On the Ganges
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2005
1
5
19
Trip End
Nov 07, 2005
Varanassi, India
Friday, September 16, 2005
It was about 8.30am. We would arrive in Varanassi at 4pm. We whiled the day away drinking dodgy tea from the Oliver twist style kitchen coach. (People sleep on the floor, filthy, chaotic). Rickshaw to hotel, chill, kip, dinner, bed.
Sat 17th
Sleep in. Chill. We met a Nepalese travel agent who turned out to be very professional, knowledgeable, and decent. (A rare bird indeed). He proposed a few trips and we decided to escape India for a while by heading North into Nepal
Sun 18th
Early rise - 4.45 - to get bus to Ganges (One of the holiest sites for Hindus. To be cremated in one of the 'ghats' on the river bank and then have ones ashes and remains committed to the Ganges gives on a straight pass to Hindu heaven!). Took boattrip on the Ganges - shared with 2 american travellers - to see sunrise. Sadly, it was cloudy on the horizon. But the sun did light up the ghats on the western bank. We saw one man putting his wifes charred remains into the river. The wood fires in the ghats don't fully burn the bodies so it's not just ashes that are scattered but burned bones and full torsos. Apparently there are 5 categories of living thing that aren't cremated: children, lepers, animals, pregnant women, and priests (brahmans). These are regarded as holy, they are put straight into the river without cremation. We saw a couple of corpses floating down the middle of the river, one had 2 crows feasting on it.
The river itselt is extremely polluted - apart from the human remains, there is raw sewages and other waste, basically it's a huge rubbish tip. (We had our laundry done in the hotel. Hindus believe it is good to have one's clothes washed in the Ganges, becuase the water is holy. We don't share this belief but we know we probably had some extra flesh on our bodies for a few days after trying our 'clean' clothes)
