Day 113 - 20 Hours By Train

Rishikesh to Varanassi is a solid 20 hour trip. Luckily, most of that is through the night, so it only feels like one day's journey. That said, there's not much to do but read, eat and sleep. Which we did, all three, in excess. Indian rail takes some getting used to, but once the initial intimidation wears off, it is a remarkable convenient and easy way to travel the country. Perhaps the best example of this are the train meals. A man walks through the train at a given station. Passengers all place their lunch orders with him. At the next station, he delivers hot, freshly-prepared meals in tidy foil packets right to your seat. Standard travel fair this is not - spicy curries, dahl fry, sweets, it's some of the better food I've had on the trip. Meals aside, it it possible to buy almost anything through the windows of the train. We stuffed ourselves with masala peanuts, bananas, biscuits, and endless cups of chai.

We had been warned that traveling sleeper class (you are guaranteed seats, but the cars are completely open) was a good way to get robbed. So far we had not had any trouble - until now. The German who was travelling with us to Varanasi carried with him a small travel chess set. After playing, we set it on the top bunk and pretty well ignored it. A group of kids who had been playing around our car suddenly hopped across to the bunk, snatched the set and ran off the train. We were at a station so the German hopped off the train after them. They returned the set without much protest. Apperently they thought it was a bag of chocolates and were pretty dissapointed with the wooden chessmen anyway.

Varanassi station is one of India's more civilized terminals. The parking lot, however is plagued with touts and scammers. We called our guesthouse, and waited to be delivered to our lodgings. While we waited I paid a visit to the very helpful foreign tourist desk and bought our tickets to Gorakhpur (the last train stop before changing to road travel into Nepal).

As agreed, a man from the guesthouse arrived, and settled us into a tuk-tuk. The tuk-tuk could only go so far before the streets narrowed to impassible widths. At which point we began walking. At which point we became very happy that we had a guide. The old quarter of Varanassi is a warren of narrow alleys and dead ends. We would have never found our guest house had we not been following someone. We had doubts if we would ever find it again when we ventured out on our own. But that is a worry for another day.