Boats await the morning greetings of their boatmen, who paddle them up and down the ganges hauling goods and tourists along the Ganges River in Varinassi.

Neil smiles into the camera while bodies burn in the Ghat behind him on the banks of the Ganges River in Varinasi.

This pile of wood in Varinasi is used to burn bodies along the banks of the Ganges River.

The water of the Ganges River in Varanasi is like poison to foreigners, but those who grew up with it can drink it, swim in it, and bathe in it with no ill effects. It is full of dead humans and animals and septic waste.

[Journal and photos by Nancy Olson]

Our day began before the sun came up. The film crew had instructed us to meet in the lobby at 0445 to head down to the Ganges for some filming. We were met outside by our resident old taxi man who had stationed himself outside our hotel gates the moment we arrived in our four rich-looking Land Rovers. Each day he asked us if he could please take us somewhere in his auto rickshaw, and each day we refused: until today.

The relentless cabby and two of his fellow auto rickshaw owners smiled as the nine of us piled into the backseats of their three tiny taxis. We were headed to the banks of the Ganges (or Ganga) River to witness first-hand its role in the Hindu religion, and we wanted to be there for the rising of the sun. Unfortunately, the day was overcast, and it even shed a few tiny droplets on us as we stepped out of the rickshaws.

Because our participation in this “mandatory fun” event was a film crew requirement, they were paying for it, and that meant we had to play witness to the serious business of Adam and his haggling routine. The filmies had arranged for us to meet a kindly guide fellow there (he had shown them around the previous day), and he was there to help with the haggling. Each boat pilot wanted 250 rupees or more to take us down the river and back. The Lonely Planet that Adam had read said a boat should not cost more than 50 rupees. The boat pilots argued that this was the rainy season, and that the flooded river made handling the boat extremely difficult, and perhaps even a little dangerous. It would take three or four boaties to take the nine of us down river and back. They could not budge on price.

So, Adam let them know he wasn’t going to be taken advantage of (anyway, he’d been to Varanasi before and had never paid such exorbitant fees), and he walked from boat guy to boat guy trying to find one who would listen to reason. Finally, after what seemed like 20 minutes or more, and after walking through the poopy, filthy streets of putrescence which are a hallmark of the city of Varanasi, we finally found a nice young boatie who agreed to take us for a price that was palatable to Adam (I forget what it was, but we all agreed to pitch in, and we were just happy to be getting into a doggone boat).

As we floated past the “burning ghat”, we were warned not to take any pictures or film of it. See, this is where the Hindu people come to dip their deceased loved ones into the Ganges before setting them on fire amongst a pile of wood on the burning ghat to pass on to the next world. They believe that if you die in Varinassi, on the Ganges, your soul will be released from the never-ending cycle of reincarnation and death and go straight to Nirvana. That’s a big relief, because you never know who or what you might be reincarnated as after death. (As a side note, Hindus believe cows are sacred, and they believe that they are reincarnations of deceased aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children, or other relatives. They do not eat beef. Cattle roam the streets and alleys like they own them, and nobody bothers them in the least.) Supposedly, way back in the day, one of the important goddesses accidentally dropped an earring into the water of the Ganges right there in Varanassi, and that is where they placed the burning ghat so many thousands of years ago. That’s why the Ganges here holds so much power.

People come down to the banks of the Ganges every day to bathe and swim, do their laundry, and drink in the brown water. Chanda once read a study in the Lonely Planet that showed that a sample of Ganges water contains somewhere around 1.5 MILLION fecal coliforms per milliliter of water, and the amount considered acceptable for human consumption is a mere 500, if that tells you anything. One sip of this water by a Westerner like you or me could kill us, sending us into a vomiting sickness that could incapacitate us and wipe us out entirely. But the people who grew up here have a colony of bacteria living in their bellies that protects them from the ill effects of the Ganges. They drink the stuff.

During our boat ride, we floated past a dead, bloated baby floating downstream. It almost didn’t look real, because of the bloating and decomposition that had occurred. That was our first dead baby. Not all dead Hindus are thrown into the Ganges; most are burned. But those who are pure, meaning those who are 14 years of age or younger, or mothers with innocent fetuses in their bellies, are dumped into the water without first being burned. The impure are burned to release their impurities, or something like that.

The boatmen floated us past several other ghats, where people were swimming, bathing, and washing clothes. I know it’s crude to mention it, but we also saw several men pooping along the river banks, and pile after pile of less-fresh poo were spied all along these poop-encrusted shores. Let me tell you, seeing a grown man pooping can change a person forever.

Eventually, the boatmen did an about face and strained against the oars to fight the flood current. We kept close to the banks, where the flow was at its lowest, and still we had to get out of the boat at a difficult section in order to get around a flooded temple. On the way back, we saw a floating object wrapped in white cloth, and I realized with horror that it’s head was exposed, both eyes staring right out me through a cloudy white film. A raven was sitting on it, pecking at its flesh. Thank goodness, it turns out this corpse, which we immediately thought was another baby, was actually a monkey. Whew! I don’t think I could have handled dead baby eyes. We also saw a dead and bloated cow, a dead baby caught in an eddy near some boats, and an unidentifiable corpse floating off in the distance with a big bird pecking away for his breakfast.

Not one of us will soon forget that boat ride.

After the boat ride, we walked over to the burning ghat because, for some reason, a few of the gang wanted to get a closer look. I warned everyone to hold their breath if they don’t want any dead people in their lungs. On the ghat were piles of burning wood and bodies, and below was a newer body, it’s skull, ribcage, and backbone clearly visible…and nothing else. The bodies burn down to ashes and a few small bones, and then they are sifted through by the ghat workers. Hindus are burned with their clothing and jewelry on, so the workers search for the jewelry, and anything that is found is given to the foreman, who then sells it to tourists. Families who carry their loved ones there to be burned help or watch as the body is dipped one last time in the Ganges and then set afire. They stay to watch it burn, and then, once there is nothing left but ash, they break a clay urn filled with ganges water over the ashes and depart. Mission accomplished.

While we were there, we could see all sorts of identifiable bone pieces, and we were told that the hip bones and the chest are the slowest to burn. This will gross out many of my readers, so take caution. You may want to bail out now: There was a yellow dog at the ghat who was sifting through the bones. I watched him closely, and eventually he found a piece of bone that still had some charred flesh remaining. He laid down with his prize and gnawed away at what looked like a foot, or something. Eventually, a worker chased him off. As we exited the ghat, I saw that same dog in the sidewalk, finishing up his bone. He walked off, and a man took a tin cup of water and washed the remaining crumbs of flesh and bone into the drainage ditch. All in a day’s work.

Later, we learned that old people with no families come here to await death, and we visited some old women living near the burning ghat. Good Hindus visit them on occasion to feed them, take care of them, give them money, and provide them with companionship. They get good kharma for that, so maybe it’ll help them in their next life. We gave the ladies we visited some money and flashlights, and they seemed pleased.

As we tiptoed gingerly through the cow dung, human feces, rotting vegetables, and rubbish heaps, we reflected on the sights and experiences of the day. India has more than a billion people, and we have seen a good number of them. In areas like this, the plague still exists, and people suffer from and even die from afflictions that would hardly faze first-world nations. Yet, feed a drop of Ganges water to an American, and you would soon hear the sound of death or debilitation knocking at the door. Go figure.

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