Varanasi - The land of Shiva

Varanasi - Kashi is the most attractive place to visit. This is one city that is worth traveling as many times as you can- “older than history, older than tradition. A Varanasi trip is considered incomplete if you do not witness the Gange Aarti that is performed each evening at the Ghats by priests.

This was my first family trip after covid , me my mother my sister and my nephew and we all were very excited for this journey.  We booked a train to reach there and shiv ganga express is the fastest train for this route , delhi- varanasi.
Our train departure time was at 8.05pm from New Delhi and we planned to leave home around 6 pm . We went to metro station and we don't have the metro cards so I need to buy the tokens for the metro but when I reached there I have seen a long queue and we was in hurry so I requested a man for tickets as we were getting late, thankfully he allowed me for tickets and I bought tokens and get a sign of relief . We boarded our metro and around 7.30 pm we reached at new delhi metro station from there 15 min walk towards new delhi railway station.  Me and my nephew took almost all the luggage with us and my mother and sister just followed us. We reached on platform on tune 7.50pm and just find our seats and placed our bag properly. Train was on right time and first thing we did was our dinner and then some gossip . After departure within 15 min our TT has came and checked the seats after that we slept.

It's 5am my sister alarm was buzzing and I ignored my train arrival time was 6.20 am . I already spoke at my hotel to early check-in and they were agreed for it. Around 5.50 I woke up and checked the train status in my app it was before time and I was happy because earlier the train scene was very bad . They are getting  late always. This is  the image for train in everyone's mind , but our train was before time and we arrived around 6.10 am.  Now a times train  station scenes are changed and lot of developments are visible it was beautiful clean railway station at varanasi.  We took some pictures and after that took a auto for our hotel.  For varanasi I prefer auto,  etm rickshaw or rickshaw for smooth transport. We booked a 4 star property The India Benaras in cantt area we reached at hotel it was a smooth early check in . The staff was humble and coperative. We freshen up and took some rest and had a cup of tea. Varanasi is famous for local food so near to our hotel a very famous shop exists by name The ram bhandar so we decided to take our breakfast there and we left hotel around 10.30am . Kachori , Jalebi chaat are famous food for varanasi so we had our breakfast and took a e Rickshaw for the famous temple The kashi vishwanath. A lot of local auto Rickshaw are there , you can book reserve them for your city travel. They were allowed before 1 -2 km to the temple premises area.
There are many shopkeeper offers lockers for phones and bags bcz no electronics item are allowed in temple. Around temple there is huge market where you got ancient items , banarasi sari, banarasi paan , lassi etc..
We did some shopping 🛍  sarees for my mother and sister and kurta pajama for nephew and then went to manikarnika ghat gangaji darshan.
It was around 3pm We were tired and decided to back to hotel for some rest 😴 . We all took a good nap and ready again around 5 30pm for our next destination.  We left our hotel and we were hungry so we went to ram bhandar shop and it's time for chaat in varanasi a lot of otem was there tikki chaat, tomato chaat,golgappe etc. We had all of them  and it was so yummy for our tummy after that we booked a auto for assi ghat for ganga aarti.  Your varanasi trip is incomplete if you have not seen this holy  Ganga aarti around 7 we reached there and we saw we were late but we got the place near the priest area. Lot of people watching aarti from the boat.  It was a divine experience.  Around 8.30 we took a rickshaw to return and after we had some khichdi for dinner . My nephew was very excited to know mausi what's the plan for next morning.
The old narrow lanes of Varanasi and their houses are fascinating.
We need to change our hotel as well bcz this hotel was booked for one night only.so we slept around 10 pm 😴.

It's 3rd day of our trip and I offered them to getup early and we will do boating in ganga and visit varanasi ghat by boat but all are tired so I shift the plan for next morning and day 3 we decided to visit famous Banaras Hindu University and some famous temple. We got ready by 9.30 and left our hotel with our luggage packed and moved our luggage to reception.  This time I booked a ola auto for fixed price and saved time from negotiations.  Our auto arrived and we reached to BHU university for new vishwanath temple and visited the university. My mother liked the new temple and their artitech after that we had brunch outside temple. There are lot of small vendor shops for food and chaat. We had the best cold coffee at om Cafe in BHU campus area. It's around 1.00pm and we need to change our hotel so we booked a ola auto and took our luggage and shifted to next hotel the benaras kothi hotel in cantt area. This hotel was near to a JHV mall in benaras we reached at hotel did formalities and took some rest for 2 hrs . It's a tea time took tea for some local vendor went to the mall for some food and shopping. Then we decide to go for kashi vishwanath temple again as I was not the part for yesterday darshan we reached there around 7.30 pm and submitted our phones to locker and stand up in a queue for darshan . After darshan had some chaat and kulhad milk and then back to our hotel. Next day  we had our train scheduled around 10.10 pm so we had lots of time with us . So we decided to early morning boat ride banaras darshan.

We woke up around 6 am and left for the boat ride at assi ghat area , for breakfast there are lot of street vendor offers dosa , idly chai etc we had some idly , nariyal pani n dosa and took the boat ride  around 50 minutes rides. My mother enjoyed it  and the weather was good becuse yesterday night it's rained . After that we went to sankat mochan hanuman temple and then back to our hotel for checkout .
We decide to wait at mall area and will smdo some window shopping . We did the same and around 8pm we reached to railway station .