Ganges

We flew to Kolkata (better known to us as Calcutta) to get on a river boat from 7 days.
These are the towns/cities we are visiting along the way: Bandel, Kalna, Matiari, Khushbagh, Baganager, Mushidabad, Mayapur, and Chandenagor.  This was definitely the smart way to end the trip because a large part of the group had reached the "stomach bug" tipping point and it seemed that we were always missing a few people at meals and shore excursions. Our rooms on board were large and had very nice bathrooms which was convenient for some of the Delhi Belly group.

 The River was a daily part of the villagers life with fishing, bathing, washing of clothes, dishes and water buffalo being very common sites.

The water didn't seem to have a lot of garbage floating in it. Trash seemed to be laying on the shores. Paula and I did not see any dead bodies but Heather saw one but didn't have her camera at the time. However, she was able to get a photo of cremation as it floated by. They seemed to be fighting erosion with sandbags, bamboo 'jacks', and rocks. 

I guess riverboats and their accompanying tourists seemed to be a novelty to the locals because they spent a lot of time waving and yelling 'tata' to us.