Diamond Hotel Varanasi

... A body floats just meters away. To the right, smoke rises from the burning bodies at Manikarnika Ghat, a 24hr open "crematorium" where 200-300 bodies arrive and are burned in a day. We stood watching a burning last night, fascinated by the simplicity and ease of it all.
Here, on the banks of the Ganges, life and death really do go hand in hand.

Today, I started feeling myself again after a few days of recovering and feeling grumpy :-). I think travelling had got to me for a few days!!!

I decided to head off to the bazaar by bicycle Tuctuc. The bazaar is really nice, full of people (of course) and above all colours. I also made my way to the river from there and once again enjoyed the beautiful view. The roads in Varanasi are incredibly crowded - I even got run into by a cow!!

I came back to the ...

... with cows, ***** and smells ranging from urine to rotten food we arrived. The rooms were clean and had a fan and with a shared bathroom (also clean) we were happy and even happier to pay the 100 rupees ( 2.50 Aus) a night. The room even had a window onto the alley- a bonus. Though at 100 rupees no top sheets or towels was to be expected. Funny thing is our washing for 2.5kg cost 200 rupees to be done (excellently washed and folded). Relieved and showered we headed to the ...

... heat! when we eventually got there, it was really nice! There was some gorgoeus courtyards & the buildings inside were really detailed & nice! so we spent awhile there, before heading off to the railway museum! Broc went to visit it while I went for a wander around the markets! We returned back to near the hostel, had a look around the shops & bumped into this man from Brutan! We got chatting him & ended up going for 'chai'! he was from a really ...

... great we sound and that she was drawn into the room. We nearly fell off our drums laughing but then it turned out she was looking for a yoga teacher and we had a business card from the Yoga centre where we were to attend class the next day. We invited her to join us.

We had further djembe lessons and found the drums to be fun to be learning together plus we can practise all the time like when we sit at restaurants tapping on the table and annoying other customers ...

... by the police straight into a traffic jam of trucks that aren’t allowed to drive into the city until after 10pm. By the time we got to our hotel it was after 11pm, and the thought of putting up my tent and sleeping in the sweltering heat with my newly developed chest pains and cough had reduced me to tears. Even the fact that our hotel had a swimming pool was not enough to lift my spirits. Adam and his kind soul let me kip in his air conditioned room, which ...

After staying another day in Delhi, we actually were starting to enjoy it a lot more. Now that we can somewhat find our way around, it is a lot nicer to be there.

After storing some of our stuff in Delhi we caught an overnight train to Varanasi. Varanasi is a very sacred place in India where people come from all over India to cremate the dead. This takes placing in open areas along the Ganges river. There are dozens of Ghats located along ...