Back in India - Straight to Varanasi

A few days ago, I don't really remember when, we bounced along on a Nepali bus, a Nepali rickshaw, an Indian bus, and an Indian overnight train back into India, straight to Varanasi. The Holy City. We did a lot of wandering, a lot of sitting and a lot of watching. We took a night boat along the Ganges to watch the night-time ceremony. The boat-man sat next to me so that I could ask him a gazzilion questions about what was going on, why they do this and why they do that. I learnt about the ceremonies and the different offerings and then I asked questions about the things that had been bothering me. Basically I found out my answer to almost everything was: good luck. Why have those women had their head's shaved? For good luck. Why do some women have red on the sole's of their feet? For good luck. Why do they mate cows next to the river? For good luck. It's a strange place. Between all of the ceremonies, the offerings, the cremations, there were little oddities. The weighing of the wood and testing of the quality of the wood to decide how much to charge for the cremation. The taking of the jewellery from the ashes of the cremated bodies. The fishing with magnets for coins that people had thrown into the Ganges for good luck. The fact that, although it is one of the most polluted and toxic river in the world, people were everywhere drinking and bathing in it. And above all of it, above all of the spirituality, the offerings, the cleansing of sins and the funerals, there was kite flying and cricket. Cricket played between the Ghats and Kites flown above them. I'm writing this because we couldn't take many photos, so I thought I'd like to remember it a bit. We barely got hassled because people were too busy doing their own thing. I would just like to mention at this point also that I did get to row on the Ganges. That makes me cool.