Waving the white flag

After a torrent 6 day battle with Wooky for the title of Iron Gut (last to get sick) I've had to wave the white flag and admit that I've suffered a severe dose of Vitamin G (otherwise known as Giardia)... welcome to Varanasi.

In the last post we were preparing for an early morning drive to Agra to see the Taj Mahal at sunset. Sadly, this wasn't quite the brilliant spectacle we had been hoping for. It seems that November / December are the foggy (smoggy) months in nothern India. As a result there wasn't really a sunrise as such, more a gradual thinning of the mists. This in itself was rather cool. It was pretty mystical to see the white balk of the Taj slowly revealed out of the early morning fog. One other advantage of seeing the Taj at this time was that it was almost empty, I'm kind of impressed that we are the only ones in photo below.

Speaking of this, I thought it was about time to introduce everyone and what better way to do it than with a rampant tourist style photo (below). From left to right: James English, Nick Valmas, Daniel Woolhouse (Wooky), Me, Chris Rawling (english friend of James and Wooky's they met in Central America).

After the Taj we jumped on an overnight train from Delhi to Varanasi, the holy city on the Ganges. I must admit, the overnight sleeper trains are pretty good, crowded but comfortable, and cheap too.

Unfortunately, my view of Varanasi was a little clouded by the aforementioned run in with Giardia. Even so, it is a pretty impressive city. The Ghats (where people bathe in the ganges) are interesting to observe, especially the burning Ghats where Hindus burn their dead before washing the ashes into the Ganges. Hindus believe (i think) that if you are burned at burning Ghat in Varanasi, you will escape the cycle of reincarnation, so it is a very important place.

I'm still amazed that people swim that river though, it is pretty much the foulest water I've ever seen. Wooky made the comment "obviously none of these guys are microbioligists", otherwise they'd be staying as far away possible (as we were).

This evening we board a train to the Nepali border before continuing onto either Pokhara or Kathmandu. Looks like we'll have more time than we thought in Nepal so we are going to try and get in a good 6 or 7 day hike, which should be great.

Below are some photos from Delhi through to Varanasi:

The Main Bazzar road in Praha Ganj, Delhi. This is one of the major back packer centres.

Photo from the Train on the way to Varanasi.

The Ghats and the Ganges at Varanasi

Early morning on the river

Washing clothes in the ganges, I fail to see how this makes anything clean.