Mother Ganga

"The Ganga is our sacred mother, very important to us" my guide/boat rower claimed as he ripped open a tobacco packet, emptied it's contents into his mouth and threw the wrapper over his shoulder. The wrapper floated past me near to where people were bathing, sipping the water, and brushing their teeth with it. I was very surprised when a decomposed baby floated by, knocking against the boat on its way downstream. (Babies aren't cremated because they have not had a chance in life to generate bad karma). We were on our way to see the burning ghats, where bodies burned in the open air. Surprisingly, there is no bad smell from the wood, as it is wood from a mango tree, meaning that the odour is actually quite nice and fragrant. Having been shown around, as well as a sacred fire that has never gone out in thousands of years, we headed back downstream as people washed their clothes in the river. A very interesting experience, although decidedly not for the squeamish!

With that morbid start to the day, I packed my bags to check out - I'm leaving for Khajuraho tonight. I found out I was missing my favourite shirt; apart from my shoes it was the only other clothing item that I would have been sad to lose, and now it is gone. We had some good times, green shirt, beginning when my sister gave it to me for my birthday. I'll never have another shirt like you! Trying to decide my next step, I knew exactly what would cheer me up after losing the shirt - the bakery I had found yesterday! I had been highly pleased to find the Bread of Life Bakery and Restaurant, where I had a cheesecake and coffee - yum! Although not nearly as good as mum's baked cheesecake, just the fact that I found it here cheered me immensely. More than a bakery, this is also a fully-fledged restaurant, I realised, and checked out the menu. One thing I have been missing greatly is pancakes with maple syrup - all these banana pancakes I've been having, so dry and missing what they really need - a good dousing of maple syrup! So this morning I went along and bought a stack of pancakes with butter melting over the top of them and maple syrup oozing down the stack - yum! Just what I needed. I'm sad I didn't find this place earlier, as they also have eggs Royale - hollandaise sauce, in India! Alas, I will have to leave this place without ever trying their eggs with hollandaise sauce.