Holy Hot!

So, after a long journey by train, I am in Varanasi, one of the oldest cities in the world and one of the holiest in India. This is where Hindus come to wash in the Ganges, removing sin and hopefully pulling them out of the cycle of life-death-rebirth. It is particularly good to die here, apparently, so people who are ill and dying often come here; others bring their dead relatives and make offerings at the riverside, cremating their relatives on a pyre. I am not sure if that is what this image is – it’s not at the main cremation ghat, but it sure looks like a pyre to me! No, I didn’t see any bodies! At least, not yet. They are all brought in shrouds, anyway. (Ghat = steps leading down to the river, it seems. At the top of the steps are temples, places for meditation, shops and hotels. You can see the colorful ghats lining the river in this photo.)

The other thing I can tell you about Varanasi is that it is HOLY HOT! 43 Celsius today! Yours truly was wandering through the bazaar and the steps in front of the ghats, much to the amazement of the Indians, who were sure that 1.) I MUST have a group of other Americans with me somewhere, hiding, because Americans/Europeans always come in groups; 2.) that I would SURELY die walking in the heat, and that I should stop immediately and sit in the shade with them (friendly overture) or buy a cold drink in their shop (less friendly overture). You can tell that it’s super-hot from this photo – see the cows? They’re smart – hiding in the water. The goats were all curled up in the shade under the vendors’ tables. And the smart (and now holy!) people were in the water. I would love to join them, but since the Ganges serves as water source, sewer and cemetery here, I think I have to skip it. (WHO says the e. coli in this water is hundreds of thousands of particles per million more than it should be to swim!)

PS – on the train last night, something happened to my camera and the screen shattered. It doesn’t have a viewfinder, just that LCD screen, so please pardon the off-center shots – I just point, shoot and hope!