Things to Do in Varanasi: A Complete Guide

Varanasi sits on the western bank of the Ganges where the river bends north, one of the only stretches along its entire course where it does so, and that geographical accident shapes everything a visitor sees. The eighty-four ghats lining the waterfront for nearly seven kilometres all face east, so every sunrise lights the stone steps like a stage set. This is a city of roughly 1.2 million people that has been continuously inhabited for more than three thousand years, older than Rome, older than Athens, and that depth is not a marketing claim but something you feel in the compressed lanes of the old city where a silk weaver's workshop shares a wall with a temple that was already ancient when the Mughals arrived. Most first-time visitors stay near Assi Ghat at the southern end or Dashashwamedh Ghat near the centre, and the walk between them along the waterfront takes about forty minutes if you resist stopping, which you will not. The lanes behind Dashashwamedh, known locally as Vishwanath Gali, form a tight corridor of flower sellers, brass shops, and silk merchants leading to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, rebuilt in the eighteenth century by Ahilyabai Holkar after Mughal-era destruction. Mornings begin early because the city does: the pre-dawn aarti at the ghats draws crowds by five, and by seven the chai stalls around Godowlia Chowk are already full. Afternoons go quiet in the heat, and the wise use of that time is the Bharat Kala Bhavan museum at Banaras Hindu University or the Muslim weaving quarter of Madanpura, where Banarasi silk saris are still produced on handlooms in workshops that supply much of the country. Evenings belong to the Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh, a choreographed fire ceremony performed nightly by a row of trained priests before thousands of onlookers.