5.30, we set off for the Ghats. The Lonely Planet guide describes the early morning light as “magical”. Today, it was more a sort of prestidigitateur’s murky. Also, the Ganges is in a state of seasonal flood. By tomorrow, tourist boats will not be allowed to sail. In fact, we had some difficulty, and had to take on an extra oarsman to get upstream. The eddies and currents are quite spectacular, but it’s the width of the river that astonishes. The classic photographs show impressive flights of steps of dozens of treads, leading down to the water: today the longest flight was twenty, and the water level up to a cryptic 207 flood units, washing into homes, hotels, castles and the widow’s hostel mentioned crucially in “Midnight’s Children”. Everything seems to be sliding into the river. This wasn’t the most astonishing, however - the early morning bathing has to be the most amazing human phenomenon I’ve seen (the Taj was the most impressive built thing). At this time of day, the water is reputed to be at its most holy, and people bathe, swim, chant mantras, wash vegetables, laundry and pour the thick, muddy soup from small brass vessels, praying all the while. They brush their teeth (which are uniformly excellent, if often bloodied by betelnuts) with a finger, whilst blithely watching the corpses of dogs, cows and holy men go floating by. The “burning ghats” are very busy places, with no sign of the (perhaps sanitised?) mourning of Britain/England? Bodies in the cream/gold for men and red for women lie in rows awaiting the 120 Rs of the electric crematorium or the 1000 Rs for the wood pyre. Children are not accorded a funeral, and Siddhus or holy men are simply allowed to float downstream. All ashes flake over the surface of the turbulent water and join the detritus of the flood in thick brown spate. Pilgrims from all over India swarm on the ghats, often as tourists - the middle classes seem well-fed and eschew the bathing, whilst the wiry, spare-fleshed, slight bandy poor men (like our boatman) scrub and burble and soap. On the subject of food, the holy men are invariably healthy, portly and calm, and very numerous. No holy women of course. Poor widows end up in the charity hostel, which is at least better than sati. They bathe inside their saris, dupattis and all. The streets of Varanasi are narrower, filthier, more cow and buffalo-strewn than anywhere else. As Adrian says, “If it smells like a urinal, that’s because it is a urinal”. I find that one of the most difficult things to come to terms with: the men in particular use everywhere as a lavatory. And this in front of stalls where the most exquisite hand-woven silk brocade saris flutter in the cheap bulb light. Good wild silk is more per metre than an auto-rickshaw driver makes on a good day. Oh, India!