The bus to Mathura, birthplace of Lord Krishna, is probably the last Indian bus we are going to take for a while. It is the typical battered vehicle which nevertheless takes us there safely and reliably. On the road we witness the usual examples of Indian transportation - and the nice view of laundry being dried in the sun along the railway track we cross.

Mathura could be called a smaller version of Varanasi. It has also has ghats lined up along a holy river - in this case the Yamuna. But the ghats are smaller with fewer steps down to the river, no dead people are burned here, there are less visitors and almost no tourists - a friendly and easy-going place. Still you find a few worshippers bathing in the river or at least putting some holy water on themselves. Besides the inevitable cows, there are also lots of monkeys. If you leave the open window unattended in our guesthouse room right above one of the ghats, they will come and curiously look inside.

We visit the local museum which is a lazy little place with nice examples of the Mathura school of sculpturing dating between the 1st and 6th century. During this time, Mathura was a Metropolis of Northern India and a Buddhist center with 20 monasteries and 3000 monks. Our next stop is the Hindu god Krishna’s birthplace. Around the birthplace itself are a number of temples, many shops for religious items and snacks and a dark narrow artificial cave which is decorated with scenes from Krishna’s life. You are not allowed to take a camera or mobile phone with you. The armed soldiers that heavily guard the whole place check you 3 times before you enter. The reason behind the tight security measures is the Katra Masjid mosque built 1661 on the same compound by Aurangzeb (the son of Schah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal) - at the site of a former Hindu temple which Aurangzeb destroyed. This history makes the mosque a potential target of fundamentalist Hindu attacks. After the visits we are really grateful for a cup of chai (tea with milk and sugar) at one of the street side stalls.

In the evening an aarti ceremony is performed at Vishram Ghat. It is similar to the ceremonies at Varanasi but instead hundreds of people probably less than 100 in total attend. This makes the experience much more personal - we are really part of the event. Two bells are rung with increasing intensity, holy water is spread over the crowd, flowers are distributed and thrown by everybody at some point and finally fire is lit on a ceremonial device consisting of several “dishes” on top of each other. A priest swings the giant “torch” in circles above the river before it is brought back to the ghat where everybody tries to get their hands right next to the fire. All this is accompanied by sermons, shouting and hand clapping. People are really excited about the ceremony.

In the guesthouse we have met Cheryl and Shalane from San Francisco. Together with them we get on a boat the next morning. We all enjoy looking from the water at the ghats and the worshippers lighted by the morning sun.

All four of us then make the short auto rikscha trip to neighboring Vindravan. Here Krishna spent his youth and today the place is full of temples. We visit the red Gita temple, the 10-storey Paga Baba temple and the glittering Krishna temple. Vindravan is also the location of the International Society for Khrisna Consciousness - a fancy place with lots of chanting, dancing and hands clapping Krishna followers also from Western countries. They also feature a nice restaurant where we have lunch.

We admire the many examples of Krishna pictures and scenes from his life in the different places. At one of the temples, a guide takes us to a priest who performs a ceremony with us. We repeat some Hindi words which we do not understand, taste some holy sweets and get away with flower chains around our necks and a modest donation.