Day 80 - Varanasi, India

Day 80 – Hers.

We had a huge dinner last night in the hotel dining room – a bit of a cop out, but quite jolly as our Nepalese guide, Bimal, had joined us (He had some free days between tours and had never been to Varanasi.) and we were comparing Indian, Nepali and English food, manners and languages.  There was a bit of a mix up with my meal – one of the other girls from our group had ordered something similar and taken my meal when it arrived.  When hers arrived, I said it wasn’t mine  and the mix up was discovered.  After a bit of ummming and ahhing, they made me another meal and we ended up with three meals altogether that we shared around.  Both dishes were vegetarian in a deliciously spicy spinach sauce – so they complimented each other quite well and we left the restaurant waddling.

Rob and I both had another great night’s sleep and a lie in.  This was a free day before the night train to Agra and we both felt we had seen pretty much all we needed to see of Varanasi.  

Our brunch adventure was to the local Western-style mall where we had seen a McDonald’s.  We were curious about how they would handle the ‘no beef’ Hindu diet.  I had a ‘McEgg’ sandwich – but the winner was definitely Rob’s ‘McAloo Tikki’ burger – a spicy potato and pea patty with tikka sauce.  We then took a bicycle rickshaw into town to buy provisions for our train journey and settled down with ‘1 hour internet – just 40 rupees’......

Day 80 – His

Patti sort of failed to mention that she didn’t like her McEgg (the second half was loaded with mayonnaise)– and she decided this halfway through eating it so we swapped – and I agree my McAloo had been so much better – ah well the things i do for love. After our ‘McDonalds’ we set off to find the centre of town. The plan had been to take a rickshaw. Unfortunately taking a rickshaw in Varanasty seems to be a little like playing with a loaded gun. We ended up in the middle of an industrial estate despite telling our driver where we wanted to go. We made him stop – hopped off and told him in no uncertain terms to go away. He went away – eventually – after trying to convince us to get back on and go to his brother’s silk factory. After we got rid of him we were still left with the problem of where on earth were we. Luckily, Varanasty isn’t a town of many high buildings and after walking for a bit in the direction we thought our hotel was we spotted the Radisson. The Radisson is a big hotel next to ours with a huge sign telling you what it is so we set off in that direction. We only got lost twice more but we also managed to buy all the things we needed by popping into little stores along the way – still after an hour and a half of walking we were pretty tired of the place by the time we got back. I sort of thought we had been unlucky with our rickshaw driver but when we talked to the other members of our group it turned out having rickshaw drivers that took you where they wanted to go and not where you wanted to go was pretty normal. Most of them had stories about being driven all over the place apart from where they wanted to go – what a drag.

By the time we got back to our hotel we didn’t have that long until we were due to meet to set off for the railway station so we bought a little internet time and caught up with the blog and e-mails.

I was mildly disappointed by the railway. I had imagined it would be far more crowded and chaotic than it was. That is not to say it wasn’t crowded and chaotic – it most certainly was – it was just not as crowded and chaotic as I had imagined. Maybe I have become a little inured courtesy of travelling Asia so much but i found it okay.

The sleeper train was much the same as the sleepers in China if a little grubbier and without the water boiler at the end of the carriage and with a family of mice that ran up and down around us all night long trying to beat the cockroaches to any crumbs of food we may have dropped.

We all bundled ourselves up in the blanket and sheets (which were provided by a little man in brown paper bags who sleeps in a cupboard next to the toilets. – that is the sheets were in brown paper bags – not the little man – and I am not kidding about the cupboard.) So, we bundled ourselves up and were asleep by nine – not that I expect to get a whole lot of sleep. The train is due in at Agra at 6 in the morning – I expect to be tired.