As holy as a place can be

Triveni Sangam is a confluence of 3 rivers: Yamuna, Ganges and the invisible Saraswati (I wrote this without googling it so making significant progress in language arts). English is common but fluent English or one you can understand is rare. This is very significant place for Hindus so of course, we had to go – 630 am hardly awake, we were off.

Not as crowded as we were late to the real stuff – most people come at 430 am which we will do this Sunday in Varanasi (no selfies for sure!). Get in a boat and head out to the delta. The 2 visible rivers are actually different colors – and supposedly very visible. Have to admit, couldn’t differentiate between the greenish grey and brownish grey so stuck to the currents. The hindus do a prayer there and then take a bath or dip in. The waters were high since it is after monsoon season so they had a small wooden chair there that would take you down. Every Hindu is supposed to enter the Ganges in their lifetime but many people come very often – and the locals bathe everyday. They literally jump in with their clothes and some were visibly very emotional. I felt a bit inadequate as it clearly didn’t mean as much to me as it did to them so just quietly observed. I did get blessing with the water in my hair (no worries, no dipping or drinking) – but I did touch it and figured a bit of extra luck never hurt anyone.. so now I am blessed by the Ganges river – watch out – some of my sins washed away so a whole new start !