The locals call it the River Ganga. We left our hotel at 5am for the famous ghats.

Everything, from swimming lessons and bathing to cremating the dead and washing clothes, is done at the ghats of the Ganges River. While we saw groups of family frolic in the water and wave hello to us, we also saw dead bodies floating in the river. We saw the uncremated body of a dead infant up close as it floated pass us. Cremation was done at specific ghats, and we were not allowed to take photos of them up close.

The pictures largely explain themselves.

We started off from Kedar Ghat.





Our boatman. He periodically told us to shift our weights on the boat to enable him to row better.



Us on the boat, together with 2 Americans, a French couple and another European guy.




Lighting a float for good luck and long life...





Sunrise at the River Ganges...







The ghats proper...





























Some of the sadhus...



Swimming lessons held at the river Ganges, where the water, according to Lonely Planet, contains about 1.5m faecal colliform bacteria per part. The maximum amount for water safe for showering is 500 bacteria per part. The people look fine and are clearly having fun, though.








And, a short distance down from the ghats where people play in the water, the burning ghats, fronted by dark, dirty looking buildings, exude endless fumes. Cremation here is literally non-stop since the fires burn 24 hours, and people have to obtain queuing numbers to be cremated. Bodies are washed in the waters of the Ganges while cows, goats and dogs rubbed their noses through the ashes and trash in search of food, before they are cremated.







The building you see below is where the dying wait out their last days before being cremated at the Ganges. People stay in this building when they know that their death is imminent.





While some people take swimming lessons at the River, close by, an infant's body is dumped into the river. The body was not cremated because it is yet to be 20 years of age. Hence it was just thrown into the river.




Overall, a rewarding if sobering trip.