Varanasi

After the overnight train we arrived in the morning and done our usual, breakfast, shower and nap.

We had some issues with the hotel which meant that it was early evening before we could go anywhere, on the plus side however the hotel arranged a complimentary driver to bring us to the Ganga aarti ceremony at Dasaswamedh Ghat. This is a Hindu (river worship ceremony) fire and dance ceremony staged here every evening at sunset. The atmosphere was very festive with hoards of people everywhere, there was as many people sitting in boats on the river to watch the ceremony as there was sitting on the ghat. This is also where people buy candles surrounded by flowers which they light and watch float down the river as an offering to the gods. We managed to get a good viewing point, admittedly we had to pay for it and the whole thing was fascinating to watch. It's hard to believe that such a crowd of people is drawn to it every single evening.

After the ceremony we headed back to the hotel with the driver in chaotic traffic. Varanasi is probably the worst place we've been for traffic. There's more cycle rickshaws and a lot less tuk tuks which seemed to make it more difficult for cars to get through the traffic. Even the police posted at interactions seemed to struggle with the chaos, their attempts at directing traffic err futile. By the time we got back it was time for dinner and an early night, we'd a boat ride arranged to see sunrise the following morning which was well worth the early start.

We watched the sun come up over the river and the ghat's come alive with people bathing and doing their washing. I wouldn't wash my feet in the water it was so dirty but there was people washing their teeth in it and I'm not sure how they got the cloths clean but they didn't actually look too bad laid out in the sun to dry.

After breakfast out driver arrived and brought us to see some of the local temples which were very ordinary in comparison to those we'd seen to date. After the temples we were brought to a silk factory where we saw silk being woven both by hand and mechanically and surprise surprise we were then taken to the owners shop and shown his wares over some chai tea. You couldn't argue some of the pieces were gorgeous and very cheap in comparison to prices back home but we managed to escape with buying a couple of scarves.

With our early start we called it a day quite early and headed back for a nap before dinner and an early night.

The following morning we walked the ghats along the river to Manikarnika Ghat which is the main burning ghat where Hindus are cremated. You can watch the cremation but for obvious reasons photography is not permitted. We watched with curiosity, the body is brought through the streets on a bamboo stretcher to the ghat where it's first doused in the river before being taken from the stretcher and laid on a pile of wood and burned. The wood is weighed to work out the cost of the cremation and the different types of wood vary in cost. The whole thing seemed very impersonal and only seem to have included males.

We spent the rest of the afternoon following some lunch wondering the narrow streets and browsing the street stalks before heading for yet another overnight train which was to be our last in India and it was by far the worst experience we've had, more about that in the next post.