We got up at 7 and went outside to see our surroundings in daylight for the first time. 
 
From the guest house we went toward the river for an early morning walk along the ghats.

Watched men bathing in the river.
 
And watched the dhobi wallas washing clothes, pounding them on rocks and then laying them out to dry on the ground. The river is filthy and the shoreline is worse. I hope our sheets were not washed in the river!

While we were walking Ken was seeing flashes of light in his peripheral vision. He ask Heather if she was seeing them to. She was not. This was not good, as Ken had been told after his retinal detachment to watch out for flashes and/or floaters in his vision and to get immediate medical attention because they've were signs that he might be having another retinal detachment!

At 8 we came back and had breakfast in our room. Since Heather doesn't eat breakfast, Ken got to have two of everything, leaving him stuffed. Heather went back to sleep and slept until 12:30 while Ken updated the travel blog.

Early afternoon we went out to explore the ghats. 
 
 


We walked North along the ghats until we reached Manikarnika Ghat, which is where they do most of the cremations. There were several in progress on one side while on the other side they were cleaning debris from previous cremations off the steps - using a firehose to wash the ash and other bits into the river.

While we watched, a young man approached us and gave us a fairly long explanation of how it all works, which was interesting, though we kept waiting to find out how he was going to try to get money from us. He finished with a plea for donations to buy firewood to help with cremations of the poor who could not afford firewood.

As we walked, different men would approach Ken and offer a handshake. But after the handshake they wouldn't let go of Ken's hand. Instead, they would start massaging his hand and try to get him to buy a massage. Ken would have to wriggle his hand free to get away. This happened a couple times before Ken learned not to shake hands.

As has happened throughout India, Heather was approached by a number of different young men who wanted to have their pictures taken with her. 

By this time Ken had stopped seeing flashes but was now seeing a lot of floaters. We decided it was time to go find an eye doctor and get it looked at, though we had no idea how to do that in Varanasi. We walked back to the hotel and used Skype to call Ken's insurance help line to see what they could suggest. Were on the phone with them for over an hour, but all they told us was the name of a hospital to go to. The hospital recommendation seemed to be based more on how easy it was to process the insurance claim than on where the best ophthalmologist could be found.

Ken's symptoms had abated somewhat so we decided to go for supper at a nearby restaurant. In our search for a place to eat we passed an honest-to-God lepper, holding up a stumpy fingerless hand as he sat begging in the street. We ended up back at the Dasaswamedh ghat where we watched more of the aarti ceremony, which apparently continued after dark.
 
As we walked there Ken started to see all kinds of weird floaters in his left eye and by the time we got there and sat down they were really bad. Ken decided it was time to go to a hospital and we left without eating.

At the hotel we asked the manager to help us get a ride to the hospital that the travel help line had recommended. He said that he could do that, but told us there was a better hospital more suited to tourists that we should try instead. We decided to go with his recommendation so he called 'the boy' and instructed him to take us to get an auto-rickshaw.

The boy led us through the maze to a main street and found us an auto-rickshaw. ...

Heritage hospital sent us to the BHU hospital. BHU stands for Banaras Hindu University, so it's a teaching hospital and is situated on a large campus with a high wall all around it. We missed the pedestrian entrance twice and ended up walking for quite some distance until we found the vehicle entrance way around on the far side.

Each department was in a different building. We tried the ophthalmology building first. It was unlocked, but we didn't find anyone in authority. Ken walked down a long hallway and stumbled on an barracks-style ward with people lying in beds in a long row.

Eventually found the emergency department, which was in a building near the pedestrian entrance that we'd missed. There were people all around sleeping on the ground. We had to pay 20 rupees and get an admission form from a window outside before going inside. Took that into the waiting area and presented it at the counter.

They led us into an examination room with 5 or so beds and left to wait with a few other patients. Called the office of Dr Varma in Regina, who was the surgeon that fixed Ken's other eye.
 
A man who was waiting with a woman in one of the other beds saw how upset Heather was and came over to ask us (in English) if he could help us. He took us back out to the reception desk and found out that they were waiting for an eye doctor to come, so we went back to the exam room and waited.

Resident arrived and said I needed an ultrasound (called a b-scan) of my eye, but that they could not do the test because the staff had gone home. Said we could come back in the morning or else try at the Heritage hospital or at another clinic.

Since we knew how to get to the Heritage hospital we decided to walk back there. But they said the people who do the b-scan were not available either and to come back the next day. While we were there Dr Varma called us back and assured us that the test they wanted to do was a good test, not the most advanced but effective. She recommended that if there was a bleed or detached retina that we go to Delhi as soon as possible and gave us three recommendations. 

At this point there didn't seem to be much else we could do so we got an auto-rickshaw back to the Old City and walked through the maze to our hotel. There we called the kids to let them know what was going on and then went to bed exhausted.