Morning on The Ganges, Varanasi

After our visit to the Taj Mahal, we packed-up and left Agra. We drove to the airport in Delhi and then flew to Varanasi. The next morning we were up at sunrise (again) for a boat trip on The Ganges.

Varanasi is an extremely sacred place for those of the Hindu religion. Millions of pilgrims visit Varanasi every year to bathe in The Ganges River. It is believed that this will wash away your sins. If you are cremated in Varanasi it is believed that this will enable you to escape reincarnation and achieve salvation.

The Ganges flows all the way from the Himalayas and unfortunately seemed to be very polluted.

Walking down from our hotel out to the river. It was a little bit of a challenge to find good accommodation in Varanasi. Our visit coincided with a major festival, so there were already A LOT of people in town. All prices were quite high. Our tour company suggested a hotel that was located next to The Ganges. We had a room with a big balcony overlooking the river, which was lovely (the balcony, not the room). However, we also had a few 'experiences' in this hotel :)

When we arrived our rooms were full of smoke (not cigarette smoke). There was no fire, so we weren't sure where the smoke was coming from. Maybe incense?

To get to the hotel we walked through a maze of small alleyways (which we knew would be the case). However during that walk Erica's phone was stolen from her bag. The joke is kind of on the thief though - they stole a very old Iphone 3 with a cracked screen. I'm sure they would have been hoping for something much better when they reached into her bag.

One day we returned to the hotel in the afternoon to give Clara a nap. We noticed that the door to our room was wide open. When we walked in we found that the door to the balcony was completely dismantled and lying on the ground. There was one worker fixing the door and two men from the hotel watching him - all inside our room. We stepped over the door parts and asked what was going on. They said "sorry madam, we're fixing the door, come back in a couple of hours". Ha!

Sometimes when we asked a question of the staff, they would answer every question possible except for the question we were actually asking. Actually this was kind of hilarious. For example, we were trying to figure out the tv, and the staff member demonstrated pretty much everything else in the room except for the problem with the tv.

The shower in the bathroom seemed to be either scorching hot or cold, and it was very difficult to keep it at an in between temperature. The tap-ware would heat up to a burning temperature so I had to keep a very close watch on Clara to ensure she wouldn't burn herself.

I shouldn't complain - and I'm not really. Most of it we took with good humour. We saw many people living with much much less. We are indeed very grateful to have always had a solid roof over our heads.

Some more pictures from our morning on The Ganges. Our guide assured us it was fine to take pictures..