Udayan - a new beginning

Today was greeted with another early start but this time it was to make our way to Varanasi. We spent five very bumpy hours on our now familiar coach. After a brief stop at a service station between Agra and Delhi we stocked up on numerous tins of Pringles, Chips Ahoy and Ritz biscuits to help ease the suffering of our rushed departure, having only consumed doughnuts, pancakes and eggy bread first thing.

Along the way we saw an elephant, many cows casually roaming on the road, the Baby Taj, rural dwellings, padi fields, dung cakes stacked neatly to dry for use as fuel; the God Shiva, children playing cricket and people having their morning wash.

We arrived at Delhi Airport and were greeted by our main guide: ‘the man with the smile of a thousand children’. We checked in to find that our total baggage was 36kgs over our total 220kgs allowance! Our flight left with no delays and we experienced a rather poor landing as we touched down at Varanasi to a golden sunset on a somewhat short runway! We call it Indian style due to its similarities with the eccentric driving here.

After collecting our cases, which were all still intact, we went to our new residence, Hotel Clarks. The hotel is of fine quality and we enjoyed a lovely meal in the restaurant listening to the musicians playing a tabla and an Indian flute, while the soft drone of a sitar was played in the background. Millie then knocked over her rather large bottle of Royal Challenge saturating the table cloth as an entourage of Japanese travellers looked on with bemused expressions and disgruntled murmurs! :)

Tomorrow will start with a lie in compared to most days, as we leave for the River Ganges at 6am. It’s also a rather special day as it’s Dominic’s nineteenth birthday which we intend to celebrate in the evening.