Varanasi

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We were booked to fly from Khajuraho to Varanasi. However, the airline had stopped its service more than a month before, and our tour manager had not informed us of this until departing time. Hummm. We now had no alternative but to take the coach for a 13 hour drive on a cobble and dirt road. We went through the poorest countryside and and eventually arrived in Varanasi.

Many wild monkeys	A typical hamlet	Going to the market
Morning sweep of the house	Cooking with dried cow manure	All smiles

The last photo above shows a family in the middle of a tiny village. We are sitting in the bus waiting for some cows to get off the road and they are there just standing and smiling at us. We open our windows, but can't communicate in their (or our) language. We smile, they smile. No begging or trying to sell us anything. Just a nice and friendly family. Three of the boys had their heads shaved and had green and yellow dye on their scalps and hands. I don't know why.

Varanasi

The river Ganges is one of the greatest attractions of Varanasi. Devout Hindus make pilgrimages from all parts of India to bathe in the Ganges, whose water they believe to be sacred and with the power to wash away all of one's sins.  Along the river, stairways have been set-up, known as ghats, from which people can bathe before saying their daily prayers. Every year, over a million pilgrims visit the city.

Our group arrived at sunrise. People from all walks of life, every caste and every part of the country, all crowded down to the river. Rudyard Kipling called it "the greatest spectacle in India." Saris shimmer as bathers wade into the swirling water. Others merely splash the sacred waters to their foreheads. From our rowboat just offshore we watch the sun rise over the water. Many people stand waist deep in the water, facing east across the Ganges. In cupped hands they raise the holy water to their faces and let it trickle down their bodis as they pray, followed by a drink of the water.

A family together		Young and older women
		Launching  prayer candles

		From our floating vantage point, several feet from shore, the overall feeling is one of joy, peace, fulfillment and hope. Whatever privation and pain might exist in their lives elsewhere, it is not here, in any of these faces, old or young. I scoop some water from the Ganges and sprinkle it over my head. The sacred water washes my (very few) sins away. Or does this only work for Hindus? You are only a true Hindu, if your parents were Hindu, and you were born in India.

We continue our boat ride towards the crematories, a few hunderd yards west.

Hindus believe in reincarnation: After death, the soul returns to earth in another human or animal body, depending upon one's past deeds. Praying, fasting or making a pilgrimage shortens this cycle of rebirth. To achieve Moksha, liberating the soul from the cycle of births and re-births, is to die in Varanasi and have one's ashes scattered on the Ganges. Many come here to live out their final days.

A crematory on the Ganges	Bodies are cremated within 6 hours of death	The corpses of  the very poor, are launched into the water
Ashes are dumped in the Ganges	Sons shave their heads after the funeral. The guy on the left still holds their payment	A "poor" Buddhist monk tourist with a $1,000 camera. Hummm

Pregnant women, children under the age of 3 and Holy Men cannot be cremated. The corpses of the poor, who cannot afford the 150 lbs of wood, are also dumped into the river.

After our boat tour we climb the steps back to the bustling town center. Beggars line the steps.  The man in the 3rd photo below sprinkled some white grains into the bowl of the beggar. Not much. I don't know if it was food for the soul or body.

Beggars line the steps	Begging bowls	Soul food?
Flower sales lady	A woman and her daughter go through the garbage in the street	The holy cows go through what is left behind