We started our time in North India in Varanasi. After relaxing in Kerala, this was quite a shock to the system! Varanasi is completely, fantastically, wonderfully crazy - India concentrated and distilled. The old town is a maze of tiny alleyways, filled with people, monkeys, street vendors, goats, stalls, cows, motorbikes, restaurants, dogs... Beside it all runs the holy (and filthy) River Ganges, filled with pilgrim bathers and cremations along the ghats. A simple wander around takes forever and has you gawping the whole way. Varanasi makes you consider questions you'd never even thought about before - questions like "where do you turn when you're walking down a tiny alleyway, a motorbike is coming up behind you at 30mph, a corpse is being carried by a large procession down the side-alley, and a bull is mounting
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