June 11 Day 116
We got up fairly early but not beholden to our alarm. Our breakfast place surprised us by being nearly full of Indian families and the orange juice was as great as we remembered.
We had some fairly mundane errands to run before everything got too hot. We had a nice chat with Rahul and settled our bill. The first floor of his guesthouse seems to be occupied by his extended family and while we waited for him a grandmother was watching Hindi cartoons. He told s that the huge, strange building behind his place has supposed to be a Tibetan temple with a large guesthouse but had run into problems with the government and still hadn't been completed after 20 years. We had been looking at it, with no windows and dusty furniture inside and cut wires everywhere. There was a very temple-like central structure but while we were there we only saw about five guys chipping away at it so it would probably be another 20 years before it was close to finished.
We unsuccessfully looked for stick antiperspirant and a blue and white cotton scarf. We bought some other items and many cold drinks. We were told that the massage clinic in the Thai temple had permanently closed because the Indian government questioned the temple making money and the Thai government didn't want problems as the temple as on Thai soil in India, legally. This came from a female monk who was eager to help us. We also spoke to an Australian Thai woman who was there on a pilgrimage to visit the four holiest sites in Buddhism.
Walking back we were bothered by street kids selling pens or just asking for money and told them that they should be in school. The boy persisted for a good 20 minutes as we went to shops and pharmacies but we were pretty good at this point of ignoring begging.
We headed back with more cold drinks in hand had used up some of remaining peanut butter and jam for lunch before avoiding the heat by napping, reading and catching up on stuff.
We woke the staff up at our local spot by looking for mid-afternoon tea. One wasn't enough so Meg ordered one to go. They didn't have disposable cups so they let her take the glass home as long as she brought it back the next day.
We went back to the same place for dinner as the night before and our waiter was happy to see us. The food was good - some nice tandoori - but the movie was wussy with a lame musical number that could have been choreographed by a seven year old and no explosions.
Back at our room we braced for leaving the next day and slept well.
June 12 Day 117
We got up and had one last breakfast at our favourite spot. Back at our room we leisurely packed and got prepared for a shift. The laptop has been finicky about charging lately, which caused some concern.
We got into our taxi for the short ride to the airport. Our driver was very optimistic about Modi's policies improving life for all Indians by cracking down on corruption and improving infrastructure. We had to go through two rounds of security and have our bags scanned to get to the check-in counter. There weren't many people there and we were two hours early so it was no problem.
After getting through security we had a long wait in an almost deserted airport with only one little snack counter for lunch. We had some okay samosas and did some reading until it was almost our departure time. I asked someone who seemed official and he said our plane would be landing in five minutes. We were moved to another gate which was less air conditioned and made our way onto the plane.
The people already there were socializing and reluctant to let the new passengers on. It was a very short flight so there were no snacks and everyone rushed out of their seats as soon as we landed. The stewardess had to remind them that we weren't at the gate yet and they needed to sit while the plane was moving and some people actually did. An annoying habit of the people behind us was to put their hands on our side of the seat. A woman pulled Meg's hair getting on and while we were waiting to depart, 10 old fingers were massaging the pillow on my chair. Creepy.
Getting our bags was fairly easy again and we were braced for the worst the touts could offer and Meg got very suspicious when the guy holding our sign turned out not to be our driver but a "friend". He didn't hang around for tips, which was something, at least.
We got into the taxi and had a fairly long ride to Varanasi which got very slow and jammed as we approached the centre of the city. Our driver passed us off to two hotel boys as you can't take cars into the old city because the streets were so narrow. We had a long, winding walk to our hotel, which was at the end of a little alleyway. The owner gave us a long talk on our possible tour options, which were inexpensively priced, and we walked through a nice courtyard for our room.
We went with the hotel guide to find a place to book our bus to Agra. The train had been impossible to book and planes only flew between the cities every two weeks or so, so we were glad that there was lots of space on the bus. We booked a double bed on a sleeper bus and were very curious what one of these beasts were.
After a bit of settling into our room we headed for the rooftop restaurant, whose view was phenomenal. It jutted out over the Ganges between the burning ghat and the main ghat, with good visibility all around. We spoke to an Italian guy who had been here 7 times already and was rushing out to see the nightly sacred performance at the main ghat. We decided to avoid the crowds and watch from a safe distance. Over tasty thalis we saw the huge cluster of boats watching from the water and the colourful audience on the land. There was a mixture of music, chanting and talking coming from 5 or more sources making for a crazy blur of sound. As it got dark, we could see small fires close to shore and many floating candles on the water to go with the spinning flames of the distant performers. We tried to decipher it from our vantage point but gave into the cool breeze and the hive of activity and sound in front of us.
We decided to give ourselves a busy morning and so booked a sunrise boat tour followed by a town walking tour. This meant an early wake up time so we headed off to bed.
