Things to do in Varanasi
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Yoga Training Centre
Yoga master Sunil Kumar runs two-hour classes three times a day (8am, 10am and 4pm; Rs200) at the Yoga Training Centre, on the 3rd floor of a small backstreet building near Meer Ghat. He teaches an integrated blend of hatha, Iyengar, pranayama and ashtanga, and serious students can continue on certificate and diploma courses. This place is highly recommended by travellers.
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Learn for Life Society
Learn for Life Society, which can be contacted through the nearby Brown Bread Bakery has established a small school for disadvantaged children, and travellers are welcome to turn up and help out. The charity also recently started a women’s empowerment group, offering fair-paid work to local women, some of whom are mothers of the school’s students. The women make produce such as jams and pickles which travellers can buy from Brown Bread Bakery. See the website for more details.
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Baba Blacksheep
Another reasonable option for silk shopping, with similar prices to Mehrotra Silk Factory.
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Brown Bread Bakery
Not only does this place lead the way socially and environmentally – it supports a local school, runs a women’s empowerment group, uses organic produce wherever possible, and refills your water bottles for you (Rs5) – but the food is also terrific. The fabulous menu includes more than 20 varieties of cheese and more than 30 types of bread, cookies and cakes as well as main courses from around the world. The ambience is spot on too, with seating on cushions around low tables and live classical music performances in the evenings. Admittedly, it’s pricier than most, but part of the profits go to the charity Learn for Life.
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Open Hand
A cafe-cum-gift shop with fresh coffee and a range of cakes and snacks plus good-quality clothing and textiles at fixed prices.
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Mehrotra Silk Facto
Tucked away down a tiny alleyway near the Varanasi Junction train station, this pocket-sized, fixed-priced shop is a fun place to buy good-quality silk scarves (from Rs250), saris (from Rs1500) and bedspread sets (from Rs5000). Turn right out of the station, take the first major left turn, then turn left just before the iway Internet cafe and it’s down a small alleyway on your left.
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Madhur Milan Cafe
Popular with locals, this no-nonsense restaurant serves up a range of good-value, mostly south Indian dishes, including dosa, idli and uttapam, and paratha. Thalis start from Rs25, and they have lassis.
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The Ganges River
The River Ganges provides millions of Indians with an important link to their spirituality. Every day about 60,000 people go down to the Varanasi ghats to take a holy dip along a 7km stretch of the river. Along this same area, 30 large sewers are continuously discharging into the river.
The Ganges River is so heavily polluted at Varanasi that the water is septic - no dissolved oxygen exists. The statistics get worse. Samples from the river show the water has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 100mL of water. In water that is safe for bathing this figure should be less than 500!
The problem extends far beyond Varanasi - 400 million people live along the basin of the G…
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Pizzeria Vaatika Cafe
Sit in the shady garden terrace overlooking Assi Ghat while you munch your way through top-notch pizza baked in a wood-fired oven. None of that thick-crust nonsense here – it’s all thin and crispy, as every pizza should be. Don’t forget to leave some room for the delicious apple pie.
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Lotus Lounge
A great place to chill, this laid-back, half–open-air restaurant, with broken-tile mosaic flooring and wicker chairs, has a terrace that juts out over Mansarowar Ghat. The menu’s a mixed bag, with fresh coffee, salads, pasta, curry and even Tibetan momos (dumplings).
reviewed
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River Trips
A dawn rowing boat ride along the Ganges to view the ghats and former palaces from the Ganges is a quintessential Varanasi experience. The best time to make the trip is from 05:30 when it is cool, the early morning light is particularly inspiring and all the colour and clamour of pilgrims bathing and performing puja unfolds before you. An hour-long trip south from Dasaswamedh Ghat to Harishchandra Ghat and back is popular, but be prepared to see a burning corpse at Harishchandra.
Early evening is also a good time to be on the river, when you can light a lotus flower candle (Rs 10) and set it adrift on the water. You can also watch the nightly ganga aarti ceremony at Dasas…
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Canton Restaurant
The AC dining room of Hotel Surya’s excellent restaurant has a colonial elegance, and on warm evenings you can eat out in the garden. The menu is probably a bit ambitious – there are Indian, Chinese, continental, Korean and even Mexican dishes – but the food is good, with some unusual offerings, such as fish Portuguese.
