India Trip - Day Six - Mirzapur & Ganges
January 22, 2008

I surprisingly had a good nights sleep and the train was smoother and quieter than expected.

After clearing up and putting the beds back we depart the train at Mirzapur and are taken by taxi to the hotel galaxy to have breakfast consisting of an omelette and toast which was only 100 rupees.

From here we take the taxi for another 20 minutes to where we launch our boats on the river Ganges.

My first impression of the river is that it is a lot wider than I imagined.

We break into three groups and start sailing down the river. We see lots of things on the banks including children playing, people washing themselves and their clothes and even a funeral.

We stop for lunch and have a bigger meal than I expected a total of five different main course items. Our boats are tied together for this and we pass the food from boat to boat.

Some small kids row up to us and Jess gives then a balloon shapped like an elephant, which they love.

After lunch we see another funeral and make a couple of toilet stops. We sail (actually row) for another few hours before stopping for the night.

Here the boat handlers set up our tents and prepare dinner for us. I get a tent to myself which is nice as I can spread out all my things and organise my bag a bit better.

For dinner we all sit around a big picnic mat and eat potatoes, pasta and a number of vegetables, everything is vegetarian on the Ganges.

After dinner I manage to call Sarah on my mobile surprisingly there is a full signal here. We talk around the campfire for a bit but it starts to rain so I retire back to my tent.

After about 20 minutes a large thunderstorm starts and you can see the flashes of lightning through the canvas of the tent followed by huge crashes of thunder the closest of which is only 4km away. Fortunately we do not get any heavy rain and it is only a light shower for most of the night.

I stay quite warm all night as luckily I brought my own sleeping bag with me.