Monday : fine

Well it was a quiet train trip, the Japanese ladies were a lot better to share the cabin with than the Vietnamese ladies. I just couldn't get a decent sleep going, maybe because the bed was rock hard. Being tired wasn't the annoying thing, the train being 5hrs late to Varanasi that was. Thankfully we weren't in the over crowded part of the train.

We hopped off the train and were approached by this slick looking character. He was a taxi driver, we set a price of 300rps and it seemed all good, until we got to the car. Then he changed the price to 300rps per person, so he wanted 1500rps ($28) Yeah right! We had a short barter session and the taxi driver being an absolute idiot we started to walk. He came back to us with 450rps, we made sure it was for the total price, he said yes but with no a/c. Ha! We made a joke at his expense, and hopped in. Then he was trying to convince a couple people to go to one of his hotels, and wasn't taking no for a answer! He was extremely rude and persistent. He was told no and to be quiet numerous times.

This guy was a real piece of work, he had the stereo up so loud the speakers were so distorted, probably so that we couldn't talk to each other. He was abusing his friend in the van when he wanted to turn the music down. He was also swerving and abusing pedestrians when passing them.

We arrived at the hotel and then he changed his mind again, he upped the price, wanting a tip and still tried to get the others to go to his hotel. He was so persistent. I gave him a gob full after he started to get a bit rowdy with one of the Japanese fellows and then he b*****ed off. That has never happened to us before on our whole trip, he was a real scumbag.

After we got rid of the clown, Kim and I checked in then we came back down to the lobby to see the others off. They were nice people, glad we shared our time with them. After our goodbyes we booked a Ganges night and morning boat ride which will be interesting

The hotel was great, big nice room, over looking the pool, just what we need to relax for a couple days it's been a busy week.

We had a good few hour break before dinner and then we got picked up for our Ganges river night tour.

It was very busy tonight, lots of market stalls, and shopping centers, which was weird, we haven't seen one of those since China.

We got to the banks of the Ganges, and they were packed full of people. Stages setup, flags and music playing through speakers. We found our row boat and took to the water, it was nice and quiet out on the water. Our guide showed us the ghats, they are sets of concrete steps that run down to the water on the western bank of the Ganges. There are about 80 ghats and Its where people come to pray, bathe and to cremate bodies in public. Not that we needed to be shown those, there must of been 10 timber stacks burning away. There were queues of bodies lining up waiting to be burned too, we saw them washing the bodies in the water before they get placed of the fire.The male bodies were wrapped in a silver material, the females in a orange material. Its where everyone here wants to come to finish their life, lots of pilgrims make the journey to Varanasi to die. They believe if you die here you go straight to heaven. We only saw a few people taking a bath but there was a lot of people praying, lighting little candles and putting them in the water and letting them float away down the river for good luck. There were two stages set up for ceremonies, we stopped to watch the larger one. There were bells, flags, music and priests saying prays and using fire candles to bless the crowd.

It was a very interesting boat trip, we got dropped off and made our way back to our tuk tuk. We were blessed and given tikas by a priest on the way too. There were lots of beggars and cows out tonight here in Varanasi, we actually saw a bull inside a silk shop. Apparently he's always there. It was very funny, it made me think about the saying "like a bull in a China shop" this bull was very calm.

We made it back to the hotel, but we needed water so we went to find a shop, then went back to the room. We were very tired and got to bed early because our morning boat ride started at 5:30. Looking forward to it, they say the morning and night boat rides are very different.