Day 554 - A day of busing

Our day started out badly as Adam had spent the entire night battling an illness that's plagued him and our trip for months now - despite this we left the hotel early and made our way through border checks and reentered India 2 and a half months after leaving it. Our bus to Gorakhpur made it 5 minutes down the road before breaking down, but eventually a replacement bus arrived and we continued on the 3 hour journey to a familiar town. We were keen to leave as soon as we arrived and so we made a 20 minute walk to find the bus to Varanasi.

Our Canadian friends told us their bus from Varanasi to Gorakhpur only took 5 hours, so after almost 9 we were well and truly exhausted when we rolled into a dark and noisy Varanasi. The dark didn't really make much of a difference as the entire day was so foggy that we could barely see the goings on out the bus window - though what we could see proved that there is the same dirt, rubbish and disregard for the environment everywhere! Our patience was tested in our search for a hotel, but we eventually found a route through the exhausting, disorientating alleyways after being led by a man who desperately wanted us to stay at his hotel. By this stage Adam would have slept on the filthy shit-encrusted street, but the hotel was much better!

We had dinner at 10.30pm and then totally crashed out in bed - but not before Liv had a hot shower: the first in weeks!

Adlibing antagonisingly slow buses.