Mother Ganga

And finally we say hello to the holiest of rivers: The Ganges. People swim here, wash their clothes, cows cool their bodies in here, dead people are burned by its riversides and the ashes thrown into Ganga afterwards. I special cases (e.g. dead pregnant women) the bodies are just thrown into the water, tied to some stones so that they won't float.
And everything is just a part of everyday life. People sit on the ghats (stairs that lead down to the river), talk, spit, smoke, eat, work, have chai... while they watch the dead bodies being carried, the fires being lit, and the cremation. Bodies wrapped in withe cloths. We sit here and talk about leggings. The cloth is burned away and we can see a woman's toes. How absurd. This is Varanasi. One of the holiest cities in India, where Life meets Death. Where the circle ends - to die here ends the circle of reincarnation.

And we are, somehow, tired. Also our circle, our almost circle through India, our journey, is about to end. We have chai. We watch fires. We talk about leggings. About the future. About the past. And now. We stroll around the streets. This is India again, after our short visit to the mountains. We plan the last steps. Read and write. Reflect. Try not to think of the heat. Of the "grown-up", "serious" parts of our lifes, that are about to start. Soon, but not yet.