I made it.

I arrived in Varanasi this afternoon. This place is crazy.

I was told to prepare for nutty driving. Check out the video (if I can get it to load). Trucks, cars, bikes, tuktuks, motorcycles, scooters cows, dogs, and people clog the road honking near constantly. I saw a kid who looked about seven driving a scooter and a baby squeezed between mom and dad on a motorcycle. I would say is was complete chaos except I saw no accidents. Every minute or so, I caught a flash of beauty - a woman in a luminous purple sari or a perfectly pressed young man  in all white.

I was told to prepare for filth. The smell is rough, the sewers are open and the cows and dogs poop and pee everywhere.  But when I got out of the car, the samosas being fried by the curb smelled like heaven.

I was told to prepare for death. At the burning ghat, families were cremating loved ones by the river. A group of men had the job of shoveling the spent ashes into the river. As they did, they waded into the river and panned the remains for rings, jewels, or coins that might have been left on the body. Not 50 feet away down the ghat, two bulls decided to test each other's bravery by charging each other while the passers-by scrambled to give them space.

I was told to prepare for splendor. Along with hundreds of others, I watched a Ganges Evening ceremony where five priests in training offer the pleasures of the senses to the river to say good night. They clanged bells, burned incense, lit candles, flung marigold petals, and chanted. After an hour of spectacle as I was leaving, I noticed a smaller boy doing the same ceremony 50 yards down the river by himself.

I am exhausted.