safe to bathe at the ghats?

Nick-H

Water quality varied widely. At the moment, out tap water is salty! .

Water in the metros is treated and made fit to drink, however the pipes are not sound, and the water is at low pressure, so it is not necessarily drinkable by the time it reaches the houses.

Then there is water from wells and bore holes --- and it can vary in quality from house to house in the same street.

gvdv

Hi,
I've read and seen photos of exquisite-looking silks and other fabrics, which Varanasi is apparently famous for; worth looking at if that kind of thing interests you.

branchazel

But i mean, we can buy bottled water
it's just that if the shower water is so dodgy (if it's all bumped from the the Ganga which supposedly is a "brown soup of excrement and industrial effluents." and "The water there contains 60,000 faecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml, 120 times the official limit of 500 faecal coliforms/100ml that is considered safe for bathing.")
then there's a huge prob
i wear contact lenses everyday and esp. in the summer because i always get heat rashes on my nose and face from glasses in the summer
but of course i need to wash my hands before putting them on so i would basically be rubbing factory chemical and poop in my eyes... HAHAHA

freenote

Quote branchhazel "heard the boat rides are real expensive though, right?
whats a reasonable price? " end quote .

I cant remember the exact price but at a guess 50 IRS per person .
I have one little rule i stick to in Varanasi ,only eat veg .It is possible to find a meat dish there , but it's not right . As for the polluted Ganges ,and it is ,we have seen dolphins swimming on a couple of occasions .hard to spot till you get "your eye in " you are looking for Grey blobs in a Grey river ,difficult .
Have fun

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branchazel

i'm vego!

sunilg

errrrrrrr....you are confused here.

Read this .. This wiki article should clear your confusion regarding different 'ghats.'

and as far as question of taking a dip in the holy water is concern; its a matter of faith of faith than anything. These above facts might or might not be 100% true, but when you see thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) people bathing there, you'll if all these people would die of cholera or jaundice or other water-borne disease; not only people bathe there, they also take some water to their homes and this water is then used in variety of religious ceremonies (for us, its a purifier you see Even a few drops are dropped in the mouth of a dying person during his/her final moments and its believed that it will purify him/her of all the sins he/she has committed here and will provide him/her an entry ticket for the heaven.

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sarkar

I have seen Varanasi Ghats.. It was Yukk...
...
Best place to dip in River Ganga is Haridwar... Water is cool, fast flowing and crystal clear there.. Ganga starts polluting as soon as it leaves hills and reaches Uttar Pradesh.

Nick-H

You don't know how many do! and... just to finish them off, eh?

In a contest between faith and microbes, microbes will win, most times.

sunilg

right. Just like we don't know if God truly exists or not, coz nobody has actually seen him.

Nick-H

Not like that at all, no.

Whilst the answer to one is difficult to know, it could be possible; the answer to the other is not possible to know.


I have faith in microbes. It is not at relevant to this conversation whether I have faith in God or not

sunilg

if its the battle between the facts and the faith, or your faith versus my faith, we'll never reach to a conclusion that is acceptable to both of us, so lets just leave it here a

this is more like what i wanted to convey

Peace

Nick-H

But I was going to post that the guy federica quoted must be an absolute nutter!



Sure, sunilg, I don't want to pick any quarrel with you, or anyone else over this

freenote

If it was the same hydrologist didn't he drink the water every day and suffer most of the water born diseases ? After reading that i couldn't help but wonder if drinking the water was a fairly common practice ?

Nick-H

A few years ago, there was an excellent series of TV programs (UK; Channel 4 I think) from Kumbh Mela.

One of these featured a young British-born man, of Indian Ancestry. He was going from sadhu to sadhu, enquiring whether he might safely bathe in the river.

I kept thinking... He's asking the wrong people! He should ask a Doctor!

The tradition of accepting food, on visits to homes, this week, has rendered me incapable of leaving the toilet for more than a few minutes at a time for a whole day and night.

It's tough, having faith in microbes --- but we must suffer for our faith

palerider

I was in Varanasi last year, and the Ganga was flooding as I arrived, so no bathing, there was a forty knot flow happening.
After 2 days, it settled down, and was clean and fresh.
EVERYONE went to the river and jumped in, well , all the hindus anyway.
I couldn't resist, it was great. But two days earlier, i don't think so.

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