Hotel Siddharth Varanasi

... of very dry wood. The wood has been weighed and purchased by the family. They pay 150 Rupees per Kilo of dry wood. It takes between 200 and 300 Kilos of wood to complete the process. They then take dry torch to the eternal flame, that exists in the temple directly above the pyres, capture part of the flame and walk back to the pyre. They walk 7 times around the funerary pyre then ignite the pile.

Doms, untouchable lower chaste ...

... a nice guy - is studying Linguistics at Varanasi University. Him and Matt got on well - discussed Thai politics, the world cup, Liverpool FC and John Barnes (Rungphet's favourite player) - the premier league is truly universal. He gave us lots of good advice about Thailand and Varanasi, and guided us to a cheap autorickshaw (away from the touts).

Varanasi has been a bit random so far. We've seen a guy get knocked over by an ...

... bucket for money and then she was exhausted. A human being suffering, this woman was in very poor shape. Later i took her some food, kissed her hand and left her a 100 rupees note, enough to buy about 15 small meals.

On one of our last nights here there was a fireworks display that started to light up the sky right outside our room at 3am and continued until the sun came up, we're not sure why.

There is a farmer who lives below us and milks dairy cows in his ...

... time to Assi Ghat. We stopped at Baba's Chai shop which was really just a fake sadhu with a beaten up teapot but he was quite a character and was up for a chat telling us he'd been in the Australian newspapers and that he was famous on the internet, it's what a sadhu should be aspiring too i'm sure. After drinking his brew we realised that he washes his glasses in the feral Ganges river water and that we're now at risk of illness. We did a couple of Om Namah Shivayas ...

... A strange, almost alien place, to those like ourselves who are not used to seeing death so openly accepted and even celebrated. For it is here where we witnessed bodies being carried down to the river, given their last bath in the holy water before being cremated on open funeral pyres. It's an intense ceremony to behold and those that witness it deal with their emotions in a number of different ways. I had an intense curiosity, morbid maybe, and far from being ...

... to travel overnight to Agra. The train station in Varanassi has an AC room for foreign tourists which is extremely helpful in organising train tickets so we booked our next 4 trains there and the tourist information centre had great advise for travellers arriving in Varanassi and free maps as well. The train journey got delayed by 3 hours an hour after we left Varanassi as the train broke down but the journey was nice and very comfortable.

... we finally arrive at the shop of said Farooq. We sit on a cushioned floor while Farooq spreads pieces of beautiful silk cloth before us. We are looking to buy a silk Sari for Judith, one that looks traditional Indian and soon we are nearly covered in very pretty pieces of silk. She selects 2 colors, a blue and a brick red that look quite stunning. I decide to order a pair of pants and a shirt while Judith picks out several scarves for gifts ...

... holy man) who looked out across the river unblinkingly, like a Coldstream Guard on Whitehall. Next to him, propped up with sticks, was the partial skeleton and skull of a dead sadhu (whose name may or may not have been Lenny - the boatman was sometimes unintelligible and I neglected to find out for sure later on) who had spent his life sat on that spot staring out over the river.

The sky darkened and the rain began to come as we ventured further down the river and passed a ...