We got up fairly early but not beholden to our alarm. Our breakfast place surprised us by being nearly full of Indian families and the orange juice was as great as we remembered.
We had some fairly mundane errands to run before everything got too hot. We had a nice chat with Rahul and settled our bill. The first floor of his guesthouse seems to be occupied by his extended family and while we waited for him a grandmother was watching Hindi cartoons. He told s that the huge, strange building behind his place has supposed to be a Tibetan temple with a large guesthouse but had run into problems with the government and still hadn't been completed after 20 years. We had been looking at it, with no windows and dusty furniture inside and cut wires everywhere. There was a very temple-like central structure but while we were there we only saw about five guys chipping away at it so it would probably be another 20 years before it was close to finished.
We unsuccessfully looked for stick antiperspirant and a blue and white cotton scarf. We bought some other items and many cold drinks. We were told that the massage clinic in the Thai temple had permanently closed because the Indian government questioned the temple making money and the Thai government didn't want problems as the temple as on Thai soil in India, legally. This came from a female monk who was eager to help us. We also spoke to an Australian Thai woman who was there on a pilgrimage to visit the four holiest sites in Buddhism.
Walking back we were bothered by street kids selling pens or just asking for money and told them that they should be in school. The boy persisted for a good 20 minutes as we went to shops and pharmacies but we were pretty good at this point of ignoring begging.
We headed back with more cold drinks in hand had used up some of remaining peanut butter and jam for lunch before avoiding the heat by napping, reading and catching up on stuff.
We woke the staff up at our local spot by looking for mid-afternoon tea. One wasn't enough so Meg ordered one to go. They didn't have disposable cups so they let her take the glass home as long as she brought it back the next day.
We went back to the same place for dinner as the night before and our waiter was happy to see us. The food was good - some nice tandoori - but the movie was wussy with a lame musical number that could have been choreographed by a seven year old and no explosions.
Back at our room we braced for leaving the next day and slept well.
June 12 Day 117
We got up and had one last breakfast at our favourite spot. Back at our room we leisurely packed and got prepared for a shift. The laptop has been finicky about charging lately, which caused some concern.
We got into our taxi for the short ride to the airport. Our driver was very optimistic about Modi's policies improving life for all Indians by cracking down on corruption and improving infrastructure. We had to go through two rounds of security and have our bags scanned to get to the check-in counter. There weren't many people there and we were two hours early so it was no problem.
After getting through security we had a long wait in an almost deserted airport with only one little snack counter for lunch. We had some okay samosas and did some reading until it was almost our departure time. I asked someone who seemed official and he said our plane would be landing in five minutes. We were moved to another gate which was less air conditioned and made our way onto the plane.
The people already there were socializing and reluctant to let the new passengers on. It was a very short flight so there were no snacks and everyone rushed out of their seats as soon as we landed. The stewardess had to remind them that we weren't at the gate yet and they needed to sit while the plane was moving and some people actually did. An annoying habit of the people behind us was to put their hands on our side of the seat. A woman pulled Meg's hair getting on and while we were waiting to depart, 10 old fingers were massaging the pillow on my chair. Creepy.
Getting our bags was fairly easy again and we were braced for the worst the touts could offer and Meg got very suspicious when the guy holding our sign turned out not to be our driver but a "friend". He didn't hang around for tips, which was something, at least.
We got into the taxi and had a fairly long ride to Varanasi which got very slow and jammed as we approached the centre of the city. Our driver passed us off to two hotel boys as you can't take cars into the old city because the streets were so narrow. We had a long, winding walk to our hotel, which was at the end of a little alleyway. The owner gave us a long talk on our possible tour options, which were inexpensively priced, and we walked through a nice courtyard for our room.
We went with the hotel guide to find a place to book our bus to Agra. The train had been impossible to book and planes only flew between the cities every two weeks or so, so we were glad that there was lots of space on the bus. We booked a double bed on a sleeper bus and were very curious what one of these beasts were.
After a bit of settling into our room we headed for the rooftop restaurant, whose view was phenomenal. It jutted out over the Ganges between the burning ghat and the main ghat, with good visibility all around. We spoke to an Italian guy who had been here 7 times already and was rushing out to see the nightly sacred performance at the main ghat. We decided to avoid the crowds and watch from a safe distance. Over tasty thalis we saw the huge cluster of boats watching from the water and the colourful audience on the land. There was a mixture of music, chanting and talking coming from 5 or more sources making for a crazy blur of sound. As it got dark, we could see small fires close to shore and many floating candles on the water to go with the spinning flames of the distant performers. We tried to decipher it from our vantage point but gave into the cool breeze and the hive of activity and sound in front of us.
We decided to give ourselves a busy morning and so booked a sunrise boat tour followed by a town walking tour. This meant an early wake up time so we headed off to bed.
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| The Thai temple in Bodhgaya. |
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| The Bangladesh monastery. |
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| The main ghat in Varanasi from our rooftop restaurant. |
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