Day 8 - Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh

The one activity that you should not miss in Varanasi is a boat ride on Ganges River in the early morning. Why in the early morning is, sunrise over the Ganges is just beautiful and an unforgettable experience. We hired a small boat with couple of other people, and explored the Ghats on riverside. Again, we needed a short discussion for bargaining before getting ride, just the same as other markets. During the exportation in River Ganges, you might see group of people praying to sun god, performing meditation, taking customary holy dip, or even the bigger boat where people trying to sell small souvenirs to tourists. Also Ghats that we just enjoyed exploring yesterday was seen from the boat. The boat delivered us the other side of river, and then the city tour of Varanasi started.

Boat Ride on Ganges1

Boat Ride on Ganges2

Boat Ride on Ganges3

First place to visit is Ramnagar Fort , which is the ancestral home of the Maharaja of Banaras. The architecture of this fort is a fine combination of Islamic and Indian style. There are temple and museum, and this museum is displaying the old silver and brocade palanquins, gold-plated elephant howdahs, an astrological clock, macabre elephant traps and an armoury of swords and old guns. We took a boat again to get back the other side of the river.

Ramnagar Fort1

Ramnagar Fort2

Next place is Benaras Hindu University which has an art gallery and the mosque of Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb. BHU has huge campus where over 12,000 students lives, and well-recognized and the most important university in India.

Benaras Hindu University1

Then we visited Durga Temple and Bharat Mata temple. Durga temple is locally called Monkey Temple because of a huge population of monkeys. – It reminds of Jaigarh Fort in Jaipur. It is built by Queen of Bengali Maharani in the 18th century in Nagara style which is North Indian style of temple architecture, and dedicated to the Hindu goddess Durga. Goddess Durga has kept this place for many centuries and protects this holy city of Varanasi from the South.

Durga Temple

Bharat Mata temple

We took an express train to Mumbai. It was the longest train journey that I have ever had; about 26 hour.