Advertisement
Published: January 27th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Open Hand Cafe
My international size cup of coffee! Unfortunately, I don't mean the title of this entry in a good way. But I am glad Annette and I made the effort to go to Varanasi and see the ghats (stairs) and a bit of the city. A bit was enough though. We stayed two nights here. One is probably enough if you arrive early enough in the day for a walk along the ghats. There's really not another reason to come to Varanas(t)i unless you're shopping for silk. It is supposedly silk central of India, but I don't know if I believe that.
This morning in Agra Annette and I got a coffee at Cafe Coffee Day, which was quite a challenge even though we were the only two people in there, and then we were on the road with Hersh by 7:20AM. We drove straight to Delhi to the airport and got there around noon. We checked in and were in Varanasi by 5:30PM. We got a prepaid taxi to Hotel Haifa for 680Rs. It took over an hour to get there winding through the streets of Varanasi. Hotel Haifa (23USD/night/2 people) is not recommended in Lonely Planet, but their restaurant is, and for good reason. We
Annette at Open Hand Cafe
Our lovely breakfast of musli and yogurt and coffee. Yummy. had an amazing meal there. It started with masala peanuts and just got better and better. Highly recommended. After dinner I was pretty exhausted after being kept up all night by Hotel Sheela's Pekingnese barking all night. Annette slept through it all. She slept through everything every night with no trouble. I wish I could do that.
So we survived our first night in Varanasi, but this morning I was again exhausted after being woken up by another dog. I swear a dog got hit by a car in the road and he howled and barked for hours. Annette slept through it all.
I got up at 7AM. What was the point in trying to sleep anymore? Annette and I walked down the street a bit to Open Hand Cafe for breakfast. It is recommended by Lonely Planet and for good reason. We had a great breakfast and real coffee, international size! It was good and it was big! Open Hand is also a boutique shop selling hand made goods created by local people. Part of the profits go back to the artists. We bought some beautiful things and I think the prices were reasonable. There is no
Down at the Ghats
I followed a group of water buffalo to the ghats... bargaining, but also no pressure. We loved shopping there. Annette was having a bit of tummy trouble, but nothing too bad, but we went back to the hotel and she decided to lay down for a while. I went to use the internet in a cafe (that's about the only thing Hotel Haifa doesn't have) and then I walked along the ghats near our hotel, which was basically on the south end of Varanasi. The ghats weren't too busy, but I saw people doing their laundry in the Ganges, taking a bath in the Ganges, watering their water buffalo in the Ganges, smoking hashish by the Ganges, and just generally hanging out by the Ganges. It was entertaining for a while and I saw lots of tourists, but let's face it. The ghats are steps leading down to the Ganges and after a while, I'd seen far too many Indian men in their underwear soaping up in the Ganges. Time to move on.
I went back to the room and wrote for a while and Annette said she was feeling a bit better, but I think she was just rallying for my sake. We went to Pizzeria Vaatika at
Assi Ghat in front of our hotel. Annette had ginger tea for her stomach and I had a whole pizza, which was pretty good, and a piece of apple pie that was delicious. I felt bad for Annette because she really didn't feel like eating. I'd recommend this cafe, although the Indian food at Hotel Haifa is a way better choice in my opinion. After dinner we walked back to the hotel via Assi Ghat, but we were both tired and I was hoping to sleep through the night with no dogs having a crisis tonight. We just weren't up for exploring the old city of Varanasi at night and we were both hoping Annette would feel better tomorrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0542s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb