the best of india, the worst of india

hi buddies!~
having spent a few days relaxing in our homebase of new delhi, new friends colony, we wrenched ourselves out of luxury and headed back for the rails and ended up in varanasi. for those of you unaccustomed to the hype, this is considered the holiest city in india and has a string of ghats lined up along the ganges (in addition to also being the city that was home to my parents in the late-1970s). it is the best of india because it is a real indian city, with fervent pilgrims, a labryinthene old city, and temples and monkeys and beautiful architecture hidden in all the cracks. but it is the most insufferable because (foreign) tourists have been coming here for ages and the locals have perfected their annoying touting tactics. if, as the saying goes, a hindu dies in varanasi and achieves moksha automatically... then i guess these people are fully taking advantage of their certain fate to be as difficult as possible in their last life. to be fair, of course, we have had our mood soured by lack of sleep, double colds, and dissatisfaction over our inability to cook for ourselves. our 100 rupee a night room (2 dollars) is near the most famous burning ghat, Manikarnita, where you can witness people burning on pyres all day and night. alp has joked that the soot in our snotty noses is actually the residue of people!
ingrid