We fully intended to go to and see the sun rise over ganges so we got up at 5am. Unfortunately, the hostel doors were locked and the shutters we down so we couldn't get out. We would have tried to wake them up but as we had had to wake up Santosh to get in after the wedding (when he had only told us a few hours before how hard he finds it to sleep) and because the hostel had already offered us a sunrise trip through them, we decided we didn't have the guts and went back to sleep instead.
We had a leisurely wander around the ATMs of Varanasi, trying to find one that would give us some money and bought some fruit and snacks for the journey. Unfortunately, we were mugged by a monkey on the way back and so lost a whole bag of bananas. Matt reckoned I should have just taken one out of the bag and chucked it to him but I maintain he would not have been stupid enough to let us get away with the rest. Anyway, better that the other 10 monkeys that always turn up afterwards fought him and not me.
We took tuk tuk to bus station and, after Matt was laughed at, we finally found someone who was willing to explain where to find the Lucknow bus. It arrived half an hour later and we got on at 3.20ish. After watching various ridiculous cargo being loaded (my favourite was a giant bag of coloured plastic balls that woudn't fit through the door properly), we then got to watch it being unloaded again. The bus finally left at 4.30.
The horn on the bus was so load that we had to wear ear-plugs. It genuinely sounded like someone had fitted it wrong and it was blowing inside the bus. After several bumpy hours though we reached less busy roads and it was much quieter.
At the next stop, the bus had to go into a workshop and was backed onto a ramp over an inspection pit with everyone still on it. Unfortunately, it turned our to be the most essential part of the bus that was broken - the horn! After a quite lengthy delay, during which most of the passengers got out and had a nosey, the bus was fixed and back to her previous noisy self.
By this time the bus was very late. This didn't seem to worry the driver or bus conductor though and they were soon stopping again for a full cooked meal while we all waited. Our '6 hour' bus journey lasted 12 hours and left me with pretty horrendous mosquito bites. We were so relieved to arrived at the bus station at 2am.
Unfortunately, the bus station turned out to not be in Lucknow and the hostel phone number just returned "network is busy" . There were no rickshaw drivers clamouring for business and we had to go and search a few out. None of them seemed to know where Lucknow was so we were starting to get a bit anxious. The enquiry desk at the station said there was a bus to Lucknow at 6am but we were very cold huddled up on a bench (even with all of our blankets) and so decided to try and head to a train station where we hoped there were 'retiring rooms' and more knowledgeable tuk tuk drivers. Tourist accomodation in Lucknow was very expensive and there was ony one guesthouse we could find in our pricebracket on-line so we wanted to try and get there eventually.
We got to the station ok. As usual, every square inch of the foyer and much of the platforms were covered in sleeping bodies. We weren't surprised to find there were no retiring rooms were available. The corridoor where they were was quiet and secure and we were so knackered that we slept undisturbed on the floor there for a few hours.
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