to us. It was 7:15 pm and we came back from the ghat towards the market area and google maps was showing "Deena Chat Bhandar" nearby. It is a well known shop in Varanasi. So we went there to have chat and falooda. Tomato chat is a new dish to try out in Varanasi. Apart from that, Tikki chat, papdi chat and kulfi falooda is also delectable. We took an auto-rickshaw from the shop back to the hotel. We did not have dinner that night and slept early.
On 23rd march, early morning at 5:30 am the taxi driver picked us from the hotel to ravidas ghat. Earlier before coming to varanasi, I had booked a morning boat ride from Varanasi Boat Booking contact 9120657980. It costs 2000 per family or group and you need to pay half the money in advance. At 6:30 am the boat ride starts from the Ravidas ghat. It takes an hour or more on a diesel boat steering along the banks of Ganga where you can view all the ghats till Manikarnika Ghat. Each ghat has a different story and history and significance. After reaching Manikarnika ghat the boat returns back to ravidas ghat. You can read about the different ghats in the internet. But Manikarnika ghat and Harishchandra ghat is where there is constant burning of dead bodies. You can also see the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor Gate 1 opening on the banks of the Ganga. We could see devotees taking a dip in the ganga on many ghats. Although the water of Ganga at Varanasi is not suitable to take a bath or drink. Still its peoples faith that guides them in following age old customs.
After the boat ride we went back to the hotel to take breakfast. At 9:15 am we left hotel towards Banaras Hindu University Campus (BHU). We visited the Bharat Kala Bhawan Museum. Mobile phones and wallets/purse etc were not allowed and locker facility was available. The paintings rock sculptures kept at the museum are vary old. The paintings are worth seeing. There is another temple dedicated to Lord Shiva inside the BHU campus. We visited that and luckily we were present just before closing hours. Just before closing there was a small procession where Pujaris played the "Dumroo" (Shiva's Instrument). The sound of the dumroo is such that you can not hear anything else in the hall and it creates a moment of peace within your mind. Afterwards, we went to visit the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple, however it is closed from 12 noon to 3 PM, so we decided to check out Ramnagar Fort.
The fort is on the eastern bank of Ganga and need to take a bridge to cross the Ganga. The royal family still lives in the fort. The ticket is 75 Rs per person. It has huge collection of vintage cars, carriages, palaquins, carts, pistols, canons, swords, bows arrows, royal clothes. The vintage car collection however is not well maintained, atleast they could have dusted the cars. You can walk on one of the bastions of the fort and view the Ganga and its banks. We had rabdi lassi outside the fort and it was just too good. Afterwards we returned to sankat mochan hanuman temple and this time only my parents went inside, I was feeling sick due to the sun and exhaustion. After the hanuman temple, Tulsi Manas Temple was on our way back, however that too was closed and would open at 4 Pm, we decided to skip it and go to Bharat Mata Mandir, which was close to our Hotel. The Bharat mata mandir has a huge map of Indian Subcontinent on the ground, made of cement. It shows the himalayas, sri lanka and various mountain ranges in India. We returned back to our hotel and called it a day.
Next day, 24th March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was visiting Varanasi. So it was impossible to plan any sight seeing within the city. So we decided to view few spots outside the town, like Rajdari and Devdari waterfalls. They are around 65 kms from the City. The waterfalls were completely dry however, they did seem to be a nice picnic spot. Then we went to Chunar Fort which also has a long history going back to 16th Century. We could see a shallow sand bank of Ganga near the fort, so we went there and dipped our feet. We returned back to the city and had chat and Pani puri at Baba chat bhandar. The pani puri was superb, chat was excellent. We also had warm fresh Rasgullas from adjacent Bengal sweet house. We returned back to our hotel and called it a day.
The last day of our trip 25th March was also going to be packed with visits. We had missed the Kaal Bhairav Mandir near Maidagin Crossing. Also we had not seen the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor. So we started at 9 am and first reached the Kaal Bhairav temple. As usual the queue management was pathetic. We almost went in a wrong direction and wasted some time joining the correct queue. Later we went inside the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor. We had to take a hand rickshaw from Maidagin crossing to gate 4. The corridor is huge, at the beginning you can see the Gyanwapi Mosque then later few small temples such as dedicated to Lord Hanuman. Further we can see the shrine where mobiles, bags, etc are not allowed, but the corridor can be explored with mobiles to take snaps. There is a statue of Devi Ahilyabai Holkar who established the new Kashi Vishwanath temple in the 17th Century. The original is said to be demolished by Aurangzeb where the Gyanwapi Mosque was constructed. There is a statue of Adi Shankaracharya, who is instrumental in spreading Hinduism to all corners of India. Further we can see the ghat and the viewing galleries. The banaras ghat road also starts from here. You can walk all 80 ghats from Manikarnika to Ravidas ghat on the ghat road. There is a food court inside the corridor. Juices, snacks and other varieties are available. Our last stop of the trip was Sarnath which is 20 Kms from varanasi. It is the place where Gautam Buddha gave his first Sermon. Where the first conversion to buddhism happened. The ruins date back to 6th Century BC, 2500 years old. It is advised to hire a GOI sponsored guide, else there is nothing much one can make out of the ruins. You must hear the stories associated with ruins of sarnath. We reached the airport from sarnath at around 6:30 pm for our return flight to Bangalore. It was a memorable experience and if time permits, I will definitely visit banaras again, for some different agenda like exploring the ghats deeper. Until next time.
Few points of advise:
People here like to break rules, specially the devotee queues, so one has to be vigilant. The city has become quite clean and the foul smell has reduced, ghats have become very clean, can't say much about the Ganga, so not advised to drink water. Better avoid taking bath. Vehicles (4 wheelers, auto rickshaws) are not allowed near the market, corridor and beyond maidagin crossing. Depending upon your priorities choose a hotel. For instance, the next time we visit kashi, we will not be revisiting the sights again, our priority will be the darshan and markets, so we will choose a Hotel like Alka, Ganapati guest house and such. Inquire the temple trust a month before about the timings, dress code etc.