Varanasi - Burning Ghats and food poisoning

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Varanasi - November 07

Varanasi is considered by Hindu's to be a very holy place and a lot of people want to die there because they believe this will break the rebirth cycle. Because of this, a lot of elderly people make the pilgrimage here and there are around 2 or 300 cremations a day. The cremations take place on the burning ghats at the side of the holy river, the Ganges.

We took a boat ride down the Ganges and it was very strange and a bit uncomfortable to see dead bodies being burnt in public. The Ganges itself was very dirty with sewers pouring into it, we even saw a dead buffalo in there ! People still bath in it, wash clothes and even drink it because its holy. Religion is a strange thing.

We didn't see much else of Varanasi as i then got a dose of bad food poisoning ( which was to come back to haunt me whilst treking in Nepal ) and i just saw the bathroom for the rest of our time there. Cabbie went out to explore a bit more but wasn't overly impressed and informed me i wasn't missing much.

We then headed off on a mission to get to Katmandu which involved a train ( fine ) a bus ( scary ) and then a minibus ( cramped and scary ! )

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Photos

Cricket - anywhere and everywhere !
McCabe didn't get chance to show his skills here

Flower seller
I was had by an 8 year old ! You can see my purchase getting soggy on the right

Our boatman
Burning ghat is in the background on the left