Entering India and Varanassi

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After possibly one of the worst nights I have ever spent in a hotel in the border town Bhairawa Nepal side - Someone had a mouse run out from under their pillow and there was crap smeared on the walls - we entered India. We had one nights rough camping on a local village cricket pitch infineatley superior to the hotel, we drove towards Varanassi stoping at the town of Sarnarth (where Buddha first gave a sermon). After lunch we toured the town and it's monuments and headed into Varanassi to the Hotel Surya where we looked like a bunch of gypsies camping out on their front lawn!
The next day we got up at 5.00am and headed for a boat ride along the Ganga river to view people bathing, doing washing and some of the Ghats. After a locals breakfast we went to 3 famous temples and then headed to the silk shop where I got very over excited and wanted to buy most of the shop! Luckily I only came away with one bedspread......In the evening we headed back to the ganges for an evening boat trip and to see the spectacle of people attending prayers on the river bank.

In the morning Jonny, Jo and i went for a walk along the river, where I got blessed by a holy man, said my prayers and floated a blessed marigold into the river and Jo and I also had a massage in the scummiest of locations (see photo) and were properly ripped off! In the afternoon I went back and lazed by the pool and wrote some post cards....That evening we were all heading out to dinner and got invited into a Hindu wedding to see what it was like! It was amazing we were offered food and drinks and stayed for about 2 hours to see the bride come out and meet the groom (they'd only met for the first time 3 days before), swap flower garlands and also dance to cheesy desi music (this is a mixture between songs like cheeky girls and some punjabi rap....) with silly string and glitter fireworks thrown in!!!

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Photos

Some pretty soldiers!
I think they look a little camp!

All the tourists out on the river
at sunrise

Taking a bath in the river....
NB this water has dead bodies floating in it!

Selling marigolds
The hindu's use these as offerings in the temples

Oh no!
Kim, Jenny and I go silk bed spread shopping

Varanassi by night
many people came down to the river to pray

My holy man
The blessing went on for ages, I even had to repeat lots of Umms and ahh's and don't worry you all got blessed!