This Is A Lake - A travel blog

If you remember, today I was booked on a tour to Sarnath, having more or less seen all of Varanasi yesterday. It’s learning time! Sarnath, which is a town just 10 km north of Varanasi, is one of the four first holy sites of Buddhism, based on the major events of Buddha’s life. The first is Lumbini, in modern-day Nepal, where prince Siddhartha Gautama was born. The second is Bodh Gaya, in Bihar, India, where he achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha under the bodhi tree. The third is here, in Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh, where Buddha gave his first sermon and thus started Buddhism. The fourth is Kushinagar, also in Uttar Pradesh, where Buddha is said to have died/achieved Nirvana at the age of 80. Nowadays, Sarnath has become a Buddhist pilgrimage destination and has given rise to many different denominations of Buddhist temples all around its main attraction, an ancient archaeological site and museum. It was a sunny morning, and the drive took probably half an hour, alth...

This guest house may have more charm than I needed -I slept well, but it was super noisy with people coming and going outside since the crack of dawn! My only plan for the morning was to walk around Varanasi and get a feel for the place, so I took my sweet time with breakfast before going out to a warm and sunny morning. Some background on Varanasi: also known as Benares or Banaras, it is the holiest city in India, believed to be the home of Lord Shiva, the Destroyer. It is also one of the most ancient cities in the world. Its most notable features are its ghats, which are the stone steps that descend from the city and into the Ganges. The whole length of the river’s West bank is made of different ghats, each one with its own name and purpose. Some are bathing ghats, where people (well, I only saw men) dip or swim into the Ganges to receive its blessing. It goes without saying that I don’t want to touch a single drop of that water -I’m on the record as saying you’ll di...