The Original Hotel California

You can check in any time you want, but you will never leave. At least that's what people staying at the Mukti Bhawan hostel hope for. They have a strict policy-- guests have two weeks to die or else they are asked to leave.

The hostel -- a short walk from the Ganges river in the northern Indian city of Varanasi -- is a final stopover for elderly Hindus hoping they will shortly end up on one of the hundreds of funeral pyres lit on the riverbank each day.

"While the rest of the world celebrates a new life when a child is born, similarly we celebrate death," said Bhairav Nath Shukla, the cheerful manager of Mukti Bhawan, one of several places offering shelter to outsiders wanting to die in the city.

Hindus believe that dying in Varanasi and having their remains scattered in the Ganges allows their soul to escape a cycle of death and rebirth, attaining "moksha" or salvation. But for those making that most final of pilgrimages to the city, orthodox hotels and guesthouses can be expensive, and, as Shukla points out, most are reluctant to welcome guests on the very brink of death who do not plan to check out alive.

Mukti Bhawan -- or "Salvation House" -- offers 12 bare, tatty rooms arranged around a courtyard in a 100-year-old red-brick building with green shutters.
The atmosphere is far from sombre. "Here we witness the deaths, the wailing shrieks, the chaos on a daily basis, so where is the fear?" said Shukla. "There will be another life after this, so there is no basis for fear. Crying over this is foolishness."

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