Similarly, it is seen as a soul cleansing experience to bathe in the river. The bathing takes place in the early morn. Our guesthouse offered free sunrise rowboat rides along the river, for a sneak peek. Unlike the cremations, it's cool to take pics of the bathing, as long as you can accept yourself as someone photographing a man washing himself.
Stretching back about a click from the riverside is a network of alleyways, before you hit road. It's pretty cool to get lost wandering the markets and restaurants in these alleys.
In true Indian style, there are cows and bulls chilling around the alleys like stray dogs. There are no stray dogs. For the most part these large bovines are peaceful creatures, accepted in homes as part of the family.
On occasion however, they know not their own strength. Such was the case when one reared it's head in anger catching Thirnan in the kidney with it's horn. T still has flashbacks of the fire he saw in it's eyes and the raw animal power thrust into his torso. Shortly thereafter we encountered a small calf in the alleys named Snowball. T avoided eye contact and backed away slowly.Now with all these cows and bulls, one might expect cow patties littering the alleys. It seems there's a bit of an industry in drying them out for fertilizer or fire starters. Here's Paul checking the purity of one batch.
100% pure, totally uncut, he's never seen anything like it.Varanasi.. at night.
Cruising along the river in the evening.
We met a fellow canuck by the name of Meghan. Some may recognize her as the Albertan representative in the 03 Canadian Amateur Hair-Stylist competitions. She still contends the Ontario representative used illegal scissors and should be stripped of her title. Regardless she gave T and I the best cuts we've ever had. sorry Sal (my barber).
Me doing a little jump-rope to shed some pounds. Gotta keep those ribs looking sharp.
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