Varanasi

Well, I may not be sold on the whole of India, but I've definitely fallen in love with Varanasi. This city is unreal. Last night I went down to one of the main ghats for ganga aarta, which is basically a ceremony to honor the sacred Ganges. That was quite a spectacle. Priests in saffron robes waving pots of fire and throwing flower petals and all kinds of stuff. Really amazing. Then tonight is a major festival night. Fireworks are going off everywhere, and every ghat is covered in tiny terra cotta lamps ordered in all kinds of designs. Everything from the sanskrit characters for "Om to faces to lotus flowers. And of course there are strings of fairy lights (which we in the states know as Christmas lights) draped over everything. There's music playing everywhere, and people are performing puja by the river's edge. One of the ways to perform puja is to light up these little lamps which are made out of leaves pressed into a bowl shape, then filled with flower petals and a candle. You light them and then set them adrift in the river, and with all the people here for the festival, the Ganga is covered with little bobbing points of light. It's beautiful. I got to see it from the river because I took a boat ride to get a better view. I met this Turkish guy to split the boat costs with and off we went. Gorgeous. We went past what's known as a burning ghat, which is where people cremate the bodies of their loved ones. The water of the Ganges is supposed to wash away all the bad karma one builds up in a lifetime, so people wash the corpses in it and then burn them (as required by Hindu religious customs) by the river's edge. It was a little strange to see these bonfires and know that there was a body inside each one, but frankly if you ask me, that's the way to go. All up in a puff of fragrant sandalwood...
It's wall to wall people, but that's India. Overall, it's amazing. The India I was hoping I'd find while I was here. Tomorrow before I catch my train I'm going to try to drag myself out of bed for the dawn boat trip in the other direction (catching the serenity of dawn as opposed to the frenzy of the festival). Then I have a 2 hour class in the classical Indian dance form called Kathak, and then it'll be off to the train station for my trip to Agra!
So all in all you can cancel the ticket home for now!