Varanasi (or, a funny thing happened on the way to the crematorium)

Call me crazy, but I don't think an active crematorium should be a popular tourist attraction. Which is why I found it so unsettling that (1) people had to be repeatedly be reminded to stop taking pictures of the burning bodies and (2) some people regarded the experience with so little sense of gravity that they actually threw cigarette butts inches from where the bodies were being burned. Taking a boat down the Ganges and watching people perform ritual cleansing: cool. Turning the handling of the dead into a circus attraction, not so much.

But, as I said, something funny did happen. In the afternoon, I got an ayurvedic massage. Having spent 6 weeks at boot camp, I've gotten used to massages. But this was something completely new. First, the masseuse didn't leave the room so that I could disrobe. Instead, she helped me out of my clothes. Second: no sheet. A towel underneath, but other than that, nothing. So, as you can imagine, I was already feeling a little out of my element. So you can imagine my surprise when the massage started with my boobs! I'd say that a good 20% of the massage was boob-centered, possibly more. And since there's not a lot of muscle there, it mainly entailed having massage oil rubbed into them while the masseuse proceeded to ask me if I was married and to express horror when I told her how old I was. She also (while massaging my stomach, a singularly uncomfortable experience) told me that a cup of hot water every morning was all I needed to turn myself pixie-thin in less than a year. And to think I've wasted all this time and money working out...

Another special thing about Varanasi: the rickshaws. Terrifying. The city appears to have no traffic laws, and I'm convinced I survived the interminable rides to and from the Ganges through dumb luck, as my driver/cyclist made every possible effort to run into tuk tuks, motorbikes, cars, pedestrians, and other rickshaws (all of whom share a single road). The only group immune from his cycle of terror: cows. Fortunately, many of them had taken the evening off to hang out in various shops on the main road (seriously).