It is worth getting the earliest start your guide agrees to as you do want to be well out on the river at dawn. We parked the car and had a short walk to where our guide, Sujatra, had a row boat waiting. There are lots of beggars in Varanasi. At first, all the clamoring of beggars, touts and hawkers was distracting and disturbing, but after a time you learn to adopt a style of gentle refusal and polite, but firm disinterest. If there was anything about this trip to India I would change, it was this aspect of every major tourist site and human concentration, but this is India for the Indian tourists and local people as much as for the foreign tourist.
Most major sites exclude the beggars and hawkers from within the actual monuments.
Having Sujatra really helped because she got us through these areas quickly, and the fact that we were with her reduced the attention of would be drivers, guides, boatmen and salesmen who really prefer the big bus tours anyway. We were in our wooden boat and rowing upstream just as the sun appeared on the eastern horizon. There were lots of other people in boats ranging from Indian tourist families and large Japanese groups to individuals. The idea is to be on the river from just before dawn until the morning rituals of bathing, worship, washing and cremation wind down. We enjoyed a spectacle of impressive dimensions.