Made it to India!

Well, after another 3 hour delay, we did finally make it out. We flew on a nice big plane into Varanasi. I had made friends with 3 cool young Australian women, and they were kind enough to let me tag along with them. I shared a taxi and a tuk tuk and was able to get a room at the same hotel. They have a great balance of cool confidence that is friendly but has a boundary in it. I have been struggling with how to be friendly yet have an air that says "I'm not interested" to everyone trying to sell something. My technique has been to be very guarded, a bit grumpy even, which puts me on edge. It has been really helpful to me to see how a relaxed confidence can be its own boundary. I do feel it was a divine gift that allowed me to arrive with those women. I was intimidated but determined to come to India alone. Thanks to Alicia, Vanessa, and Jade, my entry here was seemless and easy. What a gift!

Hotel Alka is right on the holy river Ganges, and has easy access to the walkway along the river by a series of temples (called ghats) where the devout come to pray and bathe, and where it's especially auspicious to be cremated when you die. About 300-450 people a day are cremated here, and the burning ghats are running 24 hours a day to keep up.

This morning, I woke up at 4:30 to go with the Australians on a boat ride for sunrise. The ghats, hotels, and some houses, are crowded together in a wall lining the river. Steep stairs lead down the bank into the river. Thousands of people stream through the alleyways headed to the river's edge. At Shiva's main temple, hundreds of people bathed while other hundreds waited, sold flowers, or prayed and chanted. There were holy men (sadus) with their long dreadlocks, painted faces, far away eyes. The sharp "crack!" of a cricket bat hitting the ball could be heard as boys played cricket on any surface wide and flat enough. There was even an area to roller skate! The lines between the sacred and secular are not recognized here. Everything is woven together. Life, play, death, laundry, sacred bathing rituals, swimming for fun, sports, grief, prayer, business...all together on the banks of the Ganges.

I will spend some more time at a few of the temples, but the early boat ride was the best way to be introduced, and to ease into this place. I expected the chaos to hit as soon as I left customs, but things were subdued. I had read the touts are aggressive trying to sell things. They are prevalent, but pretty easy to wave off and ignore. I will rest during the heat of the day (over 100 degrees) and then take an evening boat ride to see the evening festival where thousands of lights are released into the Ganges. One of them will be mine!

PS: Due to the US warnings about imminent attacks in New Dehli, I have changed my plans to skip it for now. I will have to find a creative way to get around it on my way North.