In Rajpur they held a celebration called Hanuman Jayanti in honor of Hanuman, the monkey god. In the early evening, I started hearing four songs playing in rotation. Later, I walked over to the village to check it out. One man was dressed as Hanuman atop a wagon pulled by a tractor. Below him sat five girls each dressed up as a different Hindu deity. In front of this wagon was another topped with large speakers. Behind the speakers, men danced to the same four songs and occasionally tossed red powder into the air (perhaps left over from the Holi Festival). The two tractors slowly drove around and around Rajpur. These four songs were blasted at full volume for no less than twelve straight hours...seriously! The music continued until sunrise. Even on the farm over 200 yards from the village, the loud music abrasively pounded through the mud walls into my eardrums. Following the tractors and dancing with the men in the evening was fun, but later that night, several hours into the same four songs, I was fed up with the obnoxiously loud music and the same obnoxious Punjabi dance music. 
Dancing...
After this experience, the next day I left the painfully hot plains of Uttar Pradesh and headed for the cooler temperatures and higher elevations of the mountains of the Kumao region of Uttarakhand. 
Rahdebaba's ashram/farm is located on the outer part of this village called Rajpur. Walking through the small streets, children ran out of the houses yelling "Angrez!" (English, basically white person). And they aggressively vied for my attention, stared at me wide-eyed and demanded to have their pictures taken.
Local temple...
Rahdebaba seen here. "Radhe Radhe," some locals would say to us..."Jai Sri Radhe," we were to say in return. Rahdebaba runs the YatharthYogAshram in Northwest Uttar Pradesh, a true taste of Indian village life. The website states that the place is based on Spontaneous Interaction and healthy Self-Interest. That seems fairly accurate. The community itself is a small area enclosed within a brick wall composed of several huts, a house, several cows, fruit trees and some small vegetable beds. There were also a couple large fields of field crops: mint, rose, wheat and a grain or grass for the cows that I can't remember now.
Radhebaba's Mother. Rahde's three nieces also worked at the ashram, cooking and taking care of the cows.
roses
the meeting room
field of roses
Neighboring field of wheat ready to harvest...my first day at the farm I helped a bit with helping to harvest wheat by hand. Wheat was being harvested all around us. We had a huge pile that monkeys would try to eat every day. We kept the monkeys away by yelling and throwing stones, a daily activity.
This was the first WWOOF farm in India where I met other WWOOFers. Here Marine from France and a Belgian woman construct a drying rack from an old bed. 
cow patties left to dry for fuel
Marine shaping cow dung
A Canadian (having trouble remembering names) moving cattle
cooking in the meeting room
fields seen from atop the house 
Varanasi is called the city of burning and learning. Burning because corpses are cremated along the Ganges River. It is believed that if one is burned alongside the Ganges one can attain moksha or liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Learning because Varanasi has always been a city of academic and spiritual education. Some say Varanasi is the world's oldest city. And it's a pretty intense place: corpses, hawkers, saddhus, beggars, beggar-saddhus, beggars missing various limbs, baby beggars, children beggars, tourists, pilgrims, locals, cows, urine, feces, lots of garbage and myriad stenches, all crammed next to the holy Ganges River. The smells in India are often so very overwhelming. The powerful stench of urine, feces and garbage can sometimes be amazing...amazing that smells can be so awful and so strong. Sometimes my nostrils feel like I'm being assaulted, but I'm definitely becoming more habituated. Sometimes on the roadways or train, there is an industrial type smell in the air, like burning plastic or burning rubber that hurts your head to breathe. You just know that it's toxic, but it's the norm for so many Indians. In the photo above, this saddhu posed for me in exchange for ten rupees. He insisted that I give him more money. I used to sort of romanticize saddhus as mystical spiritual men, but most (not all) that I see remind me more of washed up junkies and beggars of America - laying on the sidewalk beseeching passersby for money and smoking hash. (I'm waaay behind in keeping my blog updated; these photos are from February - still with my parents and their tour group.)
Sunrise on the Ganges
This guy was selling DVDs from this boat and running a TV from a generator.
The Ghats are steps leading down to the water's edge.
Dhobis (laundry-persons) doing laundry.
Three on a bike, including one with no pants
Burning corpses
Receiving candles to drop into the river to make a wish...(or something like that).
Mom and Dad wearing the orange scarves. Orange is the color of those who choose to renounce worldly things.
The evening aarti (devotional ceremony) seen from the river