Varanasi, holy burning Ghats!

View of the ghats from our hotel roof

It only took 14 hours on a train straight. We took a sleeper train, which provides beds. But it certainly doesn’t provide the quietness of a good nights sleep. We pull into some obscure train station at 7 in the morning and transfer trains and kept going until 11:30.

We get into Varanasi with 40 degree weather waiting for us. The rickshaw goes only to a certain part of the city and then we walked the rest of the way in. Varanasi is a very holy city with the Ganges running through it. In fact, Indians abroad order specially water from the Ganges for their different celebrations. Along the banks of the the Ganges are hundreds of Ghats (stairs leading to the water for whatever purpose, bathing, washing clothes, or what have you.)


Our hotel balcony overlooks the river and the Ghats. Looking to the one side, there were hundreds of people in celebration. To the other side a never ending horizon of Ghats. But no time for that now. Sleep was calling. None of us slept a wink through the whole night of ear shattering cackling, jostling and tossing of the train.

Other parts of the ghats where it's empty

Taking a stroll down the Ganges river takes you through some of the most colour views in India. We hopped onto a boat at 6 in the morning to catch the views of the locals at the Ghats. Mainly, they bath in there and wash clothes as well. We saw a boat river taking sips out of the Ganges too. The Ganges is regarded as one of the holiest rivers in India. So people would cremate their loved ones right on the edge of the river.

There are 5 things they don’t burn though. 1) Children 2)Pregnant women 3) Animals 4) Lepers 5) Holy people. For these 5, they tie a stone and drop them into the bottom of the Ganges. Now you can imagine how long they’ve been doing this for. And you can imagine the pollution it creates (on top of an already pretty polluted city). Let’s just leave it at the fact that it’s not uncommon to see carcasses floating down the Ganges or a stray dog eating a half decayed cow on the banks of the Ghats.

Live cremations

The Burning Ghats attracts the most attention as bodies are publicly cremated. It is a very lengthy process with lots of rituals. The very very poor people stay near the Burning Ghats waiting to die, as they don’t have family who can pay for them to be burned. It was explained that it took 200kg of wood to burn a body fully. The men would have the chest cavity remain, and the women, the hips. Because of our labour, that’s where the most bone density is.

The burning doesn’t smell because they use different woods for the burning. A mixture of Banyan tree wood, mango tree and sandal wood. But sandal wood is incredibly expensive, so they just use the powder of sandal wood.

Bathing in the ghats

Regardless, Varanasi has proved to be a good final last stop before we hop on the train and truck North into Nepal to escape this incredible heat. Hotter than the fort in the desert we just came from. Whew!


















For more pictures, click on the picture below

Agra and Taj Mahal. Varanasi and ghats