Ganges View Varanasi

... and ruins we saet off back to the hotel - the plan to have ashort rest and then head for The Monkey Temple which opened at four.<br><br>On our arrival at the temple we slipped off our shoes and went inside - again no cameras or fags/lighters etc. All left in a locker outside. (I insisted in taking in my wallet). The Temple was quite different to the ones we have been in before and not just becasue it was over-run by gangs of ...

... left to float (cobras are the domain of Shiva himself and those killed by the snake are thought to be exceptional). <br><br>I don't know what to say about the experience of seeing bodies burned. While quite a solom ceremony, tourists are permitted to watch, and quite a few do. There was very little you could actually see, but the emotion was as thick as the smoke was in the air. You could feel the spirituality in the area and it ...

... which we followed! In fact he took us through the very back, back streets which are five foot wide and still accommodate people, cows and motorbikes at four abreast! Issy started to get the wobbles and we reassured her whilst at the same time beginning to have second thoughts of our own. We saw small temples cut into the buildings which he explained to us and obviously a large slice of poverty and squalor that is difficult to imagine. We did get to the river and ...

... ashes dipped in the Ganges). Incidentally there's a sliding scale for the price of the holy flame if you're interested in cremating a loved one- the rich pay handsomely. <br><br>* met professor and holy man Vir Bhadra Mishra (worth a Google) who started a non-profit org 28 years ago to clean the heavily-polluted Ganges. The river, where people swim, bathe, peform rituals, and douse their dead before cremation, is also a dumping ...

... confused at the darkness after dawn. All the pilgrims threw themselves back in The Ganges for another dip<br style=""> <br style=""> Amongst Indians, eclipse superstitions are rife and Hindus believe that demons swallow the sun during this time. Children born during an eclipse are said to be cursed with a life of hardship and in one Indian town, parents buried their children up to their necks in mud during the eclipse in the hope of curing physical or mental ...

... and yoga school touts, starved children, postcard sellers, metal tikka dot and powder sellers, boat owners and other crazed Indians attacked us from every angle, there were very few tourists around. luckily, we've been in the game awhile and did a good job of keeping them at bay. I went in for the swim, well, i washed my feet and splashed my head three times, consider me free from all my sins. <br><br>We took a trip down the main street where there was a steady stream of ...

... to battle against the hellish daytime heat and dust.<br>It was at first light a day or two ago that we took a boat trip along the Ganga to witness the mass exodus of people, an event that happens at dawn every morning, as many hundreds, if not thousands of Indians come down the the river to give thanks. One drop of this highly contaminated water would be enough to put the average European in hospital for a month, but to the locals, it's a giver of life and a place ...

... showering in either Delhi or Agra since, as stated before, initial symptoms began to show upon arrival in Rishikesh. He didn't think so but rather thought it was caused by some kind of body trauma (broken hemorrhoid, more than likely. Even at age 51 I refused to believe that!) He made another followup at the hotel the next morning and was scheduled for another that same afternoon but when he didn't show I ended up calling the American Consulate ...