Thu 02/01/14 20:42

The last few entries, or maybe I should say the last few chances I’ve had to write about my vacation have been hurried at best. It seems the only real time that I’ve had to write is when we’re actually moving from one stop to another. Unfortunately though in most situations it can be difficult to write on a plane, bus, or train, which is where I am now. I am in a sleeper car going from Agra to Varanasi. It so difficult to try to concentrate while people are milling around and as the train is slowly chugging along.

So the night on the train was pretty good, and I use those words loosely. When you haven’t showered, you have no space to be alone, and everyone around you is in the same boat, it can’t really be “pretty good.”

We arrived in Varanasi relatively late, I think it was about 2pm when we were supposed to be there by 12. I don’t know if anyone knows about Varanasi, but it is the city in India that is on the Ganges River, and may be best known for the dead bodies being floated down the river, or being cremated. Or at least that was about all I knew about it. I had seen many photos that showed the building with the stairs leading down to the water. So of the photo were so impressive that I was pretty excited to be seeing it for myself. Unfortunately I was a slightly let down. First there are cremations along the river, but they don’t float any bodies down the river anymore. Then I couldn’t seem to recreate the some of the photos that I’d seen that got me so excited in the first place. I’m not exactly sure why, I walked the whole riverbank and took a ton of photos, but for some reason couldn’t get “the” photo.

The first day (after the train ride) we went for a sunset cruise on the river to see some of the lights and a festival that was going on near the cremations. I really shouldn’t call it a festival; I guess it is more of a prayer, but the chanting, the people watching, and just the spectacle of it all sure made it seem festive.