Varanasi

We're finding that Varanasi is much more chilled out than the other places we've been in India on this trip - I think that's mainly because we're spending most of our time inside the old city, where the alleyways are too narrow for rickshaws, and so we're not having constant hassle from the rickshaw wallahs on top of the usual cries from stallholders as us walking dollar signs pass them by. It's also helping to be doing a 2 hour yoga session each morning. We've stumbled across an excellent teacher, the real deal, and he's a lovely warm-hearted person too. He also has a laugh that sounds like a cross between Basil Brush and Sid James, and oh he loves to laugh. In fact, in our first lesson, he had us lying on our backs pretending to ride a bicycle and laughing out loud.

The city is stretched along the western bank of the River Ganges, and the riverbank itself is built up into concrete steps, called Ghats, all along the city side. It would be an interesting excercise to spend a day just watching what goes on along the ghats - but you'd have to be invisible (or Indian!) to avoid the constant hassles.

Anyway - we'll be heading off to Nepal in the next couple of days. Hopefully we'll spend a few days in Chitwan national park, and some more days trekking in the Annapurnas.