Off to the holiest of the holy Indian cities!

(From Rishikesh to Varanasi, India, 14th of Sep 2016)

After our week in the Yogaretreat we spent some extra days in Rishikesh to eat some really nice food and get some rest in a more luxurious hotel with a swimming pool and air conditioning before we slowly started to travel towards Varanasi, the holy city.

A new long train ride offered new experiences but no food. For breakfast we had crisps, chocolate biscuits and soft drinks….

We could have bought food on the train as boys with baskets and buckets of drinks, Indian food, chips and chai constantly ran back and forth on the train, however, we did not want to challenge our luck yet (avoiding Delhi Belly). We also noticed that it was only a fraction of the seats/beds that were occupied even though we had trouble booking a ticket online as all seats were sold out…

On Indian Television the other day they talked about this problem – that trains are half full, but it is impossible to book tickets – the booking system in fact does not work very well. One thing is that you can buy tickets with a lot of different services and in many different classes, it can be confusing to find out what to choose. But the biggest problem is probably that you actually is able to cancel your ticket and get your money back, sometimes also after the train has departed.  May be time for an update of the booking system?

Our next step was to fly from New Delhi to Varanasi and as we arrived late in the evening we had booked airport transfer by our hotel – so nice to find a little man outside the airport with a sign with “JOHAN HANNING” written in large letters. The taxi journey to our hotel was really exciting, especially when the driver was overtaking cars coming from the opposite direction at full speed. But no incidents and we arrived safely at our hotel Shree Ganesha Palace, a small but nice hotel located in central Varanasi, hidden behind a high gate. We were royally greated by a smiling hotel manager who graced us with red dots on the forehead and garlands around our necks.