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Published: March 22nd 2010
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8/2/10: We got up at 9:00 to have some breakfast and get ready for the ghats of Varanasi. We were going to hire a guide to take us around Varanasi to explain the history, temples and the spiritual side of burning the body’s on the Ganges but with the 350rs/person seemed very steep so we didn't commit to anything just yet and decided to scope out the town first. We were both were curious about the ghats and finding out that our hotel backed almost right onto the Ganges river made it a quick minutes walk into another part of India that anywhere in the world could not match. Being one of the oldest cities in the world it was also very original and you could see that this was a very holy city just by walking through the hundreds of tight alleyways onto the ghats that stretch as far as the smoke hazed atmosphere would let you. We watched for 15min as Indians and cows came down to wash and drink from the septic Ganges water. I crouched down beside a cow to take a photo and with the cow looking at me from eye level only half a meter
away he put his head down and charged. I was lucky I was paying attention because the cow tried to have another go and I was forced to run down the hill into the Ganges mud and then back out again getting septic mud all over my boots. Jacinta just laughed as hard as she could and wished she had caught it on camera. I washed the toxic mud from my boot before they dissolved them. We had to stock up on supplies and visiting a small mall proved useless. We had a man approach us to see his silk factory, of course this resulted in looking at silk scarfs, then bed spreads then finally bed sheets. We ended up walking out of their spending 20000rs on three top quality hand woven silk bed spreads pillows, cushions and sheets that take a month each to make and a beautiful scarf for Jacinta. This took most of the day and we didn’t get to go to another mall called IP mall were we intending on visiting. The whole business was run by family and had been past down many generations. They were not pushy and let you make your own decision
without pressure. The taxi driver in Kolkata came back to bite Jacinta as her throat started to really bother her and not being able to get some lozenges made it really uncomfortable for her. I was feeling rather unwell and with a quick bathroom stop just before dinner revealed I had severe diarrhoea again. I basically could not stop going to the toilet and must have went two dozen times during the night resulting in very bad dehydration. This time I took antibiotic straight away and only had to endure this for 12 hours. Jacinta ended up catching the flu and with a full packed headache and severe sinus she felt absolutely terrible.
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