The Main Ghat along the Sacred Ganga River

We finally made it to Varanasi after a 16 hour (5 hour delayed) train ride from Agra. Varanasi. being the world’s oldest living city, as well the spiritual center of the county, as the is the reason I was interested in visiting India. The city itself, like most of the country, is quite decapitated, with rickshaws and traffic galore. Just making our way to the hotel is enough to give you a nervous breakdown. We found a guest house for about $6 a night. It would be considered a dump by just about any one’s standards, and before Africa would not be a place I would set foot in, but it has a view of the Ganges River and monkeys frolicking along the roof tops.

Flaming Bodies Light up the night sky at the "Burning Ghat"

The Ganges river is known as a one of the most polluted in the world as well as a spiritual mecca for Indian pilgrims. 85 bathing ghats (steps) line the river and you will find people coming to perform puja “Respect” prayers, swimming, bathing and washing clothes along the banks.

Each year, about 45,000 corpses are thrown into the water. That’s roughly 123 dead bodies dumped into this body a water a day. Somehow, while the water is very dirty, scientific studies show it is not quite as dirty as it should be. Holy men put a glass into the water and drink it and the water is surprisingly clear. Our hotel fronts the Manikaranika Ghant, the main burning ghat. What do they burn? Bodies. Dead bodies. Yesterday evening at dusk, we sat along the steps and watched wide eyed as a funeral procession began with a family of men shaving their heads to mourn their loved one. They carried the sari-covered body to the river’s edge to dunk the body one last time to cleanse it. The body is then placed upon a large fire, with one log on top the body. We expected a foul smell, but found out the body is covered in incense to cover the smell of burning flesh.

A goat in a sweater covered in shit. Love it.

The reason the bodies are cremated here is so they go straight to Heaven. Children, pregnant women, holy men and people bitten by a cobra are not allowed to be burned here because they are considered to already be pure.

Surreal does not begin to describe feeling of witnessing this cycle of life and death. A culture so different from our own, but so colorful and beautiful in its own way.

After watching three bodies burn, we headed to the Brown Bread Bakery for dinner where we enjoyed amazing organic yak cheese from Nepal and the local brew, Kingfisher.

And now to the angry bull. Let me paint the picture: the streets of the old town are small narrow winding alleyways. No rickshaws are allowed in the store lined alleys, but there are cows and bulls everywhere. They literally just sit in the middle of the road, in front of the hotel, anywhere they like as they are considered sacred creatures. I was quite frightened to walk past them, some of the larger bulls must weigh about 2 tons. We were in a hurry to get to breakfast this morning and we came to a road block of a bull and a cow. I tried to quickly skirt around the pair, when the bull suddenly turned to me, rammed me in the stomach and pushed me up against a wall. I screamed and jumped up on the wall’s ledge as I was expecting him to seriously attack me next. Mihae stood there helpless as she watched me get tossed around by the giant beast. But not for long. He turned to her, put his head down and gave her a good shove in the ass.

Mihae skirts past a bull on a narrow Varanasi street.

Some local men came to scare him away. We were shaken up and aside from a scratch on my leg and mud on Mihae’s linen pants, we are unharmed. I think he was just giving us a warning as he could have killed us in a second if he really wanted to.

Good thing neither of us was wearing red today! Until the next missadventure..