Namaste

Yet again it was a 5am start but when the alarm went off we rolled over and fell asleep again so at 5.30 we were running around and got dressed and left the room in 2 minutes flat to meet the driver. We needn't have rushed as he didn't show up till nearly 6am!!!

He drove us down to the ghats for us to take our rowing boat out on the River Ganges to observe the morning bathing rituals.This was the main reason for visiting Varanasi but I have to tell you it was a little underwhelming and not full of people like we expected. However we made a stop at the funeral pyres and looked around fortunately no one was being cremated but they can do up to 300 funerals in 1 day!!!!

We learnt that babies and pregnant women do not get cremated as they are too pure so get thrown into the river, which made us cringe as we had just seen people washing and brushing their teeth in the river!!!! We did see the flying fish but did not manage to see the much of the rarer Ganges dolphin, this dolphin is totally blind due to the massive amount of pollution in the river and the fact that you can't see your nose on your face under the water.

Back on dry land our boat guy wanted money as is usual in India, then it was off for a City tour, it was the worst city tour we have ever had as the driver drove around proclaiming "this is the bank" "this is the university" etc etc.... The only funny part was when we got out to visit a temple which we could not go into or take photographs. On the way back to the car 3 French ladies started going nuts and waving at me and telling their friends. I was polite and waved back then they were scrambling to take my photo before we drove off into the traffic. Mel thinks it was because they thought I was Ron Weasley from Harry Potter!!!!!

The day did get better as we visited Sarnath, home of Buddhas first speech after he attained enlightenment and it was really interesting. That concluded our day today, we had to change rooms at the hotel as they had us in a single room last night now we have a beautiful double room with damp running down the wall!!!!

Believe it or not we are still having fun and are gearing up for our flight to Nepal tomorrow. So see you in Kathmandu.

Lots of Love

M & M

xx