Advertisement
Published: April 12th 2008
ganpati guest house, varanasi
chillin in the courtyard for lunchhad a terribly hard day today. ha!
got up around noon. showered. went downstairs at our new guest house, the ganpati, to have breakfast in the courtyard shaded by a terrace full of trumpet vines. i had a spanish omlette. arielle had fries and an israeli salad. we continued to read our books while waiting. i'm enthralled with tolstoy's "anna kerenina" and arielle with the first two harry potter books which she hasn't read in years. had our breakfasts. with sweet lassis. then went to read out on the balcony in the wind. for a few hours. until we were hungry again. and then we ordered fruit salads with curd and honey. and continued reading. around 4:00 i was sleepy so we went to take a nap in our blessedly air conditioned room. then we got up and had cold coffee.
and then we went for a walk. ended up in the middle of the city. "lost" is what you might call it. luckily we found a police station and tourist post. went up to the officers with their automatic weapons and asked where we could find internet. they looked at us blankly. realizing they were no help, we
ganpati and DIL!
dil and his bright white teeth comes to serve us in the ganpati courtyard! asked which way back to the ganga. blank stares. we asked again. one of them kind of threw his arm in the general direction of one of the streets. we rolled our eyes, muttered thank you, and went on our way. anyone in a uniform or in a "tourist office" in this country is absolutely worthless. the little boys know everything. i have no idea why they bother paying anyone..... actually - i take that back. the tourist office in this train station was most helpful. but that's one man and one office of about half a dozen that we've visited in the past month. useless, i tell you!
got back to the ghats (steps all along the ganga - best way to figure out where you are in the city) and watched everyone go swimming. and by "everyone" we mean all of the boys.
and now we're back at our old hotel, the puja, using the wonderful high speed internet and listening to michael jackson again. my shirt is soaked with sweat.
last night we sat out on the porch and read for hours while our quirky hindu owner (manager?) played strange indian music and our
our dil is on the right!
omg we were in love with dil. he had an awesome sense of humor and we were constantly playing jokes on each other and bantering back and forth and we luuuuuurved him! boy, dil, laughed at us for reading so much. i adore dil! he's always smiling and waits on us hand and foot and seems perpetually amused with us. and i can assure you, the feeling is mutual. we also watched all of the house lizards chase each other and go after the bugs around the flourescent lights. i love the lizards. what i ALSO love about this town is the lack of flies. i have not seen a single fly here, and that is amazing considering that they have infested every other city that we've been to - especially delhi and dharamsala. eat with your right hand while your left hand is constantly and automatically lazily waving over your plate to keep the flies from landing. no flies in varanasi.
possible full moon tonight. tonight or tomorrow. beautiful reflections on the river. might go for a moonlight ride on the ganga tonight. i think that would be lovely. i am so enraptured with the sky. thunderstorms. clouds. stars. and especially the moon. ... oh memories.
well, now that i'm feeling all nostalgic i suppose it's time to send a few emails.
-molly
Advertisement
Tot: 0.227s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 58; dbt: 0.1307s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
