The Ganges

The biggest river in India is the Ganges River. It starts in Northern India and travels south then east, eventually into the Bay of Bengal (in Bangladesh) The river is 2510km long and is considered very holy. Situated on the banks of the Ganges is the city of Varanasi, which is where I am right now. For the citizens of Varanasi their lives need to be linked with the river. People that practice Hindu believe they can not live without the River, because Ganga is Mother and she delivers happiness to our world and salvation when we leave it. Because of these beliefs many things that we Canadians consider personal take place in public. Along the river there are Ghats. Ghats are just a series of steps leading down to the river. There are about 80 Ghats here and some are burning Ghats. Assi Ghat and Dasaswamedh Ghat are two popular ones. The latter got its name when Brahma(not sure who that is) sacrificed 10 horses there. Manikarnika is the main burning Ghat, and a favorable place for a Hindu to be cremated. Before a body is cremated it is wrapped in cloth and dunked in the river, outcasts handle the dead body. After this the body is placed on a large fire to be cremated, this is a common occurrence and watch by a lot of people. I'm assuming because to be cremated here is a very holy practice. The wood used is carefully weighed before it is placed on the fire so they can calculate the cost of the cremation. This event takes place at night, I didn't see of these because I was sick the first night and the second night it didn't seem like they were doing any.

The Ganges River is the most polluted river in the world. There are several raw sewage pipes from the city that flow directly into the river. Everyone does their laundry in the river as well as washing their clothes, sometimes right next to cows taking a bath. You couldn't pay me any amount of money to go into that river. An example of how dirty the river is: water that is safe for bathing should have less then 500 faecal coliform bacteria in every litre of water. This part of the Ganges has 1.5 million. The river is actually septic, no dissolved oxygen exits. Everyone from little children to elderly males bathe in this water. Quite frankly I don't know how many people are still alive after swimming in this water. The northern part of the river isn't dirty and you can swim in it, the water is actually blue and not dirt brown. It's interesting because the Yamuna River in Agra looks much dirtier then the Ganges.

I will spend 3 nights in Varansi. Tonight is the last one and I have a train booked for tomorrow morning at 11:40 to take me close to Darjeeling which is not far from the border of Nepal. Hopefully I will stay in Darjeeling for a while. The views of the Himalayan Mountains are the reason most people including myself are going there. I'm very excited for this part of my trip, first though I have to get through an 18 or 19 hour train ride. I'm doing very well and have met a lot of nice people on this trip, including 2 guys from BC who I will probably go rafting with Darjeeling.

Thank for you reading.

Andrew