Yesterday evening I had a dinner at the Mocambo-Restaurant. I think, it was one of the better restaurants due to the prizes and the audience. I had a Kingfisher-Beer (640 ml), Chicken Oriental and a Brownie with Vanilla Ice. Everything was OK and very good. I payed 450 Rs (these are 8 EUR - most expensive dinner here in India ever, it is up to the prize of a room/night).

It was very interested, that the guests in this restaurant - although they are all from India - spoke only english. Very strange and quite a broken english. I verified this, as I talked with the man next to me. He is a doctor, living in Kolkata…

OK… This day I visited the BBD Bagh Part of the city - “Dalhousie Square“. Went there by taxi and walked around… Very interesting, very british. Many british buildings - you could mean, you are somewhere in the UK.

The gap is very high… The differences… between poor and rich. Best restaurants, top mobile-phones and computers and during watching new cars on the street you have to take care, that you do not hurt people crawling or sleeping on the pavement, street or floor.

Children and woman are begging. “Giving money to beggars is a crime”, I am often hearing from locals.

The hotel, I am staying… Sunflower Guest House… The building is very old and there is an elevator in it. Very very old one and operated manually day and night by a person. Does not look very secure… :)

@Albert: You are right… They are selling teaching books on the street… All kinds… TOEFL-test, German, all computer languages…

Varanasi is one of the oldest and most spiritual cities in the world. Varanasi is famous for burning Hindu people next to the Ganges when they died.

I had a walk the whole day on the ghats of Varanasi. Ghats are places, where people can bath in the Ganges or where Hindu people are burned after their life. I went up and down and was breathless.

In the morning I first went to Manikarnika Ghat and saw many people getting burned. Impressive and cold shower on my body. Impressive. This was the place, where life ends. This was the place, where Hindu people are “reincarnated”. I have not seen this before and have to digest the seen things. Very interesting… Very different.

I went through all ghats, saw people bathing in the Ganges, people washing their clothes, cows bathing, many small boats, saw ash flying in the dirty, dirty Ganges and a lot of other things. The water in the Ganges is at the moment very very low. You can see it in the pictures, that it looks like a “desert”. In July, when the monsum is coming, the water rises up to 12 meter (!) and everything gets flooded.

Lonely Planet says, that there are 1.500.000 bacterias on 100 ml in the Ganges. Everything, which is above 500 bacterias/100 ml is dangerous. Ganges is really a dark soup and very, very dirty. Very dirty.

In the evening I went by boat to a ceremony on one ghat. It was very interesting - also did Pooja. Will see if I will get up tomorrow at 5.30 AM to have a morning boattrip.

Everything is fine… Weather is quite hot, it’s about 40 degrees Celsius. I drunk about 7 liter of water, good so.