butter lamp and boat ride

Hi all,
Day 1 in varanasi was great. Breakfast on the roof, walking along the ganges, shopping, eating amazing indian food and riding a boat was the program. So I have to note that indian food is actually not spicy, thank god for me. Everything is like an explosion of smells, sights, sounds...We saw dozens of bodies being burnt, thrown out in the middle of the river, carried in the streets. It's crazy. Definitely not planning on swimming in the water anymore although they all do it and it looks nice. I got hennea on my hands, the real one this time, we looked at sarees, the fabric is just beautiful. Life is even cheaper than in Nepal, I got t-shirts for 60 cents, our meals are 3 dollars, so nice. Tonight was awesome, we took a boat on the river and went to look at a 'puja', a religious ceremony that takes places every day by the water, pretty much blessing the gods and giving offerings and all. It's a highly religious city obviously. The heat is making us adjust our lifestyle, we go hide for lunch time and come back out a little later. Tomorrow is going to be more of the same, just discovering the town, the old town with its fresh squeezed juices and shops, the ghats with the cremations, weddings, showers and washing clothes.
It's very interesting to look at all of this, being an outsider and trying to understand it all. Woman and men, religion, customs. It's like a maze. They really work in a caste system and it's impossible to really know what it all means, even the colour of your clothes shows everyone what caste you belong to. I cannot wait to put pictures up. The cows are all over the place, so are the dogs and the goats and the monkeys. It's like a zoo.
We're planning on waking up early tomorrow so I should go.
Love.
Izzy