Varanasi

Varanasi is probably the most spiritual place in India as far as the Hindu religion goes.
I'm in a guest house in the thick of it, but step out the door and you find yourself in a maze. The alleys are about 2 metres wide and you can't get more than about 15 yards without having to press yourself against the wall to pass a motorbike, a ginormous cow or a funeral procession.

The funeral processions can be heard coming, which gives you time to jump to the side instead of getting run over. The body is wrapped up and run through the maze to a chorus of "Rama Rama!" or other such chants.
They all end up at what is called the burning Ghat, which among the huge piles of wood holds several smoky funeral pyres at any time.

We took a boat down the river at 5am the other day to watch the people do their daily washing. Washing in this river is said to cleanse the soul of sin, so you can imagine its a pretty popular Hindu swimming spot.
In such a holy river, there were an awful lot of everyday things going on down on the Ghats in the morning, like a line of children in swimming lessons, a group of washing men flogging out the clothes on their stones, and loads of swimmers.
If we went swimming, we would almost definately die. The safe limit of faecal colliform bacteria for swimming is 500 per 100ml. The river contains 1.5 million per 100m, but the Indian locals who swim here every day clearly have much more powerful immune systems than us, since they all looked perfectly unharmed.

The other day we watched the nightly puja ritual while being sold post cards. The post card seller was a 6 year old called Haresh. He was a perfect salesman, knew all the necessary English and all the tricks. The little kids doing selling the face paints were all under 13 and were working to pay for school every day. We moved out onto a boat, and watched the ceremony from they water. All I can really say is it was quite stunning to watch and more than a little bit mystifying.

Sadhus are everywhere in their orange clothing. Some of them paint their entire bodies white which looks fun. You can't really sleep every long because a Sadhu with bells likes to sing really loud in the morning.

Anyway I must go because I have a Sitar lesson to attend.