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India is an assault on the senses - Varanasi is no exception. Your ears will be smothered by the constant street noise. The smells will punch you so hard in the face that they will penetrate your nostrils, melt on impact and seep down the back of your throat. Your eyeballs won’t know where to look - darting around from one incomprehensible thing to another...Elephant Baba, nude holy man, monkeys gone wild. Drink it all in (figuratively, of course). It's a wonderful, nonsensical, borderline masochistic experience.

Every year around a million Hindu pilgrims travel to Varanasi, bringing with them some 40,000 corpses to be cremated on the banks of the Gaga. It is the holiest place in Hinduism. Hindus inspire to be cremated here, so their spirit can be released from the cycle of birth and death and rebirth.

Varanasi’s main business is the industry of death. There seems to be an irreverence towards dying. A haunting juxtaposition of the macabre and the mundane. Celebrations of life and death, alongside the daily routine, morning rituals, survival. Some things may shock you: people washing next to the ghats as the cremations are happening, locals casually searching for precious metals in the ashes, dogs gnawing at the charred remains of the cremated.

The Blue Lassi Shop is a place of respite from the madness of the street - where you can contemplate the meaning of life and death - while consuming a delectable yoghurt based beverage! It’s next level people-watching. While I was slurping on my banana lassi, one funeral procession in particular stood out. There were four young men carrying a body draped in silks on their shoulders, navigating the narrow alleyways towards the ghat for the funeral of their loved one. Their faces were expressionless. No sadness, no emotion at all. Suddenly they paused at a crossroads and give each other the universal "yeah we're lost" look. They casually stopped to ask a local shop-keep for directions, then continued on their way.

To get to the Blue Lassi Shop, you will need to navigate the labyrinth that is the backstreets of Varanasi but if you head towards the Vishwanath Temple and the Chauka Ghat, you won’t miss it, it’s painted bright blue. The Blue Lassi Shop really ticks all of the boxes: tasty treats and cultural experiences, all in a quirky setting. You won’t be disappointed. Leave a photo of yourself on the wall to join the fraternity of other globe trotters who are forever enshrined on the walls of this institution.