I actually woke up at 5:15 this morning to get a boat out onto the holy river (I have normally been waking at 6:15, so it wasn’t extravagantly early). The weather is absolutely perfect at that time to be out on the water, and the light was perfect for photographs (although a wide angle, medium format camera was not ideal, a Canon IDs with a 70-200mm 2.8IS Lens would have been better). I paid my boat-wallah 250 rupees for 2 hours to paddle from Assi Ghat to Dashashwamedha ghat (where the ceremony is every night) and back. It took under a minute to hear the price drop from 600 to 250, as other boatmen were beginning to crowd around me, just as the group of small children has right now (not many people in the US would be so interested in my fumbling fingers). To call my boat wallah a tour guide would be pushing it, as all he really did was read the signs on the side of each ghat, much as grandpa in “City Slickers” would. Varanasi is one of the most beautiful places in India, and at 6am on a rowing boat, floating down the Ganges, the experience is hard to beat.
Of course all moments of tranquility must come to an end. This happened when we neared the main ghat (as seen below) and again when I was swarmed by more ‘tour guides’ at the burning Ghat. As with most spiritual places in the world, the religious is always closely tied to the sacreligious when financial gains are at stake.
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