Yet again, the train was perfectly on time. I'm starting to think all these horror stories about Indian transport are made up to scare people away. Admittedly, this time we were seperated, so Paul and I shared the 6-berth with an Indian family who seemed to want to eat dinner ad infinitum so we couldn't let the beds down 'til the middle of the night. And we shared the cabin with the luggage from next door, who seemed to have brought the entire house with them (and an extra person...). But, on the bright side, the train was several hours late getting to Varanasi, so we were into Varanasi at the sensible time of 8:30am rather than the planned 4:30am.

The hotel, which Raj told us would be very basic, is in fact very nice and sits at around 30 yards away from the Ganges, with views from the rooftop restaurant over the river for sunrise. Unfortunately, as we discovered at breakfast, if you order something at sunrise it will arrive around sunset such is the urgency with which meals are prepared here.

Spent the day wandering around markets, along the ghats by the river and back into markets. Got utterly and absolutely lost (even managing to wander into the Muslim quarter where you can still buy meat in this otherwise holiest-of-holy-and-therefore-meat-free Hindu city) before finding our way to exactly where we wanted to be. Every now and then you can hear generators as the power goes off - for a city of 2 million people, Varanasi is woefully undersupplied for electricity.

In the evening we took a boat down the river, lighting candles to carry our wishes in the hope that they will come true. The view of the shore changes as you head downstream - from locals bathing in (and drinking!) the holy (but incredibly toxic) water, to families cremating the mortal remains of their loved ones and scattering the ashes, to scores of people watching the nightly puja ceremony carried out to the sound of drums, gongs and chanting under candlelight. The river flows very quickly - it took a herculean effort for the oarsman to get us back up river afterwards.

That evening, I had my first non-Indian dinner in a long time - Mousaka.

Next day got up for a rather foggy sunrise (no surprises, it is midwinter) and spent the midday back in the markets haggling for Christmas pressies (yes family, you are getting some). In the afternoon I had a law geek moment and went to see the (very historic) Varanasi Law Faculty at the university in it's surprisingly lush surroundings (via a cashpoint where I forgot I had changed my PIN and promptly got my card blocked). Like a lot of campus universities at home, it seems so totally out of place in the urban sprawl of an Indian city.

For our final day in Varanasi, Pippa and I summoned the force of will to attend the morning yoga class. It was completely different to the class we had before - still enjoyable, but much harder work!

We hired a car and went out to Sarnath, the home of Buddhism. Pretty well every temple here claims to be on 'the' site where buddhism was born. All I can say on the subject is that the Sri Lankan Temple was certainly a fitting tribute to the event which may or may not have occurred on or near the site. The deer park was a little lacklustre although it did have a nice collection of birds. After exploring the ruins of Dharmrajika Stupa (former home of buddhist relics) we headed back to Varanasi to wait for the overnight train to Kolkata.

I will leave you with the Dharma Chakra Pravartan (the Turning of the Wheel of Law) from Siddhartha Gautama himself:

1. Suffering is universal.

2. The cause of suffering is desire.

3. The cure is to eliminate desire.

4. The way o separate yourself from desire is to follow the Noble Eightfold Path, which is: right thought, understanding, speech, action, livelihood, effort, concentration and contemplation.