Varanasi

So up bright and early at 6am which was definitely a struggle! We went downstairs and met Sud’s friend who introduced us to another man who was the boat driver! We said we wanted to wait for Sud as he said he would come and say goodbye to us before we went. His friend rang him and he came to say goodbye. We walked down to the river with the boat driver and got in a boat that didn’t look like it would float for long and I definitely did not want to go for a swim in the Ganges. There were big holes throughout the bottom of the boat but we did make it without sinking so I was very happy about that. We, well our boat man rowed us up and down the river for about 2 hours. It was very foggy when we first got in and we could barely see the other side of the river but as the sun rose it became more visible and was quite peaceful as there is basically nothing on the other side of the river. A few boats that were fishing but that’s about it. We passed a couple of the burning ghats where they burn dead bodies. Apparantly there are 300+ cremations every day and the fires burn 24hours. Babies, pregnant women and special holy men are not cremated instead they are tied to a large rock or piece of marble and taken out into the middle of the river and thrown in. I was quite nervous about seeing all this but to be honest we saw very little. We saw the fires burning but only a few were really burning. We saw one body being carried down the road towards the river but we had seen more on our travels previously. It was actually quite a peaceful place and not really as confronting as I had thought. The river was full of boats rowing up and down and also people with boats selling souvernirs and bird food! Our driver bought some food and fed the very mangy and dirty looking seagulls! The buildings along the river were amazing, most very old. Our driver took us almost back but stopped to let us off and we went to meet Sud’s friend again who was taking us to breakfast. Sud had told us to pay 600 rupees for 2hrs and when we paid the driver 800rupees (a bit of a tip) he looked at us and said it was 600 each! We rang Sud and he said no 600 total so we were being conned again but we gave the driver an extra 200 rupees to keep him happy and headed to breakfast. We went to a nice Japanese run restaurant and had some breakfast and then Sud’s friend had organized to take us on a bit f a city tour in a rickshaw. We went to quite a few temples and the biggest university in Asia. The temples were nothing to exciting and we didn’t spend much time at them. He then took us to an old Mughal town where they hand weave silk. We got to see the process of the silk being woven, the dying of the silk and then hand stitching sequins etc onto the silk. It was quite interesting but then as always we were taken into there shop to ‘see the finished product’. so after more money spent we left an hour or more later. We headed back and paid Suds friend all the rupees we had left on us which wasn’t very much, he didn’t say anything though. We had a sleep as we were both feeling a bit sick. Rudi got up about 5 and went down to the river again to take some photos but didn’t get to take many as he was constantly being talked to by people selling candles and then others wanting to chat. He came back with some medicine for himself to fight off his cold and some iron tablets for me as we have not eaten much meat at all the whole time we have been away and thinking this is the cause of me being so tired. We had memos for dinner again and completely pigged out. Then Rudi decided to attempt some more henna on me so I laid down with my book while he decorated my foot and half way up my leg. It took him a good couple of hours but he was very proud of the end result! It looks fantastic!