Varanasi*

Woke up early this morning to watch ganga aarti at Assi Ghat (the southernmost ghat) - a quieter ceremony than the one we watched last night. After the ceremony, we took a boat out on the Ganges River to watch the sunrise, see the 84 ghats along the river and the two cremation areas.

After a rest, we walked up to the famous Blue Lassie shop - on the way, we met two young men who were in Varanasi for their interviews to join the army. They joined us for lassi, which we had while watching families walking past carrying bodies to be cremated at Manikarnika Ghat

We next went to Manikarnika Ghat, which is a 24/7 cremation ground. This was a really interesting place to visit, which for us was unfortunately tainted by us getting scammed. A man approached us, claiming to work at the crematorium, and gave us some information and a quick tour. While the information was interesting, he then asked that we make a donation towards helping the poor to cremate their families. We were happy to donate some money, but then were told it was 600 rupees (about NZ$12) per kilogram of wood. They insisted that we donated by the kilo, but we only gave them what cash we had on us, which was about 1500 rupees (aboht NZ$30). We should have listened to the gut feeling we had, which was that this was a scam and walked away. I'm not sure why we didn't, it might be because we've been travelling for so long, combined with India being the most challenging place we've been, that we let our guard down. We returned to our guesthouse and our host said the entire thing is a scam and the money never goes to the poor. I am so glad we did not give more, but it makes me incredibly angry that we were taken advantage of. The only positive of this is that in over 300 days of travel, this is only the third (and hopefully last) time someone has successfully scammed us.Read more