Varanasi

Varanasi is the holiest place in India where thousands of Hindu pilgrims tour its temples and bathe in the Ganges River to gain religious merit. The waters contains ashes and corpses in various stages of decomposition and the beggars who line the paths to the rivers are often disfigured from leprosy. Scores of people enter the water from the 70 ghats to purify themselves before the rising sun. They perform religious rituals in the water; others go to brush their teeth, bathe and swim.