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Vishwanath Temple
This is the most popular Hindu temple in Varanasi and is dedicated to Vishveswara - Shiva as lord of the universe. The current temple was built in 1776 by Ahalya Bai of Indore, while the 800kg of gold plating on the tower and dome was supplied by Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Lahore 50 years later.
There has been a succession of Shiva temples in the vicinity, but they were routinely destroyed by Muslim invaders. Aurangzeb continued this tradition, knocking down the previous temple and building the Gyanvapi Mosque, which still exists inside the temple complex.
The area is full of soldiers because of security issues and communal tensions. Cameras and mobile phones must be deposit…
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Malaviya Bhavan
Four-week physical yoga certificate course and a four-month diploma course that also covers Hindu philosophy. Students must obtain a student visa.
Varanasi has plenty of opportunities for yoga courses, but beware of 'fake' yoga teachers who are mainly interested in a hands-on lesson with young females. Some guesthouses also advertise yoga classes on their rooftops, which are occasionally free to guests.
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International Yoga Clinic & Meditation Centre
Near Man Mandir Ghat but difficult to find, Yogi Prakash Shankar Vyas teaches hatha, pranayama, kriya and spiritual yoga.
Varanasi has plenty of opportunities for yoga courses, but beware of 'fake' yoga teachers who are mainly interested in a hands-on lesson with young females. Some guesthouses also advertise yoga classes on their rooftops, which are occasionally free to guests.
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Eden Restaurant
Hotel Pradeep’s rooftop restaurant, complete with garden, manicured lawn and wrought-iron furniture, is a lovely place for a candlelit evening meal. Note that staircase-weary waiters will be very appreciative if you order at the ground-floor restaurant behind the lobby before heading up to the roof. The good-quality Indian menu is the same in both restaurants.
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Bhasha Bharati Language Institute
The long-running Bhasha Bharati Language Institute, near Chowk police station, offers small classes costing Rs250 per hour, run in one-week blocks of 30 hours. All-inclusive family homestays can be arranged for Rs1350. Students should book courses two weeks in advance. In any case, phoning ahead is helpful as this place is hard to find.
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El Parador
Fancy a buffalo steak, followed by waffles for dessert? Not far from the station this established restaurant, run by a Nepali family, offers something different. It's pricey but with homemade pasta, chicken souvlaki, crepes and Tibetan momos, it's worthwhile. Dine on the rooftop terrace amid the herbs or in the quaint first-floor restaurant.
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Gyan Kupor Well
Gyan Kupor Well. The faithful believe drinking water from the Gyan Kupor Well leads to a higher spiritual plane, though they are prevented from doing so by both tradition and a strong security screen. The well is said to contain the Shiva lingam that was removed from the previous temple and hidden to protect it from Aurangzeb.
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Shri Gandhi Ashram Khadi
On the 1st floor of the row of shops opposite the post office, this unassuming branch stocks shirts, kurta pyjamas, saris and head scarves, all made from the famous khadi fabric, and offers a tailoring service. There’s another branch (called Khadi Gramodyog) near the university.
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Ancient Varanasi and the Ganges
3 days (Varanasi)
Experience the holy city of Varanasi on the banks of the River Ganges where the rituals of life, and death, are carried out on the steps of the ghats. An expert local guide will accompany you through the maze of winding streets to sights including the Bharat Mata Temple and the monkey temple of Durga..
Not LP reviewed
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Varuna Restaurant
As you’d expect from Varanasi’s best hotel, this is one of the city’s top restaurants. Elegant without being stuffy, Varuna’s specialities include classic North Indian and Afghan dishes, the sumptuous maharaja thali and tandoor kebabs. There’s live sitar and tabla music every evening.
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International Music Centre Ashram
The family-run International Music Centre Ashram is hidden in the tangle of backstreets near Rana Ghat but worth seeking out. Sitar, tabla, flute and classical dance tuition is Rs150 per hour, and concerts are held every Saturday and Wednesday evening at 8pm (Rs50).
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Astronomical Observatory
Man Singh built a palace at Man Mandir Ghat in 1600 and in the next century Jai Singh II added this astronomical observatory. Although vaguely interesting it's not on the scale of the observatories in Delhi and Jaipur and it's hard to justify the entrance fee.
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