Grace & Pills 'extended holiday' What we be mostly doin - innum

(A little bit to start about Agra's Cantonment train station 1) we met a disgruntled Mancunian in a Belle & Sebastian TShirt - how Pills face lit up! 2) Got 5 Rupees change (about 7p) and gave it too a little Lad who was asking for cash on the platform, looked hungry etc - next minute the cry goes up - Pill is surrounded by 10 other young kids wanting 5 rupees and the original laddie pulls out his mobile phone.... go figure.....

Ahhh Varanasi (Benares to those who live there) - now there's lovely.
We arrived on the old favourite - the sleeper train, having traveled through some glorious countryside. The best thing I spied was a field full of Sari's laid out flat to dry, a veritable rainbow patchwork quilt that went on for miles - it must have been a whole villages clothes - hope they weren't all running around in the nuddie!
Varanasi is famous for being the town that runs along the banks of the river Ganges (Mother Gunga) People live (and die around) this stretch of river - it provides drinking water, a washing machine, a bath and somewhere for their animals to do their various ablutions, to pray on and in and to shunt tourists like us up and down on a nice little boat. Due to the burning Ghats (ghats are like little piers that jut out into the water with steps on - nothing like WSM pier where you get to play on the 2p machine but you get the idea...) the river is also a burial ground here. You see it all - start to finish. Sooo the river is vital to this town but here's the weird thing - got into the town at 4pm and NEEDED food, having not had anything of the non crisp variety since 5pm the day before and asked several locals how to get to a specific ghat, no one knew... and then when we did get close to the river we couldn't find any way actually down to it - that's the riddle. Eventually found a fab place with lovely views across the river, all the way to where the water buffalo are kept and swim together on the other side - I love their grumpy faces, so was most happy!
A sunset over the Ganges is a thing of joy and we were lucky enough to see a few. What was also lucky and we felt privileged to see were full moon and new moons over the river - the fact that they don't have any power in the city between 7pm and 9pm as the government switch it off (People tap in to the main power lines and rob the electricity, so they're trying to recoup lost income) and all the stalls and restaurants get out their many candles and made it REALLY beautiful.
The people are lovely - we met a lovely rickshaw driver (who looked like Tu-Pac) who became our official transport guide - the traffic is completely mental as the roads are so narrow and restricted by the river and the sheer numbers of cars, auto rickshaws, cycle rickshaws, man powered pull along carts (no way could I go on one of them, I'd feel like a right evil westerner), lorries, bicycles and mopeds that no one can move anywhere very quickly and it can lead to some interesting vehicular stand offs.... ones Tu Pac, bless him got us away from (I think the sparkly cutlass stickers he had stuck to the windscreen helped... oh and the head butt crack). The number of sacred cows wandering around seemed to be 4 times other cities and the ones here are stubborn - watch the tails, you may get flicked as you squeeze past the cow and a wall and they're generally covered in shite. I think the bovines know that they rule!
Ratan (who was a wise old man) was our good mate in Varanasi - he taught us to say so many things in Hindi, none of which I can remember now of course but I remember being particularly taken with the word for full moon. He also watched a Jain religious ceremony in front of a temple for Shiva with us and explained the significance of all the different parts - my favorite was the flaming bronze cobra head torch at the end - it were ace, but the religious Men drinking the rivers water was a bit much! He said he would love to meet both Mums - now there is an offer!! He was also a big fan of something called Ayurveda cleansing which is a treatment where they look at the person as a whole and they change your diet and give you massages and put funny lotions and creams about your person - apparently you come out feeling like new. As we both like the old us (and more to the point it was WELL expensive and takes 1 week) we politely declined. Ratan also owned a lovely restaurant where they served apple pie and ice cream which was the best and we ate at any opportunity!
We were good tourists and visited all the historical sites around and about the city - I saw my very first wild Male Peacock outside the Museum of art and archaeology at the city University - very good! Tu Pac also took us to Sarnath which is a a town made up of ancient temples and was supposedly the site of Buddhas very first sermon and also in turn the place of the re-birth of Buddhism in India. Because of this there were prayer flags hung everywhere - they made me miss a bit of bunting at a mayday fair! There was a group of Japanese tourists there being shown around (there was a Japanese style temple built in Sarnath about 1900 and also a Chinese one, Jain one etc etc) who had done a great bit of coordination as all 50 of them had a different colour umbrella.... love those crazy guys. We also did the evening sunset boat trip along the river, just us and the chap who rowed (big arms!) we went for an hour or so north to the main Jain temple and Ghat to watch a ceremony - more flaming copper cobra heads! There must have been 100 boats moored and tied together all around ghat (each with 30 people in) and then another 300 people sat on the riverside steps watching. It looked amazing, especially as the moon was a chink off full and they do love a fairy light. I actually got quite caught up in the emotion of the Indian families around us and half wanted to light one of the floating candles that they had (they have small dishes with a candle that is surrounded by fresh flower petals) and watch mine float up the river. We had seen several of these floating away from one of the burning ghats we had passed whilst in the boat - a cremation was in process and there were lots of family members stood around the pyre. Bones burn in a different colour to other parts of the person and are distinguishable in the flames. It seemed a time of joy rather than sadness and that is how I am choosing to remember it.
Our last day in Varanasi was the day of the Germans. We bumped into our mascot Stephan AGAIN! This time he was sat on some temple steps making cotton string bracelets for the kids. Bless him! We also had a Loooong lunch with a German chap who had spent the last year traveling the world on his motorbike. I could not believe that he had not named it - so accepted this important job. As the bike was a stately old, slightly temperamental Lady I thought of Mrs Haversham.... He is planning to travel right the way round the world and has no timescale. Impressive and brave. Found a German cafe & bakery and stocked up on chocolate chip cookies, lots of them.
We were both sad to say goodbye to old Bernares - it has a lovely feel to the place and once you get your bearings and as long as you stay central to the markets and the river, it is lovely (if any of you find yourself there Hotel Dyvas at the Assi Ghat is fab)

Good ole Tu Pac took us to the train station - unfortunately we had to travel out of town for 1 hour along an Indian motorway equivalent in his little auto rickshaw (where exactly were his lights?) with the huge lorries whizzing past. GREAT!! Got there and settled in for the 4.5 hour wait - the train was late but it did mean we made some new (some Interesting...) friends on our way to Siliguri for Darjeeling.

Miss you guys, G&P xx

Animal watch - wild peacocks, water buffalo but no fish in the ganges (am not surprised!), lots of storks and cranes and also all the usual beasts.