Day 8
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Day 8: Friday 6th December

Palace of Ramnagar (Miss Haversham's House); groping; Varanasi; leave boats and transfer to hotel; traditional dance in hotel room.

Misty morning - I'm up early out of my tent and help put it all away. Breakfast and we depart at 8am after the boss-man helps extract one of his staff who's immersed in the sand.

Clare slept outside by the fire all night, apparently, and managed to scorch the edge of her sleeping bag keeping warm.

We stop mid-morning after Frances discovers she's left her passport, purse, and all her money in her tent - we start cracking open the tents on the boats but eventually have to moor up to examine all of them - and it's found. Clare joins us on our boat and we play 'piggy' with cards.

Our midday stop is at a village (with a school) overlooking the Ganges. Unfortunately, the promise of a school (at which we can give pens and pencils) comes to nothing - it's closed today for Eid! However, we did meet a straw-man, plus a whole load of children and their parents in the 'main square' of the village [CNV00019.JPG] - a lot of "Namastey" and "Shukriya" - and the small kids [CNV00020.JPG] loved all the photo taking. Pens donated, and cows photographed.

Return to the boats and lunch, then a short leg of the boat journey with Clare and Fun Chok to the Maharaja's Palace of Ramnagar (now a museum).

We alight at Ramnagar Fort for textile museum, elephant haudas, cars, guns, weapons, stalking, and groping (by the man in the red checked shirt). This is where we peer through the broken glass panes of the regal doors of Miss Haversham's room of state... And there's a game of cricket out in the centre quadrangle.

Back to the boats... it's 40 minutes to the holy city of Varanasi...

Carolyn's Phrase for Today: "The mark of a man: Delayed gratification".

Scramble up the sh*t/mud bank and bid farewell to our superb boat crew, including Sitaram the cook (believe me, the food was **excellent**), Ramnath the Captain (with his treasured glasses), Brahma the boat tour leader, Ram "the younger one", Fun Chok, and Ten Sing.

A further scramble up to waiting cars and 4x4s... and onto the Best Western Hindusthan International Hotel - grand sounding, grand looking, grand foyer, but entirely dysfunctional!!! We've got too many single rooms now Fran has departed, so Alex ends up sharing with me. I warn her of my snoring...

Well-earned showers for everyone and then Alex and I set out to explore (we're after Internet access). Just along the road to the right is the first (of many) Internet shops, with Andy outside - it's too slow for him and he's given up. Clare's inside photocopying... Alex and I get a seat... it's **very** slow, so I end up using the previous Indian bloke's e-mail account to send my e-mail and then take a look to see what everyone's been looking at on the web... "Hot Indian Babes" features prominently. At 7:15pm Alex gives up trying to send her e-mail (too slow) and we return to the hotel for dinner.

Post-dinner entertainment is provided in a (carpeted) room upstairs (which doesn't help) - traditional Indian dancing with heavily posed man and woman telling stories through the art of dance.

To bed... with The Mummy!!!