Varanasi is not braced for you
Most places a traveller goes have arranged themselves, at least a little, around being visited. Varanasi has not. It is a working city of pilgrimage that has been doing the same thing for longer than almost anywhere else on earth, and you are standing at the edge of it.
That is the whole reason to go, and it is also why people arrive defended — having been told it will be overwhelming, they spend the first morning managing themselves instead of looking.
Go at dawn, on the water, and say nothing for the first half hour. The city does not need explaining while it is happening. It needs explaining afterwards, which is what a good guide is actually for.
