Varanasi, India

I had incorrectly assumed, given the many Sikhs living in Canada, that most Indians practiced that religion. So I was surprised to learn that Sikhs are actually an extremely small population of total Indians. Of the 1.2 Billion, only about 1% are Sikhs with the vast majority- 80%- being Hindu. (there's a saying here that the dream of Sikhs is to come to Canada).  So what we're seeing in Varanasi is representative of a billion Indians. This city has a population 3 million, it's one of the oldest cities in the world and it's steeped in Hindu religion. 

Watching Hindu customs live was surreal. I'm not trying to be melodramatic but at times it felt like an out-of-body experience, bordering on a weird dream. 

For starters, they revere cows (it's against the law to kill them) and there are cows on the streets roaming freely everywhere without a worry to traffic. This took us a while to adjust to in addition to the tuk tuks, motorbikes, rickshaws and bicycles and cars.

Over the last hundreds of years, many kingdoms (hundreds of Indian kings and even neighboring country kings) built palaces by the Ganges river where royalty would spend their last time on earth before going to heaven. Our guide referred to these buildings as beautiful structures; if you can think back hundreds of years, they probably were:

The main reason Varanasi is the holiest Hindu place in the world is that the Ganges river turns north here for 15 km and for Hindus, this signifies them going north to heaven.

Along this Varanasi stretch of river, there are two eternal flames and cremation ghats (stairwells from the river) where family will take the fire from the eternal flame to their funeral pyres for burning (this goes on 24 hours a day).

There were two cremations burning while we were there. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to complete this ritual (with 3 kilos of wood and 6,000 rupees or $1200) to attain release from the cycle of birth and death. Some of the remains after cremation are deposited in the river.

In Hindu religion, the month of August is Shrawan, a special prayer time to the Lord Shiva. Believe it or not, 100,000 pilgrims come to Varanasi DAILY from all over India to pray and cleanse their body in the Ganges river. For some it takes days to walk and they do this with bare feet:

They're carrying vials to put water in from the Ganges river.

When they reach the river, they 'cleanse' their soul by washing:

Once cleansed, they take water from the river back to their village and their temple.

Once back, they go to the temple and pour the water on the Lord Shiva lingam. According to Hindu religion, every male in this part of India should do this pilgrimage barefoot at least once in their lifetime. Our guide told us when he did it twenty years ago, it was a 3 day journey to the river and 3 days back (his feet were bloody and he could barely walk).This has been happening every year for centuries.

When you see and feel all this happening around you- the cows, the pilgrims, the cremations, the people- it's surreal yet fascinating. We couldn't help but wonder on the strangeness and beauty of these customs.