Day 19: Arrive at Varanasi

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I was surprised I woke up at 10. Our train was scheduled to arrive at Varanasi at 10, and I had anticipated that we would arrive at Varanasi at least at 1 because it was 3 hours late at Agra. We had cookies for breakfast cum lunch and we sat by the window of a window bed, patiently waiting for arrival. However, the train seemed like going on an endless journey. Finally it arrived at 5pm! We arrived 7 hours late! It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. It was good thing that we booked our flight back to delhi to be on Sunday, we did contemplate to book for Saturday morning because we thought we could do Varanasi in a day (i.e. on Friday, as we were supposed to reach Varanasi on Fri morning).

Anyway, when we arrived, we tried to book rickshaw from the prepaid rickshaw booth. But a rickshaw driver offered to take us for the same price (Rs 70) but without service fee Rs 5 as being charged by the prepaid booth. We took it and we told him we wanted to find accommodation at Assi Ghat. On the way, we saw McD so we asked him to stop to buy our lunch at McD, and he happily agreed. Then he brought us to MKP Guesthouse, and we secured a room for 2 nights at Rs 350 each night. Only the next morning when we walked on our own did we realized that our guesthouse is not in Assi Ghat, but Shivala Ghat.

The owner of the guesthouse demanded us to pay in full upon check-in (which is weird because we always pay when we check out) and we told him we didn't have enough money and we had to exchange money first, so he offered us to go to Money Exchange with his nephew. So we quickly went to our room to eat our lunch and then went for a walk with his nephew. After exchanging money, the nephew brought us for a walk by the ghats near our guesthouse. He looked nice and kind. Then we went back guesthouse to pay the room charge and pre-ordered for breakfast. The cooler in our room had the water leaked and the nephew helped us fix the thing. The nephew offered us for rickshaw tour to 5 places for Rs 300 and he would join us as a guide and that we didn’t need to pay him anything. We bargained Rs 250 and he agreed. So we went to shower and sleep.

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