Chasing Brad Pitt Down the Ganges...
Well, India is certainly proving to be a land that provides varied experiences...
Yesterday we arrived in the holy city of Varanassi, which is apparently one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It is so holy, for Hindus, that it is believed that anyone who dies here goes directly to Heaven. Varanassi's claim to fame is being India's main access point to the River Ganges.
Now, after all the stories I've heard about the Ganges and the astronomical number of bugs and parasites and creepy crawly mutant things that live in it, I expected to see a gross, muddy, garbage filled stretch of water, but rather it is actually a quite nice, large and fast moving river. Anyway, last night we went for a sunset row-boat ride along the Ganges to watch the people bathing and the holy men participating in their religious ceremonies, which was fascinating and beautiful. Of particular interest were the numerous areas along the river bank where people were cremating corpses and scattering their ashes into the river. But, apparently certain people (holy men, holy women, children under 14, pregnant women, and people who die from snake bites) are never cremated in India. Their bodies are just wrapped in white fabric and thrown into the Ganges...yup...corpses, thrown into the river. Which does explain why the fish are so large, and why if a foreigner drinks from the Ganges they get so sick that they practically die.
Suffice it to say that after we found that out, we all moved bit closer into the middle of the boat and shut our mouths!
The best bit of the boat ride was a flower ceremony whereby we received a small round leaf dish filled with yellow and orange flowers, with a small candle in the middle. We lit the candle, made a wish, and put the dish into the Ganges. I'll let you know if/when mine comes true in due time.
But now, it's been a page or two, and you are probably wondering why on earth I called this blog entry as per the above. Well, some members of this group are gluttons for punishment and decided that they wanted to do a sunrise boatride on the Ganges as well. So, up we got (not cheerfully on my part) at 5:30 this mornning and toddled on down to the river for another look at the festering pools of e-coli swimming around by sunlight.
We'd been on the river for about an hour and were heading back to the bank to get some breakfast when a medium sized boat, quite full of people passed us. Someone in the group noticed that one of the people in the boat had a movie-style video camera, so we turned to see what the guy was filming. Turns out that he was filming Brad Pitt, who was rowing the boat!!!!! Now, how totally bizzare is that?
Endless variety. Gotta love it.
TK
Yesterday we arrived in the holy city of Varanassi, which is apparently one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It is so holy, for Hindus, that it is believed that anyone who dies here goes directly to Heaven. Varanassi's claim to fame is being India's main access point to the River Ganges.
Now, after all the stories I've heard about the Ganges and the astronomical number of bugs and parasites and creepy crawly mutant things that live in it, I expected to see a gross, muddy, garbage filled stretch of water, but rather it is actually a quite nice, large and fast moving river. Anyway, last night we went for a sunset row-boat ride along the Ganges to watch the people bathing and the holy men participating in their religious ceremonies, which was fascinating and beautiful. Of particular interest were the numerous areas along the river bank where people were cremating corpses and scattering their ashes into the river. But, apparently certain people (holy men, holy women, children under 14, pregnant women, and people who die from snake bites) are never cremated in India. Their bodies are just wrapped in white fabric and thrown into the Ganges...yup...corpses, thrown into the river. Which does explain why the fish are so large, and why if a foreigner drinks from the Ganges they get so sick that they practically die.
Suffice it to say that after we found that out, we all moved bit closer into the middle of the boat and shut our mouths!
The best bit of the boat ride was a flower ceremony whereby we received a small round leaf dish filled with yellow and orange flowers, with a small candle in the middle. We lit the candle, made a wish, and put the dish into the Ganges. I'll let you know if/when mine comes true in due time.
But now, it's been a page or two, and you are probably wondering why on earth I called this blog entry as per the above. Well, some members of this group are gluttons for punishment and decided that they wanted to do a sunrise boatride on the Ganges as well. So, up we got (not cheerfully on my part) at 5:30 this mornning and toddled on down to the river for another look at the festering pools of e-coli swimming around by sunlight.
We'd been on the river for about an hour and were heading back to the bank to get some breakfast when a medium sized boat, quite full of people passed us. Someone in the group noticed that one of the people in the boat had a movie-style video camera, so we turned to see what the guy was filming. Turns out that he was filming Brad Pitt, who was rowing the boat!!!!! Now, how totally bizzare is that?
Endless variety. Gotta love it.
TK
posted by TK at 2:58 AM
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