Silly Britishess!

On Sunday, Maneesh - our tour guide - took us to the sights of Varanasi. His driving skills are up there with the best of them - in India!!! As he pointed out to us, in order to drive out here, you need three things: 'Good Horn, Good Brakes and Good Luck!' (And in my case, a good sick bag! I am hoping that by the end of my trip I will stop getting travel sick everytime I get into the back of a car?!?!)

First stop was the place where Buddah visited and gave his first sermon. The temple was beautiful. Then we went to a Jain Temple to compare the two religions. Jainism has it's roots in Hinduism. In fact it can be described as a religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. And to practice self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. According to Maneesh, SOUL stands for 'Subject of Universal life'. And because the Jains don't believe in killing ANY living thing, they don't wash themselves or brush their teeth, so as not to kill any bacteria living on the body. Nor do they cut or shave their heads, instead each hair is pulled out one at a time!! And should they shed a tear from the pain, then they have to fast. As for their eating practices, they have one day that they only eat and one day that they only drink. As the Jain student pointed out to us, there is one way to tell the difference between Jain and Buddhist monks, he claims that Buddhist monks are 'fatties' because they eat more. Personally I think the easiest way to tell the difference is the mere fact that Buddhist monks wear orange or white robes and Jain's wear their birthday suits!!! I have to admit it was very hard to stop looking away as the student showed us plenty of photos of him and his family posing with their naked Jain Guru!! 

We were then taken into the silk district, where all the silk is woven. Obviously we ended up buying here! 

That evening we went to visit the Ghats. There are 365 of them in total and no we only visited a couple - come on, you know I don't walk very far!! Each one is named after a city in India. And it is here that every evening a Hindu service takes place, to bless the living. 

That is, each Ghat bar two and from these you can see the funeral pyres being lit and floated out onto The River Ganges; where the Hindu's believe is the fast trip up to heaven. Apparently, there are over 300 funerals a day!! 

The ceremonies were amazing to watch and at 5am yesterday morning we were taken out on a boat trip along the River as the sun rose. 

That in itself was mesmerizing and something quite calm and serene about the whole place. (I guess I kind of ruined the atmosphere when I pointed out to Claude that all the bubbly white stuff floating on the waters surface was probably sub-cutaneous fat and kind of reminded me of cooking chicken soup).

Oh and apart from in the river, there were cows everywhere. Mustn't forget the sacred cows!

We were back at the hotel for breakfast by 10am and working out what to do with our last few hours in Varanasi before catching the dreaded 12 hour train journey to Agra. 

It was a agreed that we needed to relax for a bit, so both went of for an Ayurvedic massage. By all accounts this wasn't the most relaxing massage I have had and felt like I was being battered and bruised, but, by the time we left, I felt amazing. All my aches and pains from lugging my rucksack around had vanished!! And I was now ready to get on that train ...

Our car picked us up at 5 15 and we made it to the train station in plenty of time - with 45 minutes to spare, plus obviously a little extra as everything runs late in India! After saying goodbye to Maneesh we went down to the platform where a train was waiting. But surely this couldn't be our train, we are after all in India, so it couldn't be early??? 

I walked over to a group of tourists and asked if they were off to Agra too. The lady said they weren't but their guide could help us. The guide looked at the train number on our ticket then turned and pointed to the train which was now leaving the station and said "That is your train".

Instantly, the colour drained from our faces as we started exclaiming that it couldn't be, that our train wasn't due for another half hour at least.

The Guide tried to flag the train down, with each carriage that passed he called out something in Hindi to an official standing in the doorways and gestured pulling the brake. But to no avail. Before I knew it, there was a whole group of Indian men with us screaming at the train whilst urging us to run down the platform and catch it!!!

I tried, but there is only so much speed I could pick up with a huge ruck sack on my back, I turned to Claudine and screamed "Run, we have to run". Poor Claudine was fixed to the spot, she couldn't move, her ruck sack is practically as big as her and she had already hurt her back whilst trying to carry it earlier on. We were doomed!!

I turned around to see that we were now surrounded by the obligatory starey eyed Indian men, leading at us. One came up and asked to see the ticket. I showed it to him, he looked at the ticket, smiled and looked back at me and said: "Today is the 14th, your ticket is booked for the 15th!" 

BLOODY HELL!!! I stood and looked at Claude, sweat pouring from every pore in my body, my hair so frizzed from the heat and humidity that I would have problems getting through doorways. I thought to myself that this is it, this is when she is really going to lose it ... but she just looked back up at me and burst out laughing!!! In fact we both laughed, hysterically all the way out of the station where we called Maneesh and waited for him to come and pick us up, whilst another group of Indian men surrounded us and said nothing, but just stared!

Luckily, everything was sorted out and we got our room back at the hotel.  And so now, I am preparing myself yet again, to get on a 12 hour train ride to Agra ... we get in at 6am tomorrow morn then it is straight off to see the Taj Mahal - she had better be worth it!!!

Agra, here we come ....