Varanasi: ancient, crumbling palaces, bodies floating in the Ganges, garbage and wet cow dung underfoot. 

The smell of corpses burning on the open funeral pyres hangs over the old city. You step aside to let pass a small group carrying a body shrouded in white cloth, shoulder-high on a simple wooden stretcher. Pushing past cows and crowds of pilgrims and mourners in the narrow alleys you bustle your way down to the Ganges and the burning ghats – the holy crematoria for devout Hindus. People are ritualistically washing in the oily, polluted water of the sacred river. Oppressive heat and the fine drizzle of rain. The dark nights shot through with bright spotlights on the tall poles lining the Ganges. Hawkers, boatmen, scavengers, tourists, tea sellers, school children, beggars, thieves, families, touters, sadhus, and pilgrims crowd the stone ghats: selling, buying, bathing, stealing, washing, strolling, chatting, cheating and praying.