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Our final full day in India. Met Raj at 7.20am rather than the planned 7am as it was raining. It was a good decision as there was no more after that early morning rainfall.
Aim on this outing was to visit the Kashi Vishwanath Temple within the Shankaracharya Chowk Centre that we visited yesterday, which has a rooftop covered in one ton of gold leaf. We had passed by this temple yesterday but as we have a late flight back to Delhi, we have time to do a little more in Varanasi. Security is so tight that Raj told us to leave everything behind, even digital watches, bring only mobile phones, but they are also locked up before entering the temple. We also had to leave our passports at the ticket office which was situated away from the temple complex
Inside the temple, there was a long queue to see the holiest item which was a ling, but Raj just took us straight through to the front. No-one seemed to object and I noticed Raj gave the priest some money and we all received blessings and a necklace of mandar blessing flowers and some yellow powder drawn across our
foreheads. Just before we got to the priest we saw him slap a woman across the head as she tried to get more of the yellow powder.
There were smaller temples surrounding the main ling temple. One was to the god Annapurna. Here we received some grains of rice. Annapurna ensures your house never runs out of food. Well there's no chance of that ever happening in the Lee household in any case. We went around to the other temples before leaving.
We then re-visited the Cotton Flower shop as they had inadvertently left out one of the scarves that Daisy had purchased yesterday, plus she wanted to exchange a couple of them.
We then had to go back to the ticket office to retrieve our passports and a solid brass Ganesha statue that Peter had purchased.
Raj had called the hotel to tell them we'd be late for breakfast, so they kept it open for us. It usually finishes at 10am which is when we got back.
We had time for a short rest or swim before checking out at noon and starting our final tour, which was a walking tour through narrow lanes
parallel to the Ganges. Very interesting walking tour. Only came across one guy hassling us to buy stuff. We did however buy some small items from a couple of the shops that were open and stopped at a Cafe for ice creams. Most of the shops were closed because it was Council elections day, but it also meant it was easier to move around because it was much quieter. The lanes also had many small temples and it was an enjoyable activity.
It was getting late, so Raj had to hurry us along as we had to pick up Peter's Ganesha statue he had reserved yesterday and we got back to the car a bit late but still in plenty of time to get our flight back to Delhi at 5pm. Daisy bought a pair of pants at the airport and we had a coffee and cookie which left us with about $AUD50.
Smooth pickup at Delhi Airport. Met up again with Linda and son Kyle who were on the corresponding Standard Trip-a-Deal tour. We met them quite a few times after meeting them at the Taj Mahal show. They were the only ones from the 18 people
on the Standard tour to go to Varanasi, so they ended up with a private tour.
Got to our hotel at 8.05pm and had our final dinner in India. Food at our base hotel, ITC Welcom has been very good. Early to bed if possible as we have a 5.30am pickup tomorrow morning.
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