It was getting dark when the tax driver dropped me outside the gates to the old city of Varanasi. Inside, the streets were too narrow for cars and I would need to walk to my guest house. Although it was raining steadily it did nothing to cool the oppressive heat. I hadn’t gone more than twenty steps when my sandalled feet slid in a wet pile of cow dung. The oozing excrement pushed up between my toes and splattered my ankles. There was a heavy, sweet and slightly unpleasant burning smell hanging in the air – the very particular smell of burning bodies coming from the cremation ghats along the Ganges. 

My guest house was somewhere in the maze of lanes and poorly lit side alleys. It was only $8.00 a night and had good reviews as well as an advertised ‘room with a view over the Ganges’.