I am going to back up a bit and give you some more information on the accomodations in India. Our hotels have actual keys (no key cards here!) This particular hotel in Varanasi actually had one of those super old looking keys. (see photo) Also, people for the most part do not use toilet paper. Luckily the hotels give you toilet paper, but it is less than a quarter of a regular roll back in the US. The staff at this hotel must think Americans are gross, because we...

Waking up at 5am this morning was not the easiest thing we have ever done, but it was worth it. We took the short walk to the river and first witness the morning prayers. We then got in the boat and just floated along the river. We saw some more people doing cremations, people bathing, and more prayers. We also got to witness an actual sunrise. I will say seeing the sun rise slowly over the River Ganges in Varanasi, India has got to be one of the highlights of my...

After a VERY long sleeper train ride without much sleep, we made it Varanasi this morning at about 7am. We took our first auto rickshaw ride from the train station to our hotel. Luckily all of our rooms were ready and we had a couple of hours to shower and nap before we started our tour of the city. Let me tell you, we were more than ready to get our room. Jaime didn't get hardly any sleep on the train ride, and I fell asleep ok, but woke up about 2am to use the ...