An elaboration and final days in Varanasi

Ok, so here is the reason I was dredding Varanasi:

A couple people in Kolkata were telling me some rather unpleasant things about the place. One woman from NYC (there were 4 new yorkers in the hotel I was staying at, a little bizarre) told me men would come up, do this little ceremony on her then say, "I just blessed you, 10/20 rupees please." She'd tell them off and they wouldn't be too aggressive, but that still sounded quite annoying.

A guy from Hawaii (but grew up in Chicago) said Varanasi was the dirtiest, smelliest place he has ever visited. Considering he had been all over Latin America, southeast asia, as well as some big cities here in India, that did not sound very good.

Well I can tell you I have been to dirtier places that make Varanasi look half-decent. Fez, Morocco wins the price for the biggest dump I've been to. Marrakesh is only a little better. Parts of Cairo are most definitly worse than the old city of Varanasi. Yes, there is piles of cow excrement here and there. Flies love some areas too, but at no point did the smells make me ill. Can't say the same about Fez.

As far as the "blessers" go, the only people who approached me were those trying to get me to visit shops and/or buy drugs. Overall, it was not that bad.

That being said, all I did yesterday was hang out with a French guy. We first found a shady spot along the river and chilled out there for a couple hours. At one point, an Israeli man joined us and I became an English-English translator. Frequently the French man couldn't understand the Israeli and vice versa. They were both speaking decent English but I suppose in different ways. Consequently I had to rephrase what one was saying so the other would understand. So it goes.

After hanging out at the river, we went to the roof-top of our hotel, the Puja Guesthouse. The view is quite stunning, and you can see the entire riverside. The wind is quite brisk too, so it keeps you relatively cool. Up there, we met a Brit and a Canadian.

Eventually we went to the train station. The french man was off to Nepal and I was going to try to get a ticket to Agra. Well all tickets for yesterday were booked, but there was something available for 6 pm today. Another day in varanasi- yay! Actually I did not mind so much. I got a nice hotel room close to the train station and am able to bum around on the internet for a couple hours, so things could be worse.