India , Varanasi

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I arrived in Varanasi yesterday after dark , so I found a hotel room and crashed ,

But I did get up real early this morning and went for a walk along the ghats , Varanasi is considered a very holy city , and the ghats are basically steps that lead down to the river Ganges , but there are many different type's of ghats , some are primarily used for bathing others for clothes washing ,

but many hold particular religious or spiritual significance , thus some ghats people will simply go to and get a little of the holy water on themselves , the most unique ghats to me though are the ones where even early this morning I saw families with the dead body of there deceased relative , preparing to burn the body and have the ashes cast into the Ganges .

Sadly the Ganges is extremely polluted along the ghats of Varanasi , so no bathing in it for me , just a few pics and a stroll past .

I took a lot of photo's today , and the day is feeling long , so I may not caption many of the photo's , I am sure any one that reads this , should be able to determine which ghats people are washing , doing Laundry , etc , at .

I will also throw in some photo's of the city streets directly surrounding the river Ganges , in all of there crowded glory .

I have yet to see a city in India that was not all most suffocatingly crowded , but I am getting more used to it . takes a little time , or at least it has for me .

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Photos

hearth for burning bodies , at a ghat along the Ganges
It was a brisk morning by Varanasi standards , so these dogs were sleeping on the stone hearth that had been warmed the night before , by the Pyre of a cremation .

hearth for burning bodies , at a ghat along the Ganges
It was a brisk morning by Varanasi standards , so these dogs were sleeping on the stone hearth that had been warmed the night before , by the Pyre of a cremation .