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Wed 18 Oct
Arrived in Varanasi at around 7.45am. Ed hardly slept as he is allergic to indian trains! We then went to a restaurant - Lisa had an english breakfast....oh well, it was the first of the trip, and Ed had american pancakes with maple syrup - all very indian! We all then went for an orientation walk along the ghats (steps along the river bank). There were absolutely hundreds of people bathing in the river - apparently the Ganges is very holy so people like to swim and wash in it..... so much so that a lot of people don't even bother having bathrooms in at home! There are a couple of burning ghats - it is traditional to burn bodies on the ghats then smash the persons skull apart so that they can escape to their god. Thankfully we didn't see that though, just the burning bodies.
The ghats were very high with sand as there has been a huge amount of rain which has washed all the sand up onto the banks. There were massive pipes of water being used to try and wash the sand away.
Thurs 19 Oct
Another early start for a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges. Again, loads of people swimming, washing and washing their clothes in the river. The sunrise was fantastic and well worth getting up for. There were people in boats trying to sell their souvenirs to the tourists in the boats which was quite funny. Later in the day we went with Lisa & Giles to Sarnath, the place where Buddha made his first sermon. We saw some ruins of a monastery and went to a museum with lots of very old buddha statues. Then...... it rained!! The first rain we have seen since we left England! It was very strange, started with a sand storm, then tipped it down. We were supposed to go on another boat trip in the evening but they cancelled it as it was still raining and too windy.
Fri 22 Oct
Got up for breakfast then Lisa went back to the hotel after being ill in the night - yuk! Later on when to a couple of small temples. Left on the overnight train at 6pm, we shared a bottle of rum and some coke with the other Lisa & Giles then we forced to bed at 9.30pm when the other people in the carriage wanted to go to bed.
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