By the time the Buddha gave his first sermon nearby, in the 6th century BCE, Varanasi had already been a religious center for hundreds of years. Though it declined under Muslim rule, between the 12th and 17th centuries, it never ceased entirely, and its history stretches back in one unbroken line for longer than almost anywhere else on Earth.

Life here centers along the ghats: nearly 100 sets of stone steps leading down to the Ganges, stretching for miles along its banks. Take a walk or a boat ride and you’ll pass scenes such as have been happening here for thousands of years. Pilgrims praying and immersing themselves in the water, sadhus covered in ash from head to toe, oil lamps shimmering, cows lazing, funeral pyres burning.

Varanasi is India’s city of death. Any Hindu who dies here and is cremated at one of the city’s ‘burning ghats’ automatically achieves moksha, or final release from the cycle of reincarnation. The elderly come here to await death in temples, and dead bodies are carried through the streets on stretchers, covered with shrouds and cloaked in flowers. Firewood is stacked along the riverfront, ready for the cremations which fill the air with smoke, day and night.

For those for whom death is usually a private affair, witnessing it at such close quarters, in such chaotic, even carnivalesque surroundings, can be jarring. ‘Intense’ is a word often associated with Varanasi, and it’s apt. Children fly kites, tourists take boat trips down the river, hawkers hail passersby in various languages, mopeds honk, rickshaws squeeze through crowds, and vendors sell delicious lassi topped with pomegranate seeds and served in earthware pots. The narrow, maze-like streets of the old town are abuzz from morning to night, and every evening there are aarti (river worship rituals), which see ghats and temples seethe with fire ceremonies, entertainers, hawkers and worshipers. For somewhere so closely associated with death, it’s absolutely bursting with life.

Varanasi is full-on, and it’s not always comfortable. It’s not for everyone. But it is genuinely one of the most amazing cities in the world, and an experience you’ll never forget.