Varanasi - Arrival and welcome

My last days have been quite challenging and the most important formal stuff was taking nearly the rest out of me. I was certain: My original plan wasn't about to work out; leaving Nepal at its western boarder, travelling towards Reshikesh. My left over time in Nepal was just too short.

Option B: A back trip to Varanasi

It seemed quit welcoming. It seems anyway, that I get drawn towards some places more than to others. I knew: I had to get my Visa today. Any further delay and I would overstay my allowed stay in Nepal. I knew also: There hasn't been the necessary days past, that it normally takes to get a visa application approved. Not good circumstances at all. I knew even more … I had to take the bus today. I had to leave Nepal today. I had just hours left. I was aware of the consequences of an one day overlay and knew that it wouldn't be that dramatical and more and financial issue. Still … I just didn't need to deal with it and was hoping, it would work out.

I got the visa.

Pretty quick and without any troubles. Still in time after statute, I was also able to catch the bus to the boarder crossing to India. Well, in real Nepali bus driving time? I doubted it, being in time at the boarder.

Well, I just had to hope, that it will work out and that I won't be too late at the boarder crossing. I can't remember lots of this particular bus ride. Some bus stops. Some pictures. Maybe from this ride. Maybe from others. But what's quite present from this ride are my thoughts and wishes all might work out well.

And there I was.

At the boarder crossing.

The bus ride from Kathmandu was over. I don't know for how long I was squeezed in the bus. 12 hours? 14 hours? Even longer? I arrived in the middle of the night. Something between 3 or 4 or 5 o'clock. Nothing reminded me from my first time here. I had no idea where I was, where to go and what to do. I just followed the main stream of people walking towards an imaginary goal in the pitch back dark and remembering happily my first time here with young Pablo, a heart full of excitement and some strangers I shared a tea with, looking forward to what was about to come to me … a new country ahead. Tonight, I was walking blindfolded. Looking desperately for the visa office. What I saw were a lot of armed soldiers and the level crossing, symbolising the boarder between two nations, that are sharing so much similarities. I just slipped through. No one was caring about me or paying any attentions to my blind folded walk through the night and between two nations.

Some how I must have missed the Nepali boarder crossing to 'check Out' and officially leave the country, but there I was standing in front of a small dusty building, showing in flaking off, old letters 'immigration department' written on even older bricks, looking through the dusty window, glazing at an sleep headed Indian. The official opening hours were laying hours in the future. But somehow my torch light must have tickled his nose and the sleep headed Indian was pressing the stamps of visa approval onto my passport pages, granting me my stay in India, before I even could realise what was happening.

Not even two steps away from me and the immigration department stopped a bus. The bus to Varanasi? For now a bus to somewhere, I was about to take. Some tired passengers where waiting also for their ride to nowhere. My adrenalin was still rushing through my veins. I made it! I seriously made it. No delay fee, no problems. I just got my visa granted and was sitting in the bus, waiting for the departure towards my next adventure. How lucky and thankful I felt in this moment .. as well as a little guilty 'cause I haven't 'checked out' Nepal properly.

… and here my guilt and fear was challenging the universal flow. Not before the bus will have left, I wouldn't be able to breezed freely and look forward, with no regrets, to my new destination … and there the universal flow of guilt and fear was manifesting in form of an rude boarder soldier. Just in the moment where I was about to let go and close my eyes, waiting that the bus will leave. This guy was suspicious and in general in a bad mood. Pushing with his gun against my luggage, making me understand to open it for him. The first moment I was in panic. The second I felt awareness that there was nothing the soldier could possible harm me with and peace was overcoming me. I opened the back and felt my lightly peacefulness and understanding radiating towards him. He was expecting the first layers of my luggage, before he was loosing his interest.

The bus was about to leave …

… to Varanasi and a new Work'n'Holiday experience.

I took me about two days from Kathmandu to Varanasi. Most oft the time I was squeezed in busses, letting memories, moments and landscapes passing by and longing for water. My ride from the boarder crossing to Varanasi was one of my longest one. At least it felt like it. I was so thirsty all the time and there was no options to get any water. No open shops. No stops and a burning arising sun, drying me out even more.

I felt a little drained, when I finally arrived in Varanasi and was about to start a new Work'n'Holiday experience in a hostel. I found the hostel quite quick. It was close by the bus and train station, where I arrived. Varanasi itself was crowded. The hostel was located in an unwelcoming dusty alleyway, bending from the main street. There were small stalls and shops all close by as well as a daily market of fruits and vegetables. The hostel itself was very clean and the family was quite welcoming. It was my time to collect as well as time that was mainly blocked with writing. The hostel was family run and located far away from the spectacles of the Ghats and the Ganga.

It didn't felt quite right there. It was like I was bringing restlessness into a balanced place and home. But also I felt a lot of heaviness, sadness and loneliness that was pondering in this walls. Like here was missing the soul. The heart of the place; at least a very important piece that once brought colour, love and laugh into this place and made it a home.

… and I was shortly about to discover what was missing. The families daughter was living her life in Germany, freshly married and being a mum for herself. But she hasn't been home in Varanasi for a very long time, leaving especially her mum behind in her own life. This mother was missing her daughter each single moment of the day.

The place was radiating this atmosphere. This melancholy the mother was carrying in her heart. It was like every time she was passing a room, she was travelling in time, reliving memories, seeing her daughter when she was a toddler by herself.

For some days a family with two little children were staying at the hostel for two nights. It was a loving encounter. There were warm hearted and their children full of life and curiosity. It was nice having them in the house. There was live and laughters in between this walls, that seemed to reach the heaven.

There wasn't so much there wanted me to and the first days they mainly wanted me to rest, relax and recover. I saw bits and pieces what you could do and change here. Small projects. Big projects. There was a lot of potential in this place. But it wasn't my place. It wasn't up t ome to bring back love and life into this mothers heart.

At the end I stayed a week with them, without any memorable accomplishments. We did some backing together. I clean the guest rooms and I was getting a lot of rest … and than I was moving closer to the Ghats and a new adventure was about to begin … changing so much …