As it turns out, our weighty but graceful friend in the top bunk wasn't a snorer, he went soundly to sleep and I hoped to quickly follow suit. Every other Indian on the train had other ideas however - they all talked loudly, rustled their carrier bags and were more than happy to tap you awake to ask you a question or in one instance to just nod and smile at me. The pillows supplied by the train are more like flannels than pillows and I made the calamitous error of packing everything sharp that I owned into my hand luggage so that I couldn't use that as a pillow either - sleep wasn't going to come easily.

Eventually I did manage to get some patchy sleep, in between peeping over the edge of my bunk to check on our padlocked bags and the train jutting as it changed tracks.

On waking up in the morning, myself and Chelsea moved to a now vacant and more spacious top bunk, we drank a chai tea - that people brought around in big canteens and served you inside teeny paper cups - and chatted for the remaining three hours to Varanasi.

Overall the train journey wasn't too bad, despite being in a third class sleeper (a preferred mode a train transport for this sort of duration would be a second class sleeper where there is more space and air conditioning). We had enough space and everyone was friendly, the next time we catch a train it will be to Agra, for that journey I hopefully won't have as much scepticism.

Varanasi is a lot quieter then anywhere we have gone so far; push bikes seem to be the main source of transport making for far more leisurely excursions. The torrents of cows that have lined the streets in other cities have now been replaced with dogs who for the most part show us very little interest except for a punchy little b***** that followed us for an entire street, barking the entire way.

Feeling peckish after a recuperation nap (I'm becoming an expert in napping) in our lovely new hotel we set out in search of the Ganges river, to cut a long story short, we failed to find it. We did ask for directions several times but seemed to just be a good walking back to Delhi. We did however see several small streams with a choking miasma that attacked the back of the throat.

Eventually, we settled on a nice restaurant covered in fairy lights. The food was delicious and vegetarian as I've come to expect. As a general rule I just jab my finger at something on the menu with the word 'gravy' next to it, which means sauce. I was delighted when I saw some lumps of what looked liked chicken lurking in my gravy but it turned out to be chunks of paneer (a curd cheese that tastes of absolutely nothing), anti-climax is not the word.

I'm looking forward to exploring Varanasi tomorrow in the day light and maybe taking a boat trip on the Ganges if the price is right and everyone isn't trying to fleece us - we will probably end up walking...