I've just crawled into my sleeping bag but I can't imagine I'll be able to sleep. I can't even identify all of the different sounds I'm hearing. Right now some sort of flute seems to be playing over drums. Further away there is some female voice singing in Hindi over a really tin-sounding speaker system. Now a sitar. I'm not kidding -- each time I identify a sound -- a new one pops up.

Today we arrived at the Ardh Kumbh Mela in the north Indian city of Allahabad. For about 45 days this place is home to one of the largest gatherings of human beings on earth. Organizers say the "big" Kumbh Mela -- which happens every 12 years -- draws up to 60 or 70 million Hindu devotees. "Ardh" means "half" and this festival happens in the middle of the 12 year cycle. Organizers say tens of millions will make the pilgrimage here. And ... the Hajj? Well, that gets just over 2 million. It kind of puts it into perspective.

We're getting up before sunrise to see the devoted take a dip in the water here at the confluence of three rivers (one mystical) the other two are visible (Ganges and Yumena.) The Hindu belief is that a dip in the river at an auspicious time will wash their sins away and stop the process of reincarnation. The atomsphere here is a little carnival-esque and it is so spread out that it is hard to get a sense for it.

There are some wild scenes that unfold. Today we watched as a Sadhu (holy man) lit an area of sticks on fire and walked across it to sit on a swinging chair of nails over the fire and mediatate. His "associate" who spent some of the time pulling a rope to keep the Sadhu's swing in motion told us that the holy man didn't usually do this in front of crowds as he didn't like the attention.