bathing.jpgOn our last day in Varanasiwe ventured out to see the Ganges at sunrise, go the whole group trekked out around 5am and got on a boat. It was neat seeing everyone doing their morning rituals – bathing, washing their hair, praying on the ghats. Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges remits sins and that dying here ensures release of a person’s soul from the cycle of its transmigrations. The water is incredibly dirty, and contains enough bacteria to be septic (that’s right, as in septic tank) to we definitely weren’t sticking our hands in. We actually saw the corpse of a cow floating in there at one point, and saw people dumping ashes in the Ganges at the burning ghats. We could kinda make out some funerals on shore, and corpses draped in white muslin being dumped on the ever burning flames of the log fires.After the Ganges boat trip we grabbed a group breakfast and then visited the homes of some silk weavers and got a tour of a silk shop where we saw the fanciest Benares silks money can buy. Some of the stuff was incredibly detailed and sells for tens of thousands.That night, we took a night train back to Delhi, where our tour ended.