Ganges River - Varanasi

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Our 14 hour overnight train ride brought us to the holy city of Varanasi. The 3-tier sleeping bunks were the best in the entire train, that is they were cushioned. The compartments are not like the ones in Europe that have a door you can close. It's entire wagon of rows and rows of 3 tier bunks with no curtains or doors, so you can hear everyone talking and snoring. I climbed up to the 3rd bunk on top and stayed there until the morning. Our luggage was stored underneath the 2 bottom bunks.

Varanasi is supposed to be the oldest inhabited city in the world. We took tuktuks to the ghats (the steps which go into the Ganges river) where people pray and bathe. The 2 km distance took us about half an hour because of the masses of people and other tuktuks on the narrow roads. If you can envision how many people are in Times Square in NYC, multiply that by about 1000 and you've got Varanasi. At night the holy men have pujas, which is some type of hindu ceremony that cleanses people of their bad karma. I'm sure there's a lot more to it then that but that's what i've learned so far. Sitting high on a tuktuk gave me a great view for photographs but the pollution was horrible. This morning we woke up at 5am to watch the sun rise over the ghats in small wodden paddle boats which we got on from one of the ghats. It is thought that Hindus should come and bathe in the holy river at least once in their lifetime. There are also ghats specially designated for cremations, as all hindus are cremated. It is believed that if you're body is cremated here, and your ashes thrown into the river you're bound for the heavens, or to a good reincarnation. We watched men carry a body wrapped in gold colered cloth to one of these ghats to be cremated. There's said to be on average, about 350 cremations every day here on these Ghats. So the fish and people that swim in this river are really swiming with the ashes of others. I know it sounds grim, but there's something mystical about it.

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