Even after a mind-numbing 25-hour journey, you can feel that Varanasi is an extraordinary place.

Not just 12 time zones away from New York, but thousands of years back in time. At 5,000+ years old, it is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.

It is also a major Holy City for the Hindu. They say if you die there, you go straight to heaven. The pyres on the river Ganges create bodies 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

So rich in history and yet it is also one of the poorest places on Earth.