Day 168 and 169 9 and 10 Dec Fri VARANASI

 

 

Two very lazy days follow - largely due to the fact that we are all suffering from "end of journey" blues and also, for the girls at least, there is a limit to how many temples and ghats one can take in before reaching saturation - India is not short on either and we have certainly seen a huge number along the way! Our bedtimes have got later ( largely due to the enormously loud event which takes place at the ghat every night - although it does finish at the stroke of 10.30 or when there is (another) power cut.

Our mornings have also got shorter and we are almost eating breakfast at lunchtime at the rooftop restaurant in the hotel while the girls work on their journals.

  

 

We do venture out and try to absorb the local way of life, which for the most part is very basic. There is a cowshed across the courtyard from our hotel entrance and no shortage of cows, dogs and beggars! 

 

 

This continues to trouble Nicole and she finds it really difficult not to be affected by the poverty and desperation in the eyes of the children who approach holding out dirty hands and beg for whatever they can get.  

Our refuge is a "fairtrade" cafe and community sourced gift and textile shop  just around the corner - the coffee is excellent, the food fresh and tasty and the welcome supremely friendly. We have eaten here every day while we have been in Varanasi and the girls have become very friendly with the staff.  

 

The roads continue to be an education - we see some of the most spectacular near misses and are involved in the biggest Varanasi style traffic jam on our way to the station to catch our train to Khajuraho - although we have the best auto rickshaw driver who somehow navigates his way through the melee. 

 

 

 We are all ready for a change of scene again and are relieved when we arrive at the astronomically busy railway stationand finally board the train (again in the midst of a Varanasi power cut which plunges the busy station into total darkness) and we are in what appears to be the "tourist" carriage - full of western faces and English speakers! Poor local who had the misfortune to have booked his seat in the middle of the four of us and 2 Americans!