Varanasi Laundry Service, India

Varanasi (Benares), the city of Shiva is one of the holiest places in india where Hindu pilgrims come to wash away their sins in the Ganges river or to cremate their loved ones.  Mark Twain said it best: “Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together”. This old city is considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It’s an acid trip with no LSD required. It’s a place where anything goes, the unusual is the norm and a place so different from anywhere else on earth.  A couple of hours of walking in Varanasi and you’ll witness the vivid impressions of spirituality and the vibration of life and death.

Over 60,000 people come down to the waters edge every day to take a dip in or drink from the sacred waters of the Ganges. Unfortunately Mother Ganga’s water is septic, with the river being used for many purposes. There’s water buffalo being bathed, dozens of sewage pipes, laundry being washed, pilgrims bathing an occasional sunken corpse. Some ghats are known as burning ghats, where bodies are cremated in full view before their ashes are placed in the Ganges. Life and death.

All hotels in India offer laundry service, and request you don’t wash your clothes in the shower due to the lack of water.  So it was no surprise to see the same sign in the Varanasi guest house I was staying at.  After a stroll along ghats of Mother Ganga’s shore you quickly realize where the laundry is serviced.

Washers spreed a sheet out along the steps of the ghats to be dried.

Sharis dry in the intense heat of Varanasi.

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