Downstream from our hotel (the friendly and convenient Hotel Alka) the scene from the Ganges turns darker and more surreal. The buildings seem less colorful, grimmer. Smoke rises from fires in the distance.

Yes, those are fires where bodies have been burned. Yes, those are piles and piles of logs for more fires later. (There is also a crematorium, and I believe the story is that most of the bodies are cremated there, but no one is denied a cremation in Vanarasi–so the poor are cremated on these ghats.

There is also, a bit farther downstream, a Piranesian ruin of a stupa that has become…just an accepted part of this bizarre landscape.

Bodies are brought to Varanasi from many places in India. They are first bathed in the Ganges River and then taken to be cremated.

No one cries at a funeral in Varanasi, we were told. In Varanasi, there is no sorrow, only joy. Later, when the mourners go home again, they will cry.

We headed back upriver to the hotel, where scenes that seemed bright and festive on the way down now seem somehow like part of an entirely other world.

At the hotel, the manager told us that people who are fortunate enough to die in Varanasi–not necessarily those who came here to die but even those who just accidentally happen to die while they were here–go directly to paradise and do not have to be reborn again. This is an occasion of great joy. There is no sadness in Varanasi, only happiness and good fortune.