Primate entertainment | 
A very happy cycle- |
My flight to Varanasi didn't leave until 1:30 in the afternoon, so I decided to make another visit back to the temples in Khajuraho. My hotel is about 2 miles from the temples, so I hired one of the gaggle of bicycle rickshaw drivers who besieged me every time I walked out of the hotel. Tourism in India is way down since September 11 (in fact I saw only about 2 Americans the whole time I was there), which means that there are a lot more rickshaws and taxis than people who need them. This in turn means that they will not only take you to where you're going, but they'll wait a couple of hours there and take you back, all for an obscenely cheap fare. So, I got a 4-mile roundtrip in the cycle-rickshaw for the equivalent of about a dollar. Well, it would have been a dollar except for the fact that my guilt-ridden conscience could not let me pay that little, even if it was the going rate. So I gave him the equivalent of $5, which was still a lot less than a ride of that length and time would cost in any western city.
Primate entertainment |
A very happy cycle- |
My flight to Varanasi left about an hour late, which was the only flight delay on the entire trip (another victory for Indian aviation over the US). Unfortunately, this meant that by the time we got to Varanasi, there wasn't much light left for sightseeing; and it was raining anyway. So after a drive by a few Buddhist temples and an obligatory visit to a craft factory/shop, I got to my hotel after dark and settled in for some TV. In Khajuraho and Varanasi, the only thing on TV in English is cricket. I have reached the point where I can almost begin to start to attempt to initially understand a small number of the rules. This morning India had 264 for 4 with 37 overs.
At a Buddhist temple in Varanasi | 
Indian television is of the same high |
I was scheduled to leave the hotel at 5:30 AM the next morning for a boat ride on the Ganges. Since the hotel restaurant didn't open until 7:00 AM, I figured I would just get some cookies or candy and a Coke out of the minibar in my room and make that breakfast. Bummer--there was no minibar in the room. No problem, I can just get them at the hotel gift shop. Bummer again--no hotel gift shop. So, I was faced with a choice between starving in the morning, or going out in the rain to a store and getting something. I discovered that walking 3 blocks to a store in Varanasi is no easy task. Combine rain, very dim streetlights, no sidewalks, cars with no headlights, bicycles, rickshaws, scooters, and cows, pigs and goats (and their residue) in the barely paved street, and a quick 3 block walk became a 30 minute adventure. I finally located a store and purchased a package of "Swastik" brand cookies, proudly manufactured on Mohammed Road in Varanasi. I somehow then made it back to the hotel without being struck by a vehicle, person, or animal, and (I think) without stepping in any animal dung.
