Sunrise on the Ganga (Ganges)

Nov 25

Good morning from Varanasi. 

Sunrise boat tour on the Ganga, past all the ghats (steps into a body of water) along the river. 

Yesterday - or rather in the evening on the 23 we left Orccha via taxis to the train station in Jhansi (might have misspelled that earlier), where we were catching an over night train to Varanasi. Most of us slept a bit on the train, but when we woke up and expected to be more than half-way there it became apparent that there was a delay. There was a derailment ahead of us on the tracks (at one of the stations), there were a number of injuries and several people were killed. So although we were delayed over 8 hours, at least we were safe. 

View from the train crossing a river. 

One of our strongholds on the train. 

Walking down to the river this morning. 

Sunrise (well about half an hour afterward), there is quite a bit of haze and so we didn’t actually witness the sun coming up over the horizon. 

Ghats and buildings along the river. This evening we go for a sunset cruise, this time going downstream (we went upstream this morning). Later this morning we are going to the silk making district - Varanasi is famous for its high quality silks. Due to the delay yesterday, we don’t have as much time in Varanasi as planned. This afternoon some people are going to get henna designs on their skin, some people are going to wander around (that would be me - maybe I will find some postcards and stamps). We start early tomorrow - meeting at 4:30 am - and we head to Nepal. Whoa - so last day in India (sort of - I spend some time in the Delhi airport on my way back home in December).