Other indexes that would be busting holes in their respective ceilings include: the national cow shit index, buffalo shit index, goat shit index, dog shit index, and human shit index. It's likely that Varanasi would take out almost all gold medals at India's Faecal Index Olympics.
Varanasi is basically a huge holy toilet for animals and humans alike. It sits on the Ganges River, in the middle of the north east-ish corner of India, or in Uttar Pradesh if that means anything to you. The river is polluted. Heavily polluted. And pardon all the poo talk, but I'm not quite done yet. Here are some more smelly facts for you:
- 400 million people live along the Ganges River.
- 89 million litres of raw sewage is pumped into the river every day.
- At Varanasi, the river contains 60,000 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 millilitres - this 120 times more than is considered safe for bathing, never mind that the fact that people brush their teeth with this water and even... drink it! Bleeerrrrgh!!!
- 6 kms south of Varanasi, the faecal coliform content jumps to an incredible 1.5 million/100 mL. 3,000 times the safe limit!
If you can get past all that, Varanasi is quite an amazing town. The people here absolutely worship the river. Thousand and thousand of locals flock to the ghats each day to bathe, brush and get blessed. And millions more from all across India make regular pilgrimages to the The Ganges, or the Ganga as it's known in India, to "cleanse" themselves of sin.
If you're a Hindu, Varanasi is also one of #1 spots in the country to be cremated. At several sites in Varanasi you can actually sit and watch the cremation ceremonies taking place. They usually start in the alleyways behind the ghats where the family of the deceased carries the cloth-wrapped corpse on a wooden stretcher down to the river. The body is doused with water and then taken up the banks and placed on a large wooden pyre. After walking around the body 5 times (once for each of the 5 elements, earth, fire, wind, water, and spirit), the pyre is set alight by the deceased's closest relative.
In the beginning it's fairly bearable to watch, but as the cloth begins to burn away it gets pretty gruesome. I'll spare you too much of the detail, but on more than one occasion I sat there transfixed, staring at smoldering half-burnt limbs which had fallen casually off to the side.
All in all there's not much to do in Varanasi than to not do much. The town is the main attraction. Most people just come here to wander the ghats and enjoy a bit of perverse ogling at such an unfamiliar way of life. Varanasi is a voyeurs dream.
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