Have posted this story before but...
I've seen quite a few dead bodies of family members who've died. Being brought up catholic you have to endure the formalities of viewing the body (which, creepily, is kept in a room in your house the night before the funeral) to say goodbye. I've never found looking at them that disturbing, it's the emotions behind the loss that make it difficult. It's the unexpected stumbling across of bodies that seems to shock more...
India - For those of you who have visited the sub-continent you'll know that gruesome sights are pretty common. In six months of travelling around I saw many awful things including lepers with missing fingers/hands/noses, people suffering from elephantisis with grotesquely swollen limbs, women with awful burn scars from unsuccessful dowry-death attacks (see edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9608/18/bride.burn/), but by far the most horrific thing I saw in India was in a town called Varanasi. This is a place where Hindus go to die as it is very auspicious to have your funeral on the banks of the holy Ganges river. It's an everyday event to have funeral parties with dead bodies on stretchers carried through the narrow passageways of the town on their way to the ghats (riverbanks) to be disposed of in the traditional way (either cremated on the banks of the river, floated on a raft down the river or sunk to the bottom with a heavy weight attached - which method depends on who you are and how you died) so you get accustomed to the death around you pretty quickly. It's a common sight to see a body floating down the river and can actually be quite comical to see a dead (holy) cow, all bloated and legs akimbo, passing by.

However, one day as I was walking along the ghats I noticed up ahead of me some piece of something with flies buzzing around it. On approach some of the flies retreated revealing the single most upsetting thing I have ever seen - the bloated lower half of a dead baby from it's bum to it's feet. It looked like the top half had been eaten by something. I assumed that it must have been dragged from the river by a dog after being partially eaten by the creatures in there. No-one else seemed to bat an eyelid and I couldn't bring myself to remove it from the footpath so I had to walk away and leave it. It's a sight I'll never forget and even makes me cry now just thinking about it. sob.
On a brighter note, seeing some of the mummified remains of notable monks on display in glass cases in temples, wearing cool shades is quite amusing.
(antigen is running away from something, Fri 29 Feb 2008, 2:08, Reply)