Varanasi, Benares, or Kashi (City of Light)

(Lauren)

Following our 'grand' entrance into Varanasi, we found our hotel had overbooked and we did not have a room. The owner of the Hotel Alka is a cute man and reminds of Ted (hi Ted). He brought us to his 'other' hotel not directly on the ghats (piers on the ganges), but much nicer and quieter than the one we had chosen. Our room was huge with hot water!! and a nice open air court yard. We spent the day walking along the ghats. Met a nice hippy from Hawaii named Sky and watched the evening puja with him. We tooks some amazing photos (wish I was savvy enough) to post but will when I return to US.

The next day was more exploring, sleeping (still recovering from jet lag) We treated ourselves to a lavish visit at the Hotel Surya where we both got Ayurvedic massages and ate at their plush restaurant overlooking the garden.

The energy in Varanasi is not as positive as I remember it for these last two days. I think due to Holi, the men are totally WASTED and I mean totally. Liked massive amount of a moonshine equivalent, hash, and tobacco. My theory is b/c sexuality is repressed here and most men only have sex with the wives (often arranged) and maybe some prostitutes, when a big holiday like Holi come they go out of their minds and feel free to act recklessly. The Indian women seem to know this and stay shut in, but since this was our only time in Varanasi, I and other western women were out and about. Many Indian men already view western women as loose with their sexuality... and so the combo of all of this leads to trouble for the traveling ladies. Hence I was grabbed about 4 times by random men and many countless comments were made. I was able to overlook most of this, but did get mad at Steve on several occasions for not defending my honor. I'm not sure what I expected him to do, but he did nothing and that pissed me off. I believe he had no idea what to do and was totally unprepared to deal with this kind of attack. In retrospect if he had done anything it probably would had made the situation worse.

The worst grab was a group of men who came up behind me and once grabbed my butt, I turned around and began beating him and yelling every mean thing I could invent in the moment. Steve had no idea what was happening. It's actually funny, Indian men try these type of things and then when you confront them, they become babies and apologize and run away. Still at the time, I was not laughing and hit Steve out of frustration and then broke down in the restaurant a few moment later bawling. I think its just the feeling of violation is overwhelming, scary, and leaves on in a state of feeling very very far from home.