Greetings from Varanasi (aka Benares)!

We had an....adventurous journey from Lumbini (birthplace of Lord Buddha) in Nepal to Varanasi (right next to Sarnath, where Lord Buddha gave his first sermon). It took a rush to the bus at 6:20 am, which raced to the border where we got out and got a rickshaw to carry us and our luggage to Nepal immigration, then over the border (woohoo, welcome back to India :) then into Indian immigration and then on to a bus. Getting the bus was a bit of a nightmare...it was supposed to leave at 7:30, but the bus we were on sat for awhile and when we asked when it was departing they said 8:30....hmmm, why did we rush our lovely cups of chai then???? :) Then the bus driver drove like he was from Kerala (maniacally :) and we were making fabulous time to Gorakphur and it was looking like we would make our connection to the Varanasi bus (a bridge was out so there were no direct buses to Varanasi) when it all went pearshaped...the bus broke down and they were unable to fix it with electrical tape (we are not sure what was wrong :) and they sent all the passengers up to the road to find alternate transport the last 10kms.

One of the guys on the bus was very nice and flagged down an autorickshaw for us and they told the guy we wanted the bus station and they told us it was going to be 10 rupees for both of us....we got dropped at the train station *and* they wanted 10 rupees a person. But, it ll worked out...we hooked up with the other foreigners ) on our bus and it turned out that they were also going to Varanasi, so we got our tickets and we endured the longest, hottest train journey I have ever done! It was supposed to be something like 6-7 hours and it ended up being over 9 hours and the temperature (from my watch thermometer) was 39C (100F!) for most of the journey but dropped down to 35 (95F) for the last couple of hours. We each drank about 3 liters of water and didn't need to use the loo the entire journey - we sweated all that water out! We travelled cattle class and sat in the upper bunk (under the fan) for the first couple of hours before we could claim seats on the main bench.

Today we swam in the hotel pool and had an afternoon tour to Sarnath and tomorrow morning we depart at 4:45am for our dawn visit to the ghats (that is what you come to Varanasi for - to see the Ganges :). We have a boat ride and a visit to a couple of Hindu temples on the plan as well. We also went to the train station and (painlessly) purchased our tickets to Delhi on the overnight train tomorrow night, so we will be back on the motorbikes by the weekend :):):)

A is still alive and her stomach is in good shape (she just devoured her first masala dosa in months and she is grinning like the Cheshire Cat :)....she will produce some of her lovely commentary tomorrow afternoon when we get online (the train leaves at 7pm) and let you know what's on her mind. I will update you on the last bit of our ride from the border to Kathmandu, but we are on the iWay system at the hotel, so I can't get any photos up, but I will get them up when we get to Delhi, I promise :)

Catch you all tomorrow!!!! Must get to bed so we can get up heinously early :)