India - Varanasi

From Jaipur, Anna, Niklas and I took our first train ride in India, headed to Varanasi. India has the largest railway network in the world. 18 million people in India travel by train every day. Crazy. During our first hour of train travel, we looked out the window and saw the remains of a train crash that had happened the day before. Overturned train cars, people huddled in groups, and clean up crews. Not exactly the best thing to see at the start of our train journey.

For Hindus, Varanasi is the holiest city in India with the river Ganges flowing through it. It is said that anyone who dies in Varanasi attains immediate salvation. Children and pregnant women are allowed to be "buried" in the river. Others are cremated and have their ashes thrown into the river. Varanasi, like other places in India I have visited is bustling, colorful, loud, and very alive. At the same time, the focus on death in some areas was interesting to see. There were people so old, it was clear that they were in a sense, just waiting to die in Varanasi.

The Ganges is lined with ghats (stairs leading down to the river, used mostly by bathers). I loved walking along the ghats, each different in color and style. For many people living in Varanasi, life seems to kind of center around the river. They bathe in the river, wash their clothes in the river, pray at the river, earn money by charging for boat rides on the river...

One morning, we woke up super early to take a row boat ride in order to see the early morning rituals on the Ganges. Despite the pouring rain, hundreds of people were bathing in the river at 5:30 in the morning. We also saw full bodies being burned at one of the ghats. The Ganges must be one of the most polluted rivers in the world. It is full of garbage, urine, dead bodies, and heavy metals from upstream. I had no desire join the bathers. We were not along out on the river. There were tons of other boats with tourists, eager to see something so foreign and take pictures. I wonder how the Hindus feel, beeing watched like that every morning.

We also attended the evening pooja at Dashashwamedh Ghat, lit floating candles and sent them down the river, and explored the maze of narrow alleyways between the river and the main road.