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| | Mark Moxon, Travel Writer: India: Varanasi |
 | | Varanasi is built along the west bank of the Ganges, which, in an attempt to avoid the hills to the east in Bihar, turns north towards the Ghaghara River; this means that the river flows north at Varanasi, against all intuition, and Varanasi is perched on the west bank, facing into the sunrise. |
 | | After the relatives wash the body in the Ganges for the last time (simply by dipping the covered body in the river) it is placed on top of an orderly pile of logs by the workers (untouchables, the lowest caste of all) who neatly stack more logs on top before lighting the pyre. |
 | | The east bank of the Ganges is a false one: dry, cracked mud stretches for a couple of hundred metres back from the water's edge, until it reaches a gradual rise where the vegetation can survive the monsoon without being washed out. |
| www.moxon.net /india/varanasi.html (4409 words) |
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