Tour of some Banarasi gullies (tiny winding streets)

Two days ago we went on a tour of Banarasi gullies in the north of Banaras. The north part of the city is the oldest and some people only consider the north to be the "real" city of Banaras. Our tour guide was a Minnesotian who moved to India when he was 25 and has now lived in India for 14 years. He started a Christian-Hindu ashram in the northern part of the city and lives there with the swami who works there, too. The ashram's building was about 250 years old. Our tour lasted for about 3 hours and we wandered around in the little twisting gullies to the Ganges and then made our way back. On our way we stopped at a temple dedicated to the wrathful aspect of Shiva. We all went inside and the priests in the temple all had little whip things forcefully grabbed some of us, blessed us aggressively and then demanded money! It was weird.

Banarasi gali.
Cow (gai) in a gully.





Crocodile (magar)
Lion (sher, like Sher Khan from the Jungle Book!)

Spice seller (Masalewala!)
Indian gully. (Hindustani gali!)

Indian squirrel!