Varinasi

7am meeting this morning for the morning boat trip on the Ganges to view the Ghats. We had the usual beggars asking us for money and also young children wanting to sell us flower and candle offerings. It was not too foggy to start with and it was very peaceful out on the river. We watched the colourful procession of people along the Ghats, people bathing, people washing, people drinking the Ganges water and a couple of people being cremated. We had around an hour floating around then headed back to the hotel for breakfast.

 

After breakfast the rest of the group set of for Sarnath the place where Lord Buddha gave his first sermon after he gained enlightenment. We stayed at the hotel not wanting to spend another couple of hours in a car when we have an 11 hour trip the next day. We managed to post a few days up to the blog and also talk to David's Mum and Chris. We then set off to have lunch at a restaurant down near the Ghat. It was a peaceful setting to have lunch and we also saw two newly married couples walking down the the water for their blessings. After lunch we noticed a bookshop next to the restaurant that sold yoga related books and CDs. We ended up spending over $60 on books and a couple of CDs that at home would have cost us $100s. The books were heavy so we went back to the hotel to drop them off before going out to do some more shopping. We bought David a 3 tiered tipin before going back to meet the group for our afternoon boat ride to watch the puja ceremony.

The ceremony was much earlier than usual because of the lunar eclipse. We watched for quite a while then we sailed into the middle of the channel to have our own ceremony where we put the little floating lights into the river and made a wish. They looked very pretty on the water.

  

They dropped us off on the shore near the old town so we could finish off our shopping. We managed to buy 4 pots that fit inside each other for the van and Catriona bought an Indian outfit. We had dinner back at the hotel and headed off to pack all our new items ready for our 4am start.