When we rise and leave the petrol station at dawn, the music is still going and, quite astonishingly, the girl is still dancing. Perhaps she is still serving her apprenticeship in the business.
Meanwhile, our tents are waterlogged by pools of condensation.
On the road to Varanasi: dead dogs, a headache cause by JC’s constant honking of the horn and general traffic mayhem, one jam being caused by a herd of camels.
 |
| tractor coming down the wrong side off the highway |
Our hotel at Varanasi (Hotel Jurya) is elegant and gated. I am camping in the courtyard lawn, many having upgraded to a room. There’s a swimming pool with a waterfall feature and a sauna with masseuses available, though I decide against getting one as they are priced for tourists.
Varanasi is the most auspicious place to die for Hindus and is where funerals on the River Ganges have become the big tourist attraction. I book on the tour Lu has organised for the group for early tomorrow.
There’s dimly though colourfully lit bar in the restaurant where I go for a beer, which later turns into a pub crawl marking Gareth’s temporary departure from the group as he is going ahead of us to Pokhara in Nepal to do a paragliding course. We manage to pile seven people into one tuk tuk (with Dan tucked into the back shelf) and do a tour of bars and restaurants. Several of these are rejected as potential drinking dens before we order anything and I get a little fed up of getting in and out of the Tuk Tuk. I am also supposed to be getting up at 5:30 tomorrow morning for the Ganges trip, so I leave them to it. Somewhere along the way, I get a pizza for dinner, which has a too rick Domino’s style sauce with thick dough. I give it a 6/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment