Varanasi

Probably most people who have heard about Varanasi, have heard about it in association with burning of the dead. And to be honest - city offers little besides ghats (steps to river). Still - that is enough and Varanasi is a must-see city for everyone visiting India.

Annoyances

Feels like everyone in Varanasi has one of three jobs: cycle rickshaw driver, boat driver or drug dealer. And everyone has to ask you if you need one, even if you have just been asked 10 seconds ago. This leads to continuous head-shake while walking on streets and ghats.

Monkeys. While they are not a problem outside, hotels are another story. They constantly pass by windows and sometimes even dare to enter rooms when balcony doors are left open. This is not your average Charlie - they can be quite dangerous. No incidents yet, but still uneasy feeling every time we have to scare away bigger specimen.

Streets

Streets in old city (where we are staying) are dizzying. They are too narrow for vehicles to pass, so are inhabited only by street vendors, cows, pedestrians and occasional bike. At narrowest they are less than 1m wide. They do not follow any rectangular patterns and it takes at least 2 days just to get hold of your nearest surroundings.

Flying kites

It seems like every child in Varanasi has a kite and is constantly flying it. Sometimes you can see hundreds of them as far as 100m away. Due to small size and distance, I couldn't capture a photo that would show how amazing sky look during these moments.

While walking along ghats, legs are sometimes entangled in these invisible (fishing?) lines.

Burning ghats

Photography of cremation process is not allowed, although everyone tries to capture at least some photos. I've included here one picture where nothing revealing can be seen, to give you at least some idea about surroundings.

Ritual begins by carrying deceased person, covered in colorful overlay, through streets to one of the burning ghats. Its rather happy event - loud music is playing and people are dancing. Person is then placed on not-so-big pile of wood and lit on fire. Amount of wood varies, as not everyone can afford proper amount and that can lead to bodies that are not fully cremated. Ashes (and body parts if there are any) are then thrown into Ganges. Bodies are eaten by turtles living in the river that are specially grown for this purpose.  There are multiple burnings happening at once, with one or more people overlooking and managing burning. Different body parts are clearly visible and it is his job to tuck everything into fire as to ensure maximum burnage. There is almost no smell. And when occasionally there is - its not unpleasant. Hundreds of people (mostly locals) sit around, watching, talking or just passing by. From side it looks like they are watching a show but you can also feel respect and dignity all around.

Another interesting thing is, that not everyone is cremated, for example, sadhus and pregnant women, among some other are released into river as is.

Ganges

For some reason I always wanted to get to Ganges. Perhaps it is because of mysticism surrounded or just for the love of India, as Ganges is such a big part of it. Ganges does radiate something ethereal.

From the very beginning we knew that we will take boat ride just for the sake of "been there, done that". After two days of constantly ignoring "Boat? Boat, sir?" shouts we decided it was time. We went to beginning/end of ghats, where tourists are rarity and touts more desperate, and picked (well, we got picked) a boat. We started negotiations with an old man and after several minutes and two "walk-outs" we managed to bring price from 400 rupees to 100 (for both of us). Still quite a lot of money in general, but it is human powered boat after all and it takes a lot of energy to drive one. To our surprise, old man wasn't going to drive himself, but instead delegated this job to young lad and himself just remained on the shore.

Sun had just disappeared behind horizon and we felt sorry for the young guy's strenuous job. So after 15-20 minutes of slow, but very beautiful ride, we decided to stop halfway and continue on foot, not asking for remaining money back.

And then there is pollution. Local people are bathing and even drinking this holy water, but we were afraid to even dip our feet into it (in the end, we did). Per wikipedia:

Water safe for bathing should not contain more than 500 fecal coliforms per 100ml.

and then:

After passing through Varanasi, the concentration of fecal coliforms in the river's waters rises from 60,000 to 1.5 million, with observed peak values of 100 million per 100 ml.

Untreated sewage, ashes and unburned body parts all are released into the river.

Gallery