Arrived by bus 15 hours later (only 5 hours later than scheduled). We arrived around mid day so had lunch and basically just chilled out and didn’t do much all day apart from a visit to the pharmacy as Jonho’s foot was still hurting. From what we did see of the streets of Varanasi, it wasn’t the most pleasant. It was really dirty, but it was more obvious as the streets were so narrow which meant we were constantly trying to avoid cow shit and rubbish on the floor.
The next day we woke up around 5am ready for a sunrise boat trip down the river Ganges. It was really interesting seeing the locals bathing in this toxic water, doing their prayers, doing yoga and down one end of the ghats (places with steps down along the river) there was lots of wood around and this is where they carry out cremations of their loved ones. Varanasi is the holiest of cities, on the banks of the most sacred Indian rivers and Hindus believe that releasing the ashes of a dead body into the river will cleanse the soul of the corpse. We didn’t get very close to this but we did see people carrying a body down to cremate. In the evening we did another boat trip at sunset and everyone was outside the temples singing, people were having a swim and there were ‘holy men’ stood around naked, covered in ash (very strange). All in all, a very interesting experience but it’s not somewhere we would spend more than a couple of days.
This is our last stop in India…. next stop NEPAL!
Kerry and Jonho's Travels 