Delhi/Jaipur > Pushkar > Udaipur > Mumbai > Calcutta > Darjeeling > Kathmandu > Pokhara > Varanasi > Agra/Delhi

Varanasi 21.2 - 24.2.2004

Day 32: Pokhara - Varanasi

I don`t know if that bus was designed for midgets, but damn those seats were small and even the roof was low. From Pokhara it took 7 hours to Indian border, then I had to change a bus and it took another 2 hours to Gorakhpur, where I hopped in a train. 8 more hours in a train to Varanasi.

Day 33: Varanasi

My train arrived Varanasi in a morning and I took a riksha to hostel. Except that riksha driver took me to the wrong place. No doubt it was his relatives hotel or something. Told him to fuck off and walked rest of the way to the right place. After couple hours of sleep, just walked around the city (read: got lost in old town). Rented a boat in the evening and checked out those ghats from the Ganga.

Day 34: Varanasi

My guidebooks says you should hire a boat in the early morning when sun is rising, to get the perfect Varanasi experience, so I woke up before dawn, hired a new boatman and off we go. And it`s only 90 cents/hour. People were "washing" themselves and their clothes everywhere. And those cremation ghats are busy all day long. After that boat ride I walked through most of the ghats to Durga temple and back.

Day 35:Varanasi - Agra

Took a riksha to the trainstation in a morning and left my backpack to the luggageroom before heading to northside of town. Army seem to own most of the buildings and there was lots of grassfields and trees around, which is rare for Indian city. Nice quiet surroundings. Train to Agra was six hours late. And I had to wait in the platform because every time I asked, it was supposed to arrive "any minute now"

Varanasi streetlife

Sunrise in Ganga

Main ghat

Varanasi & Ganga