Varanasi by Cab: The Ghats, Aarti & Sarnath
Eighty-odd ghats along a four-kilometre curve of the Ganga. Sunrise on the water, the evening aarti from a boat, and how to handle a city no car can enter.
Varanasi is 320 km from Lucknow — about six hours now that the Purvanchal Expressway carries most of the distance — and 125 km from Prayagraj. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth, and it is organised entirely around the four-kilometre curve of the Ganga and the eighty-odd ghats stepping down to it. Nothing about it runs on a schedule that suits a two-hour visit.
The two ends of the day
Dawn on the water is the thing to do first. Boats leave from Assi Ghat around sunrise and drift north past Harishchandra and Manikarnika; the light on the west-facing ghats at that hour is the reason every photograph of this city looks the way it does. Assi Ghat also runs Subah-e-Banaras, a sunrise programme of aarti and classical music. In the evening, the Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat starts around a quarter to seven, and the practical way to see it is from a boat on the river rather than from the steps, where you will be standing behind several thousand people.
The temple, the corridor and the lanes
Kashi Vishwanath is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, and since the corridor opened in 2021 the approach has changed completely — a broad walkway now connects the temple directly to Lalita Ghat, where before there was only a warren of lanes. Security is airport-grade and phones are not permitted inside; there are free lockers at the entrances. Around it, the old city is a maze that no car can enter. Vehicles stop at the Godowlia crossing and everything from there is on foot, which is the correct way to see it anyway.
Sarnath, and a word about the burning ghats
Sarnath is 10 km north, where the Buddha gave his first sermon after enlightenment. The Dhamek Stupa and the excavated monastery ruins take an hour, and the archaeological museum next door holds the Ashokan lion capital that became the national emblem; the museum is closed on Fridays. Back at the river, Manikarnika and Harishchandra are working cremation ghats. Photography there is prohibited and enforced, guides offering to take you closer for a donation should be declined, and the correct posture is to keep walking.
October to March is the season. Dev Deepawali on Kartik Purnima in November, when every ghat is lit with earthen lamps, is the most spectacular night of the Varanasi year and needs hotel bookings months ahead. Given that the old city is unreachable by car, the useful cab plan is a driver who drops at Godowlia or Assi, waits, and handles the Sarnath run separately — YantraCabs covers Varanasi from Lucknow, Prayagraj and Ayodhya as fixed-fare outstation routes.
