One of the oldest living cities in the world- VARANASI / BANARAS! (Part-1)

From the god's own city- Sacred Banaras which I got opportunity to visit couple of months ago gave me amazing stories, memories and peace of mind.
Since there is a lot to cover, we will wrap this experience into two parts making it readable for you all.

You must have heard about Lord Shiva! The creator and destroyer of world as per Hinduism, So it is said that this city belongs to him.

As you know India is diverse land you will find different ethnicity, culture in each and every state. I belong to large metropolitan city- Delhi. So it's all about fast moving, lots of amenities, great hangout spaces and what not! But on the the contrary when I along with my family visited Banaras, It was all about slow life, low heighted large houses, lots and lots of temples around and barely a few commercial centres.

As our train arrived at the Varanasi station we took rikshaw to the heart of the city- kashi vishvanath temple area.

The station is so well maintained even though it being the travel heavy city, and it had a train coach as a restaurant in the compound of station, The restaurant as you see the glimpse , is amazingly decorated and the food was just top notch.

That's the main chowk where people only visit if they want to visit temples or they wish to visit ghats(a passage to river) here it's passage to holy Ganga river.

So, upon reaching there we already had prebooked hotel room. After fresh n up we went shopping as our main visit to Kashi temple was booked next morning 4 am.
we had a day to spare, which we utilised by shopping, this place is extremely popular for saree garments and traditional wear.

Let me keep on sharing some of the glimpse of passages and market. also there were so many foreigners here.

That's my mom btw :)

The alleys had such a beautiful vibe to it. mostly the buildings were renovated and some were still intact with how they were years and years ago.
Mostly pink colored facades with mouldings of old style of architecture.
Sometimes I wonder did modernism sucked all beauty of details?

That's a beautiful old building renovated and now used as post office.

Anyways, moving ahead let me take you to the-
Oldest shop in the market-

There are total of four things that shows how old and how well maintained this shop is-

1. The pelmets- You see those wooden plants with trims painted golden are actually palmets and they just not hold and hide rods but tubes as well.
2. The high ceiling with decorative columns are a big give away of how it's well painted and maintained.
3. The showcases for garments are niches made inside walls with wooden trim and glass enclosures, they are actually not found these days mostly there are open minimalistic racks for clothing.
4. The owner himself selling clothes along with their sales team. He told us tales of his great grandfather making this shop and him taking his legacy till date.

How astonishing are these spaces. It's not that every other shop is like this, but this one was a rare gem and we actually purchased sarees and suits from here.

Corns were super common there and they were roasted on coal we call it BHUTTA it's super delicious and healthy snack off course.
So, after a long shopping spree we all went to hotel room, relaxed and went out again for a nearby mandir visits.

It was such a blessing to have spend day1 in the beautiful city Banaras/ varanasi.
We ended our day with lots of local tasty food and then planned next day. we just had two days .
Next day will be main kashi temple visit then Kashi vishvanath corridor and later infamous banaras hindu university.
I am super excited to share my amazing experiences of day2

So much more to uncover...... till then here's glimpse of day-2/ part-2 of the blog-

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