VARANASI, INDIA

We visited the city of Varanasi for 2 days. Varanasi is a city along the Ganges River and a very sacred place for Hindus. It's approx. 3000 years old and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Ganges itself, while important to the Hindu people, is terribly polluted. Over 89 million gallons of pollution are poured into the river daily. The 400+ million people who live along the river use it as their toilet and waste bin. Yet despite the high levels of pollution, we saw hundreds of people bathing in the river, including many babies.

We hated Varanasi. The narrow streets, extreme filth (streets littered with human and cow excrement) and the massive amount of (sketchy) people made it unbearable. While walking down a narrow street, we had to move aside to allow a funeral procession to come through. They were bringing the sheet-covered body to the banks of the Ganges for cremation. We watched as bodies were dipped into the Ganges for "purification" and then burned on top of wood in the open air. The problem, apparently, is that they don't completely burn the bodies, so when they throw them into the Ganges after burning them, there's a very high level of bacteria or whatever released into the river. One person in my office told me about a friend who was swimming in the Ganges and suddenly got her leg caught in an object which turned out to be a cow carcass.

We ended up spending only a few hours in the city and then escaped to our hotel. It was too much.

The airport (pictured below) was no treat either.