From the beginning of the trip, people have been saying that I should not come to Varanasi a place better known as Benares. Although there are no regrets, I now understand why they said what they said. This city is a tough one to travel in. It is the dirtiest, noisiest, hottest and oldest city among those that I have been to.
This morning we woke up at 5 am to take a boat ride on the river Ganges. Lonely planet says that one should not be surprised to see the occasional dead body floating. We did not see one. What we did see though was the burning ghat. Despite my stomach saying that we should not go, my travel friend and I got off the boat and visited this place. At the time that we got there, there was already a body burning but we could not see the actual body. The place smelled really bad and the people looked somewhat weird. What's to expect of the people whose occupation is burning dead bodies everyday? Then as we were about to leave, a group of men yelling loudly came by on somesort of a prosession carrying a body on their shoulders. This lifelss form was wrapped in red which signifies that it was the body of a lady. I do not know what to make of this. My travel friend said that, it is only natural. Which is true. Life is as natural as death. In modern society though, it has become such a taboo to talk about death that it made me feel uneasy to see all these people here treating it like it was no big deal.
This afternoon we went back to the hotel and totally passed out for a couple of hours. Varanasi is very tiring. It is about 43 degress here today. There are cows, buffalos and people everywhere. If you have ever seen a colony (or watever you call it) of ants rushing about somewhow managing to barely not run into each other, this is Varanasi. Glad that I came to visit but even more glad to be leaving tomorrow.
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