Right now I’m with my partner Maja and our boys of four and eight in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh – an ancient and beautiful city that is at the spiritual heart of India, sitting as it does on the banks of the holy River Ganges as she winds her way across the plains from the mighty Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal.
This is no tourist trap, it’s the real India, and for the foreigner a stroll along a street here can bring frustrations such as unruly, constantly honking traffic, rickshaw drivers doing the hard sell, wily street urchins tugging at your heartstrings to open your purse strings and, of course, the heat. Superficially, it’s not an obvious place to take the kids for a holiday.
Make the effort to look beyond the traffic, the poverty and the touts, though, and a wonderful world reveals itself: a shaven-headed baby lies asleep on a seat at the side of the road with a folded rag as a pillow and is fanned tenderly by a priest with saffron robes, chalk-striped forehead and long grey beard.
Metres away small, long-legged goats prance happily, munching fruit peelings and torn strips of newsprint. Past youths playing cricket with great shouts of excitement, gentle black buffalo march, as large and as unstoppable as hippos, to and from the river where they endure the heat of the day bathing among the devout pilgrims who come from all over to ritually cleanse their sins in the sacred water.
A glance skywards reveals a multitude of black kites circling and swooping with their multicoloured paper namesakes over a fantastical cityscape of painted temples and stone mansions that towers like a man-made cliff over a huge bend in the river. As dusk falls, offerings of candles in leaf baskets are released into the current and twinkle among the river boats like stars reflected in the calm waters. It is a very special place.
Culture shock
Although they are by now very well travelled, I have to confess, when we first arrived in India I was initially a little nervous about whether our children would take to such an alien and chaotic environment.
After a few days at our first port of call, Calcutta, which had been a slight culture shock for me after a long stint in Thailand, I quizzed my oldest boy Aron tentatively: “So… what do you think of India, so far?”
“Well, it’s a bit crazy, but I like it, and the food’s really good!” came the contented reply. It seems the big city’s friendly people, fine parathas and dahl, and fresh sugarcane juice had won him over. Little brother Ariel seemed happy too. I was dumbstruck – they were fine, I was struggling.
Eventually, I came to realise that, for our children at least, India isn’t a tough travel destination at all. Finding palatable food is no problem, and many of the country’s quirks that adults see as hassles and concerns merely don’t exist to them. Blaring traffic is exciting, rickshaw touts are offering fun rides in an unusual mode of transport, street kids are merely children and generally quite intriguing, and all the dogs, cows, goats, buffalo and pigs wandering the streets give a surreal storybook feel to a stroll around town.
So, though I’m careful to keep them physically safe, I stopped worrying about their state of mind and got on the with serious business of relaxing Indian style.
Life on the ghats
The subcontinent is moving into early summer now, and it’s getting hot – about 38º C most days. Most tourists, apart from a few diehards, have fled for the cool of the hills or gone back home, but our boys just don’t want to leave.
A big part of this reluctance to go is down our hotel. Which isn’t actually a hotel. By chance, as we squeezed out of the motor rickshaw on the eastern edge of the old city and found our planned accommodation to be cheap but a dump, we came across the Sri Yoga Mandir – a centre for the study of yoga and Ayurvedic medicine but in effect a guesthouse too. And, unlike a similar yoga centre in Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand, they didn’t object to children staying.
Twenty days later, and we are still here; days melting into each other like ghee into the aloo chat that we often eat from the food stall on nearby Assi Ghat: fried potato cakes with mashed chickpeas, chopped tomato and onion and a host of mysterious herbs and flavourings. Street food at its best.
Sometimes we leave early and take in a holy site – such as nearby Sarnath, where the Buddha preached his first sermon – or shop in the narrow, cool bazaars and alleyways of the old city. But through much of the hot day, the kids enjoy horseplay with the playful staff in the Yoga Mandir garden, get on with the schoolwork we set them, and chat with the laid-back breed of tourist that stays here. At the moment, the boys are poring through a comic-book version of the Hindu epic The Ramayana that they chose in a local bookstore. When you are travelling, schooling just happens!
As the sun sets each day, it has become our ritual in this atmospheric city to take a stroll along the stone steps, known as ghats, that lead to the river – watching the day’s last pilgrims as they leave the murky water (clean in spirit if not entirely in body) and the trident-wielding holy men that sit gazing quietly into fires that have burned continuously for thousands of years. As darkness falls, we head home, seeking out the frogs that croak loudly along the water’s edge.
More by luck then judgement, we happen to be in Varanasi during an annual festival of free classical music concerts at the Sankat Mochan temple, dedicated to the Hindu monkey god Hanuman. From 8pm to 6am, some of the nation’s best musicians and dancers commune with the gods as they perform, bringing us mortals some of the sweetest music not just in this country, but in the world. The children sit happily, munching milk sweets called barfi, and jiggle to the staccato groove of the tabla drums.
This doesn’t feel like tourism. We’re living a totally different life for a few weeks; and we’re relaxed and happy and soaking up Varanasi’s rich culture with no effort at all. Very soon, though, the temperature here will climb to over 40º C and the coolness of the Himalayas will send out an irresistible call, but it won’t be without some regret that we will move on.
Staying healthy
• Malaria and dengue fever are present in some parts of India so take medical advice on medications and avoid mosquito bites as much as possible.
• Practise good hygiene: get your kids to wash hands before eating.
• Drink only bottled or sterilised water and drink lots of it to avoid dehydration.
• Clean or peel fruit and vegetables carefully, and avoid salads that have not been washed in clean water.
• See a doctor immediately if any health problems crop up.
• It’s hot: take sun hats and a high factor sunscreen. A travel umbrella in the backpack provides good emergency shelter from rain or sun.
• Be careful walking along the roads: the traffic is very unruly and pavements are often blocked or non-existant.
• Rickshaws are cheap, use them and avoid long, hot marches for your family
• People in India love children, but there is such a thing as too much attention. Be prepared to protect them from over-pinched cheeks
Feeding your kids
• You will find palatable food wherever you go and only unusually fussy children will have any problems eating here (in which case keep emergency food handy).
• Commonly available non-spicy foods are: eggs, fruit, rice, flat breads (naan, chapattis, parathas etc), biscuits and yoghurt. Lentil soup (dahl), some curries (such as korma) and some samosas are often made with little or no chilli.
• Most cities or popular spots will have some sort of tourist-friendly eatery or general stores selling back-up provisions.
• Don’t assume a tourist restaurant will provide better or safer food than Indian street stalls or eateries; often the latter will be far superior.
[This blog post is an article Daniel wrote for Today's Parents magazine, Singapore. All images and text copyright Daniel Palmer/Maja Kardum. All rights reserved.]
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