We haven't been able to load the blog for a while now and so I have fallen behind with writing my pieces. I have had to catch up on 4 days travel. it feels like homework at times. I said to Ric it is amazing how you can fall off the earth with no Internet access and eventually enjoy it after the first few hours of panic ( that's him, not me) as much as it has been fun reading each others blogs it has taken away from our end of the night chill out with just us, away from the group time. We now do the blog in the notes section of our iPad and save them until we have Internet access which has been very sketchy recently.
Now that Ric has released the iPad to me I am now catching up on Monday's blog on Wednesday the 14th.
So today, we woke up late, packed and met everyone in the lobby at noonish to head to Sarnath, the place where Buddha performed his first sermon and visit the Buddhist museum. I feel like I have a few more pieces of the puzzle of Buddhism, but there is so much more to add. I finally got my leaf from the Ficus Religiosa, the tree that Buddha became enlightened under after eating a bowl of rice pudding...there is much more to this story, of course. As we continue on our travels, I may buy a small book on Buddhism to help tie it altogether or merely google it, post China.
That being said, I am much more educated in Buddhism and Hinduism by taking this journey through Nepal and India and being fortunate to share in various rituals firsthand.
We raced back to the hotel on out Tuk tuks and prepared for our overnight train to Orccha.
We arrived to the station in Varanasi after a very hot auto-rickshaw ride. We then humped our luggage up 2 flights of stairs and down again. We waited in the oppressive heat with the sweat pouring off of us. Needless to say I was not feeling quite alluring at this point. We boarded the sleeper train. We are 6 to a cabin with no doors... Ric and I are separated from the group and have an elderly Indian couple and a father and son of about early twenties as our train companions.
Ric and I have been assigned the bottom bunks, which suits is just fine as the luggage is under these bunks. We have heard how much theft ocurrs on the Indian trains already. Then the lady is in my seat and then moves over to Ric's seat. So we have to sort out a few things. We are less than our usual gracious selves as there is a genuine language barrier and we have lost our manners due to overheating. We just called Abhi to help us out. Turns out the lady has knee problems and needs to sleep below.
Ahhh, no problem as far as we are concerned, as long as we can sit in our seats before bed time. We all settled down and got comfy. The couple were very grateful, thanking us profusely. Then we offered some biscuits and then the young son offered us some stuffed meat snack, which Ric called scotch egg without the egg. I don't like scotch egg so was happy the I declined.
Then we did a switcharoo with our group that allowed the couple to move next door and have both bottom bunks. The other 6 in our group were next door playing cards and drinking rum. Ric and I took turns joining them while the others watched our stuff. Good fun. Then we settled into playing Angry Birds and inviting our bunk buddies to play also. It was hilarious, we all had a blast trying to help each other move onto the next level by hand motions and a mixture of angry bird sounds and English/Indian oohs, ahhhhhhs, whoops, and eventually, yeeessss or nooooooo!
Then we prepared for bed. We got fresh sheets and a thick wool blanket for the exceptional air-conditioning that was blowing into the cabin.
I got my earplugs in, snapped on my eye mask and bedded down for the most restful sleep I have had since the start of or tour.
Happy, happy, happy Ais.
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