Morning on the Ganges

Our guide continues to remind us that Varanasi is one of the oldest cities on Earth. When I asked "how old?", she replied "very old." So, either it is so old that it pre-dates written history, or it should just be thought of as very old, and left at that. This is India, after all. In any case, this is one of the most fascinating places that I have ever seen. When walking down the very narrow back streets, you can see parts of very ancient temples melding in with more recent buildings (recent meaning anywhere from the 15th to the 19th century). In other places it can be seen where the construction of buildings was altered to make allowances for pre-existing trees - the buildings seem to bend out of their path. The whole visual effect of the place reminded me a bit of the drawings of H.R. Giger (the guy who designed the sets for Alien).

We started off this morning at 5am to take a boat ride on the Ganges to watch the sun come up. Dawn is a very spiritual time of day here. People come down to the river to bathe and to say prayers and make offerings from the shore. Out on the river are scores of boats, filled with tourists, taking pictures of the scene. It didn't feel nearly as tacky as that sounds; mostly because I was one of the tourists. The sun came up just after 6am, but we could not actually see the sun until it was well above the horizon. The smog is that thick. It does make for pretty pictures, though.