The Adventures of Michalina: Varanasi

Varanasi is amazing! It is the holiest of cities in India, and many pilgrims come here to bathe in the River Ganges. Unfortunately the river is horribly polluted, but that does not stop people from bathing, washing clothes, and fishing in it. All the garbage, human, cow, and dog excrement, soaps, cremation ashes, human remains, etc. get washed down or thrown into the river.

There are many ghats along the river. Two are burning ghats, where hundreds of people are cremated every day. Bodies covered in cloth are carried to the river on bamboo stretchers. Wood is brought in by boat, which makes the burning expensive. Only men are permitted at the cremations because women and girls will cry, which means the soul is unhappy. Pregnant women and people killed by snakes etc. are not cremated; they are sunk to the bottom of the river. Legend has it that a very holy tribe comes down from the mountains once a year and eats the bodies at the bottom of the river.

I don't think I've ever seen a dead body before. Eleven bodies were carried by us when we got lassis in the Old City. We were only there for half an hour tops!

We took a boat along the Ganga to see the ghats on New Years Eve. A boat came up beside us and we bought some candles on flowers in little leaf bowls and sent them off on the river with our best new years wishes for friends and family. What a beautiful end to the year!

There are so many batches of puppies all over the streets. They are adorable but it is sad to see them eating garbage and people being mean to them. We fed a mama some leftover toast. And we made friends with a very polite dog tonight. He was blonde and medium-sized, and he came when I called him and would put his paw gently on the side of my shoe for pets. And he rubbed his head slowly on my shoe to scratch it. I scratched him with a match stick I found because he was pretty dirty. And then he went on his way. I loved him.