Real India

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Our next city on the new itinerary was Allahabad, pretty much in the middle of know where really. Finding a place to stay was no worries with the hotel named ‘Hotel Royal’ and you would think that it would be a pretty decent sort of hotel but not this.. We have stayed in some pretty bad places but this was getting up pretty high on the worst hostel/hotel list.

So we dropped off our backpacks and headed exploring around the city for the little time we had and no looking back we both wish we had a little less time really. Not too much exciting for a city of great importance. Two of India’s holiest rives, the Ganges and the Yamuna, meet one of Hinduism’s mythical rivers, the Saraswati. So people are down there in droves to have a holy bath in the water and it is quite a spectacle to see actually. Since it was a Saturday we arrived more people were in the city to go for a swim, hire a boat to cruise around the rivers or use the amusement parks close by.

We got to see all sorts of people here, true Indian’s but the beggars’ are particular thick here with pulling of the clothing etc which got to us a little after a few hours so we headed back to our ‘hotel’ which was an absolute nightmare in doing so. The 40 odd minutes going with a rickshaw to the rivers took around 1 ½ hours with the worst rickshaw driver (got lost several times) to get back with a lot of walking by the end.
We did end up having a wonderful dinner though, doosa was on the menu tonight so we had way to much plus fried rice and drinks.. A great meal it was in this little corner café place and a long day it was.

we had a little sleep in since we knew we had seen everything the previous day except for a temple. It sounded interesting since there is a tree called the ‘undying tree’ and people leap out to their death, believing it would liberate them from the cycle of rebirth. Lucky for us today was not a jumping day and the last couple of hundred years also.

A little shopping for the afternoon and we got a few things and then headed to the train station to hopefully get out of the city and we were in luck! Our train was only an hour late today , so Varanasi we are on our way.

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Photos

Allahabad (1)
Someone stands out

Allahabad (15)
Always when asking for directions it is a massive event in India..