I found myself scurrying through narrow towering alleys filled with people, bikes, cows, colourful Hindu shrines, but too narrow for cars (after all this is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world). The ancient buildings were high, so I was struggling to work out which way the shadows were falling so that I could work my way in the direction I wanted. My train had been nearly 3 hours late, and I had jumped off a station early because it looked closer to the river. But with only an hour of daylight left in this slightly intimidating and never ending labyrinth, I was starting to become a bit apprehensive. What's more, it had been 24 hours since I had seen another white face, and this was something I had not experienced for quite some time, so everything felt unfamiliar.

Then, suddenly there it was peering between a gap in the dwellings - the holy Ganga (River Ganges). There was a crowd of bathers and two cows on the ghats (steps that line the south shore of the river), and complete by chance I had also stumbled right on top of the guesthouse I had wanted to find once I had the river as a landmark. I checked into a room with a balcony, and looked out over the river in the early evening light. A large fire was burning not far below. Surely I wasn't that close to the funeral pyres of the burning ghats. I checked my guidebook, and yes, they were right there.

Now I thought I had travelled far and wide, and seen many sights, but I've never seen anything like this. There were at least a dozen cremations taking place, open to the elements, with the head male of the family standing nearby with shaven head watching his expired loved one in the middle of the flames. This spot is such a sacred place to leave your body behind for the cleansed remains to be cast into the holy river that the burning goes on relentlessly and there are even elderly people renting rooms nearby because for Hindus, this is such an auspicious place to die.

An evening walk along the river soon brought me to the heart of the old city where there are lots of people and sitar music on a central stage. This is the nightly ganga aarti ceremony.

But it seems I have hit the jackpot again and arrived during a big festival. The Festival of 5001 Candles is taking place today, and the number of people here has increased dramatically over the last two days. It's a huge Hindu celebration to mark the first full moon after Dev Deepawali (or Diwali, the Festival of Lights which I already witnessed in Nepal). The regular morning bathers are now struggling to get into the water; there are so many people - mostly sleeping out on the ghats (personally I think you come out of that water dirtier than when you went in, but that isn't the point; it is intended to wash away the sins). And tonight I took a boat along the river to see the thousands of candles on the ghats, the floating lotus candles on the water, and to watch the ceremony from a more comfortable position.

For a westerner, this is a surreal place. It's like another world. Varanasi bombards the senses from all directions. I'll never forget it. Even the touts who put many travellers off by are a big part of the experience, and the most comical reply I received from a young girl selling lotus candles was "you've broken my heart" when I wouldn't promise to buy one the following day. They certainly try to capitalize on your emotions. But with poverty and poor sanitation all around reminding me that India still has a huge problem with this, I would agree that this is not a place for the faint hearted.